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Koshmarov's avatar

Ian Fleming's "Dr. No" was all about Dr. No trying to get a guano monopoly. The novel was far crazier, yet somehow truer to reality, than the Hollywood Bond film adaptation.

Fleming was the decaying British Empire's Philip K. Dick. People who persist in viewing Bond as an admirable he-man protagonist, a sexy model to emulate, don't get this. He's a manipulated prole; a "blunt instrument." O. F. Snelling and Kingsley Amis call this stuff out in their detailed analyses of the Bond novels.

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Stxbuck's avatar

Bond was indeed a “ blunt instrument”-but your average lefty still doesn’t like to admit that the USSRs decline into SMERSH was an inevitable consequence of forced industrial socialism.

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Carsenio's avatar

That's interesting, I just read up on how they swapped bauxite in for guano.

I haven't read any of the books but I consider Quantum of Solace to be very underrated. One of the things I like about it is how it's actually about a real issue in the contemporary world (water monopolies) instead of some superweapon / soap opera plot line. Sounds like they were attempting to get back to the kind of grounded international plot lines that would resonate with people who read the news.

Of course audiences panned it, so then it was back to stupid soap opera plots for the rest of the franchise.

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