【英语时差8,16】Ian Fleming – 伊恩.弗莱明（在线收听）

“My name is Bond. James Bond.” Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond novels. He also worked in intelligence during the Second World War. And it was because of this that he started writing spy novels. My theory was that he was going through a very acute midlife crisis. He was 43, I think, when he did this. What Fleming did so enormously cleverly with enormous skill and why the books work, is he made an escapist world for all sorts of things that he felt he didn’t come up to himself. I mean he wasn’t a man of action, he didn’t kill anyone in action, so Bond has a licence to kill. Fleming wrote 14 James Bond novels including: The Spy Who Loved Me, Casino Royale and From Russia with Love. Here is his niece, Lucy Fleming, talking about her memories of him. It was always exciting when he came to visit us. My father and he were very fond of each other. And we always looked forward to his visits and the house sort of lit up. There was always lots of laughter and very wide-ranging conversations about all sorts of things. He loved cars and he loved driving as you can tell from his books. He has very good descriptions of cars and of driving. And he used to turn up in these wonderful cars. I remember particularly this big black Thunderbird. But things weren’t always so happy for Ian Fleming. And that’s what you feel when you read one of his last James Bond novels,Quantum of Solace. The idea of a quantum of solace, which is quite a good idea really, is that any marriage needs to have within it a quantum, a quantum means a certain amount, a certain amount of solace – of kindness, of goodness, of pleasure, of happiness – which keeps it going. And when that quantum of solace goes there is no hope and the marriage is over. And I think the really awful thing about Ian is that by the end of his life his own marriage really had lost that quantum of solace.