Book Review: Ian Fleming’s Inspiration by Edward Abel Smith

About:

Ian Fleming’s Inspiration: The Truth Behind the Books by Edward Abel Smith is a book which examines the life of the famous author, and the parts which made it into his famous books about Secret Service Agent James Bond.

• 232 pages
• Publisher: Pen and Sword History
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1526757699

My rat­ing for Ian Fleming’s Inspiration — 4
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Thoughts:

As a longtime fan of the James Bond movies and books I always like to read about the way they were made and the creative process. Usually, though, the information is repeated ad nauseum and presented in different ways, but still rehashed. In Ian Fleming’s Inspiration: The Truth Behind the Books by Edward Abel Smith the author presents the stories in a manner which gives it a fresh spin, in a presentation package for the fan instead of a straight through biography.

I really liked the way this book was presented, each chapter deals with one Bond book that Fleming wrote, and which parts of it were inspired by the author’s life. Whether it’s the women, the cars, guns, or drinks the author takes the relevant parts of the book and connects them to experiences in Fleming’s life.

Each section starts with a short synopsis of the book, and goes on from there drawing parallels to where Fleming might have gotten his inspiration from. I have to admit that sometimes those parallels were stretched a bit too much, but they were fascinating nonetheless.

Ian Fleming’s charm is lost on me, from everything I read he seems like a real jerk, but man can he write. He was a chain smoker, heavy drinker, serial philanderer with an eye for married women, and doesn’t suffer company very well.

One of the most famous operations that Mr. Fleming was part of, and parts of it made it to the books, was Operation Mincemeat. During this deception operation, a dead body dressed as an officer of a Royal Marines and dropped into the sea with fake documents for the enemy to find.

Much have written about Operation Mincemeat, but the book has many other anecdotes about the parts of Fleming’s life that made it into the books. For example, a section which deals with the book From A View to a Kill (included in the For Your Eyes Only a collection of short stories), in which Bond’s investigation has him finding a hostile enemy base hidden in the rocks, has a basis in one of Fleming’s World War II plans. The plan was called Operation Tracer, a secret mission created to send six British commandos to hide in the Rock of Gibraltar for a year. The plan was devised by Mr. Fleming, who knew for certain he was sending these man on a suicide mission if Gibraltar was ever to be taken over my Axis forces.  Mr. Fleming believed that Gibraltar would be a key asset resupplying ships during the war.

This was a fascinating, well written, and a quick read. One does not have to be familiar with all the Fleming Bond library since the author recaps the books, and touches on the relevant parts – but it doesn’t hurt.

Buy Ian Fleming’s Inspiration from Amazon.com*
More Books by Edward Abel Smith*
Books by Ian Fleming*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account