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Bond laughed. Suddenly the violent dramatics of his own life seemed very hollow. The affair of the Castro rebels and the burned out yachts was the stuff of an adventure-strip in a cheap newspaper. He had sat next to a dull woman at a dull dinner party and a chance remark had opened for him the book of real violence - of the Comedie Humaine where human passions are raw and real, where Fate plays a more authentic game than any Secret Service conspiracy devised by Governments. - Ian Fleming, "Quantum of Solace".
The stories I like best are the character-driven ones. Not stories where people band together against some external force - be it the Monster of the Week or a Thinly-Disguised Logic Puzzle - but stories that are all about people.
Last week, late at night, ABC showed a series of movies made from Somerset Maugham's short stories. They were old, in black-and-white, and they were *very* good. Maugham had a great gift for character. No matter how minor a role might be, his characters are never flat, never stereotypes; they all feel like real, many-sided people who cannot be taken for granted.
Then I got to thinking about the other British authors who had that gift, and came to realise... an awful *lot* of Britain's great writers were spies.
Maugham worked for MI6. So did Graham Greene (and there's a funny story about Greene attempting to use the word 'eunuch' in code). Also Buchan and Le Carre.
And a few hundred years earlier... Marlowe. Defoe. Johnson. Chaucer.
I suppose both professions have very similar requirements - creativity, patience, and knowledge of human nature. The spies know that it's really about people, not special effects (and don't judge Fleming's books by what Hollywood did to them, either; the Bond films are fun, but they're not a patch on the books.)
The stories I like best are the character-driven ones. Not stories where people band together against some external force - be it the Monster of the Week or a Thinly-Disguised Logic Puzzle - but stories that are all about people.
Last week, late at night, ABC showed a series of movies made from Somerset Maugham's short stories. They were old, in black-and-white, and they were *very* good. Maugham had a great gift for character. No matter how minor a role might be, his characters are never flat, never stereotypes; they all feel like real, many-sided people who cannot be taken for granted.
Then I got to thinking about the other British authors who had that gift, and came to realise... an awful *lot* of Britain's great writers were spies.
Maugham worked for MI6. So did Graham Greene (and there's a funny story about Greene attempting to use the word 'eunuch' in code). Also Buchan and Le Carre.
And a few hundred years earlier... Marlowe. Defoe. Johnson. Chaucer.
I suppose both professions have very similar requirements - creativity, patience, and knowledge of human nature. The spies know that it's really about people, not special effects (and don't judge Fleming's books by what Hollywood did to them, either; the Bond films are fun, but they're not a patch on the books.)
