The James Bond Dossier

"The James Bond Dossier" (1965), by Kingsley Amis, is a critical analysis of the James Bond novels. Amis dedicated the book to his friend, the poet and historian Robert Conquest. Later, after Ian Fleming's death, Amis became the first continuation novelist for the James Bond novel series, writing "Colonel Sun" (1968) under the pseudonym Robert Markham.

Written at the Bond-mania's zenith, "The James Bond Dossier" is the first, thorough analysis of Ian Fleming's strengths and weaknesses as a thriller-writer. Amis had much respect for the Bond novels, and thought they deserved to be taken seriously as popular literature — a controversial stance, because the novels were strongly criticised for their anti-communism, violence, and sex almost since publication of "Casino Royale" in 1953. Despite Amis's respect for the Fleming canon, his way of writing about it, according to Zachary Leader, 'partly guys academic procedures and pretensions by applying them to low-cultural objects' [Leader, Zachary "The Life of Kingsley Amis" Pantheon Books 2007, p.524] and as such was deliberately provocative.

In November of 1963, Amis announced the idea of writing an article about James Bond after reading all of the then-published books. [ibid] . The article grew to book length when Amis submitted it to his publisher, Jonathan Cape, in 1964. After Ian Fleming's death, Amis was asked to work on Fleming's uncompleted "The Man With The Golden Gun" with Cape requesting material on that book be included in the Dossier, publishing both books in 1965. [ibid]

Although "The James Bond Dossier" is written in Amis's usual, accessible, light-hearted style, it is neither patronizing nor ironic — it is a full literary criticism of Ian Fleming as writer. In the main, Amis's admiration for Fleming's achievement is clear, but he also does not hold back where he finds some of Fleming's material unsatisfactory or inconsistent. The most serious criticism is reserved for academically pretentious rejections of the Bond canon, a theme which implicitly colours the tone of the whole book. Notably, the book's initial hardcover and paperback editions were published by Jonathan Cape, Fleming's U.K. publisher. Each chapter deals with one aspect of the novels — 'No woman has ever held this man' is about the character of James Bond, himself, ("Bond could be more boring than he is and still be acceptable"), 'Damnably clear grey eyes' is about M, 'A glint of red' is about the various villains, and so forth.

Along the way, Amis enjoys himself, rebutting contemporary moral criticism of Ian Fleming, citing one critic as writing that 'Mr Fleming obviously hates women dreadfully'. After quoting from the closing chapter of "Dr. No" (wherein Bond visits the heroine's house for the first time), Amis comments: "I suppose it is possible that a man who can write like that 'hates women dreadfully'. But I cannot believe that he "obviously" does so".

"The James Bond Dossier" was written before publication of the final collection of James Bond short stories, "Octopussy and The Living Daylights", and, therefore, does not discuss these stories. A chart in the book lists all the Bond girls and villains, and give capsule synopses of the novels' stories.

In 1969, Amis published more analysis of the James Bond phenomenon in the form of an essay in "What Became of Jane Austen and Other Questions" (1970), a collection of his literary criticism. Moreover, he also wrote the tongue-in-cheek work "The Book of Bond" (1965) under the pseudonym William Tanner (James Bond's best friend in the SIS).

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