Colonel Sun

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Colonel Sun  
ColonelSunOld.jpg

First edition cover, published by Jonathan Cape.
Author(s) Kingsley Amis
writing as Robert Markham
Cover artist Tom Adams
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series James Bond
Genre(s) Spy novel
Publisher Jonathan Cape
Publication date 28 March 1968
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 255 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN ISBN 0-224-61294-8 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by 003½: The Adventures of James Bond Junior
Followed by James Bond: The Authorised Biography of 007

Colonel Sun is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's death in 1964; the novel was written by Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym "Robert Markham" and published by Jonathan Cape on 28 March 1968. Amis had previously written the literary study The James Bond Dossier and the humorous The Book of Bond. The story centres on the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond and his mission to track down the kidnappers of his superior, M. In doing so he comes across a communist Chinese plot to cause an international incident which will be of deep embarrassment to the British. Bond, with the help of a communist Greek spy who is working for the Russians, track down M to a small Aegean islands, rescue him and kill the two main people behind the plot: Colonel Sun Liang-tan and a former Nazi commander, Von Ritcher.

Much of the Greek background and names within the story came from a holiday Amis had in the Greek islands and the names of people he came across there. Amis used a deeper element of political intrigue than Fleming had done and added the revenge element of the kidnap of M as a further spur for Bond. Although Amis kept the format and structure of Colonel Sun similar to Fleming's Bond novels, the novel was given mixed reviews.

Colonel Sun was serialised in the Daily Express newspaper in 1968 and adapted as a comic strip in the same newspaper in 1969–1970. Elements from the story have been used in the Eon Productions Bond series: The 1999 instalment The World Is Not Enough used M's kidnapping, whilst the villain of 2002 film Die Another Day, Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, owes his name to Colonel Sun Liang-tan.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Secret Service chief, M, is violently kidnapped from his house and James Bond—as a visitor to the property—is also nearly captured. Bond follows the clues to Vrakonisi, one of the Aegean Islands, where he and Ariadne Alexandrou, a Greek Communist agent, plan to rescue M. Meanwhile they must thwart the complex military-political plans of People's Liberation Army Colonel Sun.

Sun is sent to sabotage a Middle East détente conference (of which the Soviets are hosts) and blame Great Britain, causing World War III. Bond meets Soviet agents in Athens and they realise a third party is behind this and that there is a traitor in the organisation. All the agents except Ariadne are killed in an attack, but, as he is dying, the leader encourages Bond and Ariadne to work together. However another Soviet agent, when told about the attack by Ariadne, thinks Bond is lying and plans to capture him. Ariadne persuades a friend of her father to help them by saying a former Nazi, Von Ritcher, is working with them. Bond is nearly captured by a Soviet agent, but is saved by the Greek sailor. He gets to the island, although is unfortunately knocked out by one of Sun's men. He is then told a mortar will be used by Ritcher to destroy the conference and that he will be tortured by Sun, before his inevitable demise. The dénouement of the plan is that he and M will be found dead next to the weapon with forged orders to attack the conference; it will look like one of them was careless and dropped a mortar bomb which killed them.

Bond is tied to a chair and Sun tortures him brutally, until one of the girls at the house is ordered by Sun to caress Bond fondly as one of his greatest pleasures is of women. However she cuts one hand free and provides him with a knife. She tells Sun that Bond is dead: when examined Bond stabs Sun. He then frees the Greek sailor and the two of the girls , one of which, Doni, is in league with Sun. Bond and the sailor defeat the guard; Doni is bound and gagged. Bond stops Von Ritcher, who is unable to escape. However Sun has survived and kills the girl who helped Bond. Bond follows the trail of blood and dodges a mortar Sun throws. Sun says he was misled and begs for a quick end, which results in Bond stabbing him again. The Soviets thank Bond for saving their conference and Bond tells Ariadne he has one day before he gets back.

[edit] Characters and themes

The main character of the novel is James Bond and continuation Bond author Raymond Benson observes that Amis' Bond is the humourless interpretation of the character that Fleming had used in his earlier novels.[1] Benson sees that the Bond has developed from the final three Fleming novels, which have all taken their toll on him: he has lost his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, lost his memory in Japan in You Only Live Twice and been brainwashed in Russia, then been de-programmed by MI6, before almost dying from Francisco Scaramanga's poisoned bullet.[2]

Whilst Benson sees that M evokes an emotional response from the reader because of his semi-catatonic state upon being kidnapped,[3] Amis himself took a different approach: he did not like the character and one reviewer pointed out that in The James Bond Dossier he had "spent a chapter running him down."[4] The main villain of the novel is Colonel Sun Liang-tan, a member of the Special Activities Committee of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and a skilled torturer and sadist. Raymond Benson notes that he is "very worthy of inclusion in the Bond saga".[3]

Raymond Benson notes the raised level of political intrigue in the novel, compared to Fleming's approach; Bond acts in concert with the Russians against the Chinese, which Benson considers to show one of the themes of the book – a peacekeeping between nations.[1] Military historian Jeremy Black agrees, commenting on the novel reflecting a shift in the balance of world power.[5] Black also sees the threat from the East being reflected in another way in the novel, with one of the themes outlined by Amis being the disregard for human life felt by oriental races; this reflected the same premise Fleming had raised in Dr. No.[6]

Black also saw an emotional and social sadness running through Colonel Sun. The social sadness was expressed as a reaction to the culture of the modern world and what was being lost in its place.[7] This was a closely felt sadness in Amis as much as Fleming, the latter having discussed his feelings towards Paris in a similar vein in "From a View to a Kill".[5] Raymond Benson also identified revenge as a major theme running throughout the novel: centred around Bond's need to revenge the deaths of the Hammonds and the kidnapping of M, Benson sees that "Bond is particularly brutal in achieving his goal ... The revenge is very satisfying. This is Bond at his toughest."[1]

