The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond [Hardcover]

Simon Winder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2006

Bond. James Bond. The ultimate British hero--suave, stoic, gadget-driven--he was more than anything the necessary invention of a traumatized country whose self-image as a great power had just been shattered by the Second World War. Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, was an upper-class wastrel who had found purpose and excitement in the war, and to whom, like so many others, its end was a terrible disappointment--the elation of survival stifled by the reality of the new British impotence. In 1952 Fleming set out to repair this damage. By inventing the magical, parallel world of secret British greatness and glamour, he fabricated an icon that has endured long past its maker's death.

To grow up in England in the 1970s was to grow up with James Bond, and The Man Who Saved Britain is first of all the story of the author's relationship with the "national religion." Simon Winder lovingly and ruefully re-creates the nadirs and humiliations of fandom while illuminating what Bond's evolution--from books to film, from his roots in the 1940s to his "managed decline" today--says about the conservative movement, sex, the monarchy, food, attitudes toward America, class, and everything in between. The Man Who Saved Britain is an insightful and, above all, entertaining exploration of postwar Britain through the palliative influence of one of its most legendary icons, the larger-than-life Agent 007.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this glittering gem, Winder (publishing director at Penguin UK) combines cultural history, memoir and a terrifyingly formidable knowledge of James Bond plot lines to produce a hilarious and thoughtful narrative of the fall and rise of Britain from WWII to the present day. For a nation that had owned a quarter of the world but post-1945 was losing its possessions, Ian Fleming's masterful creation, 007, was its savior. Bond—quipping, killing and bedding all the way—put villainous foreigners and their sinister assortment of exotic henchmen back in their rightful place and ensured Britain would retain its top place in the world hierarchy. In reality, of course, the Americans and the Soviets gently ignored the sad little island and went about their Cold War business. But that did not matter, since 007 exemplified the potent fantasy of British superiority in all things. As for the best Bond movie and novel, Winder tilts toward 1963's From Russia with Love, where Fleming's writing reached its peak and director Terence Young coaxed terrific performances out of his actors. Fittingly for Winder, the film's theme is so dated it requires the most explanation for those who don't remember the Cold War. (Oct.)
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Review

"Simon Winder has managed to breathe new life into one of the most analyzed pop culture icons of all time. . .a unique and witty combination of history, film criticism and personal memoir that educates as much as it entertains."--Lee Pfeiffer, co-author of The Essential James Bond and co-publisher of Cinema Retro

 

"This is a brilliant look at the British Empire, and its fall, as reflected in the gadget-filled, babe-bagging, martini-swilling, world-saving career of James Bond. It's utterly unique. Sly, funny, occasionally sad, a wild mix of cultural history, film criticism, and memoir in which the author, trying to fathom the disorienting collapse of his parents' world, finds the key in the somewhat daft (Winder's word) creation of Ian Fleming. It burns from beginning to end."--Rich Cohen, author of Sweet and Low

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374299382
• ISBN-13: 978-0374299385
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #466,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Reference

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, sometimes fascinating, but very uneven, November 29, 2006

By 

Waldo Lydecker "Critic in exile" (Malibu, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond (Hardcover)

I wanted dearly to love this book. There are too many contradictions in scope and tone to really love it. It is ultimately, merely a good book. Winder gently criticizes Fleming for writing novels to a certain prescribed length, yet Winder's own book feels this way. Winder is in the publishing business, yet his book is badly in need of an editor. Some critics laud the "journalistic" style, but I find it just sloppy and meandering -- an insult to journalists.

Winder has written a personal book as he takes great pains to repeat this. Part of the fun of the book is to quibble with his viewpoint. Honor Blackman does nothing for Winder, but she still all these years later sends me to the moon. However, the personal nature of the book does not rescue the rambling and snarky prose.

I understand that the book was not meant to be an historical or academic text, but the flow would have been greatly improved by using endnotes or footnotes for Winder's many asides, many of which are interesting or at least amusing. Winder's short exposition on the Skatalites is but one example. Important and interesting yes, but it disrupted the flow of his text and argument. Repeatedly Winder begins to say something interesting or states an interesting observation or conclusion, but simply leaves it with me wanting more. Much of the history was apparently very well researched (and Winder is obviously an intelligent and educated man), but much of the learning is lost by overtruncating the analysis and footnotes or endnotes would have greatly helped the exposition of the points Winder otherwise strained to make.

Winder also makes many errors and curious omissions regarding Bond lore. Some are the fault of childhood memory, which is both understandable on one level but nonetheless unfortunate. While Winder is trying to channel the perceptions of his youth in the sixties and seventies, too often he relies solely on memory or refuses to go back and revisit the specific movie. This leads to certain errors, such as discussing Bond going to Japan in "You Only Live Twice". Winder indicates that it was an absurd point of plot since Bond speaks no Japanese. Winder forgot the scene where Moneypenny tosses Bond a book of Japanese grammar or phrases. The Connery Bond reminds Moneypenny: "You forget, I have a first in Oriental Languages from Cambridge". Of course, in "Tomorrow Never Dies", the Brosnan Bond is completely flummoxed when faced with a Chinese language keyboard, but consistency was never Fleming's or the movie producers strong suit.

The most glaring error to me in Winder fleshing out the thesis of his book was the nearly complete lack of reference to Moneypenny and her role in the series. Apart from my adoring Lois Maxwell and her character, and finding the newest Moneypenny, Samantha Bond, incredibly sexy, the role screams for analysis under Winder's thesis: Moneypenny is Winder. Winder could have used Moneypenny as the narrator. Moneypenny is the audience. Moneypenny is the aspirational England that Winder is attempting to define and flesh out in the book. To me that is an inexplicable hole in the book that ultimately weakens Winder's overall argument.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Shallow but fun, April 11, 2007

By 

Frank Clover (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond (Hardcover)

A rambling, formless discourse on recent British history and pop culture and how James Bond (sort of) fits into them. Winder never quite gets around to explaining how James Bond managed to save Britain (nor what he saved it from), but is nonetheless entertaining. Reading it is akin to listening to a slightly intoxicated British fanboy nattering on about every Bond-related topic that comes to mind for three hours.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Would have made a better blog than book..., December 11, 2006

By 

James McCarthy (Altadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond (Hardcover)

The premise here is so engaging that I'm not surprised the author got it published, but basically, it's such a self-indulgent ramble that it's not worth the time of people other than the author.

How can a person make the topic of James Bond and his 'disturbing world' feel so draggy that it takes real commitment to keep reading through the first 100 pages? If you'd like to know, read the first hundred pages of this book.

Like many, I came to this book expecting very little except that it be consistently interesting and fun to read. We're talking about James Bond here after all. The author repeatedly reminds us not to take his pontifications overly seriously, and that's fine, but in that case, we shouldn't have to be bored.

I would strongly recommend not reading this book. It could have been covered in a long magazine article or, as I said, as the occasional comment on a blog about James Bond.