License to Ill

Just for kicks I've started reading all the early James Bond novels, starting with From Russia With Love.

Now, I always knew that the Bond series was sexist and all British-Empire-Long-To-Reign-Over-Us-Happy-and-Glorious in theme. I got that. But have you read the books? The actual prose? Ian Fleming's writing is BEYOND sexist and BEYOND racist.

I was reading the book on the plane and was floored by references to how one guy chained a naked woman under his table and fed her scraps until she married him, and how Bond threatens to put a woman over his knee and spank her, how every pseudo-forced sexual encounter turns into ecstasy for the very lucky girl involved, and how, in describing the people in the North African nation where most of the story occurs, he paints a picture of shiftiness, savagery, stupidity, and laziness. And those were the characters HELPING Bond!

I was stunned. And mad. If he were alive, I'd have a mind to put Ian over my knee and give him a good spanking. Before I chained him naked to my table and yelled "Say my name, b**ch!!" until he relents. I figure, he's so pompous and supercilious and culturally imperialistic with his beady English eyes and his pasty white skin, that disdain and threatened violence would be the only thing he'd understand. It's in his blood, poor savage b**tard.

But Ian is not alive. So all I can do is stop reading the books, go directly to Casino Royale, and let the thought of becoming the meat between a Daniel Craig-Sean Connery sandwich take my mind off Fleming's disgusting objectification of women...