[edit] Background

The original creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, died in the early morning of 12 August 1964,[8] eight months before the posthumous publication of The Man with the Golden Gun.[9] After his death, the rights to Fleming's works were held by Glidrose Publications (now Ian Fleming Publications) and it was decided by the company that two short stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights", would be published on 23 June 1966.[10]

As the Bond character could not be copyrighted, and in order to retain rights in the Bond product, Glidrose decided to commission a sequel.[11] Initially the company approached author James Leasor to write a continuation novel, but he declined.[12] Glidrose then commissioned Amis, who wrote Colonel Sun.[13] Fleming's wife, Ann, was against any further Bond works and also disliked Amis,[14] saying that he would create "a petit bourgeois red brick Bond".[15]

In 1965 Amis had produced The James Bond Dossier—a critical analysis of the Bond books under his own name—and The Book of Bond, a tongue-in-cheek manual for prospective agents, using the pseudonym Lt.-Col. William ("Bill") Tanner.[16] Amis followed these books with the 1966 novel, The Anti-Death League, whose plot had come from elements from popular fiction and which had helped in his preparations for Colonel Sun.[16]

Amis and his wife Jane spent September 1965 holidaying on the Greek island of Spetses and used his experiences as the background to the novel.[17] Amis followed a tradition set by Fleming of using the names of people he knew or had met during the researches for his book[18] and Amis drew on the names of people he met in Greece for Colonel Sun. The boat Bond uses—The Altair—was the name of the boat Amis and his wife used on holiday, whilst the Bond girl's fictitious colleagues, "Legakis" and "Papadogonas" were friends who helped Amis in Greece, whilst the doctor who treats Bond in Chapter two was named after Amis and Jane's own doctor.[19]

[edit] Release and Reception

Colonel Sun was published in 28 March 1968[20] by Jonathan Cape; the book was 255 pages long and cost 21 shillings.[21] The novel sold well and was listed second best seller in the "Books in demand" list of the Financial Times for March and April 1968.[20][22] The novel was published in the US on 1 May 1968,[23] through Harper & Row and ran to 244 pages.[24]

[edit] Reviews

D. J. Enright, writing in The Listener, considered that, in literary terms, Fleming's "inheritance has been well and aptly bestowed."[25] he went on to say that "Colonel Sun offers apt literary pabulum for Bond's fish-and-chip culture, for his neurotics, alcoholics and suicides. Good dirty fun, once read and soon forgotten".[25] Roger Baker, writing in The Times noted that from one angle Colonel Sun is a "neat, not over-inventive thriller, low on sex, high on violence and more than usually improbable";[26] however, he noted that once the elements of the re-incarnation of Bond and the writing of Kingsley Amis were taken into account, things were different. Baker thought that with Amis writing the story, "one might, justifiably, have expected a joyous rejuvenation or at least a devastating detour from the Fleming pattern. We get neither. It is a pale copy."[26]

Writing in The Times Literary Supplement, Simon Gray, was unimpressed with the novel and thought that this was "not a Bond resurrected but a chuckle-headed imposter whose arthritic thought processes would be a liability in a 'physical tussle' down at the pub."[21] He went on to comment that "all that Colonel Sun offers the frustrated Bond addict is a small academic problem, of swiftly passing interest."[21] The Daily Mirror's reviewer, Alexander Muir considered the book to be "an exciting, violent, sadistic and sexy piece of reading matter",[27] although, partly because of Amis' abilities as a writer, Colonel Sun "is altogether too meticulous and well written - Fleming was a hypnotic but slapdash writer. And, at times, I sensed parody. This could be fatal."[27]

Writing in The Guardian, Malcolm Bradbury observed that "Alas, Colonel Sun is a reasonable read but no more: neither vintage Fleming nor vintage Amis."[28] Bradbury also noted that "it lacks a convincing rhetoric ... and the traditional Fleming frissons emerge only in muted form."[28] Maurice Richardson, reviewing Colonel Sun for The Observer, wrote that when being judged as a thriller, the novel "is vigorous, quite exciting, rather disorderly, a bit laboured".[29] He went on to say that "Some of the action is quite well done and little more preposterous than in the later Flemings. The real trouble is the absence of spontaneous élan.[29]

The reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, Charles Champlin, noted that the novel "lacks the garish, outrageous, ridiculous, symbol-witted touch of the original article";[23] despite that, he still enjoyed the novel, commenting that "I may have enjoyed it the more because it manages to leave intact the reputations of both Messrs. Amis and Fleming."[23] Donald Stanley, writing in Life magazine "in his description of Colonel Sun, Kingsley Amis emulates the celebrated Fleming Effect";[4] he is praising of Sun, saying he "is the kind of villain to make a Bondophile salivate."[4] Stanley is less convinced by the central hero, observing that "most alarming of all are the little signs that Bond's essential swinishness is being replaced by some kind of dilute humanism".[4]

The reviewer for The New York Times noted the reduced numbers of gadgets employed in the book, when compared with the films, that they felt had "overshadowed the personality of the secret agent";[30] overall the reviewer felt that "Mr. Amis has now given Bond back to the readers."[30] Oberbeck commented that Bond "has become a sensitive man-of-ethics who suffers pangs of doubt and remorse over the 'senseless' violence of his profession".[31] Oberbeck went on to say that Amis "never quite captures the bizzare beat of a Fleming pace";[31] most telling, according to Oberbeck, was that "the greatest flw in Amis' conception of Bond is that he has attempted to transform the consummate spy-hero into something he was never meant to have been: a man with a job".[31]

[edit] Adaptations

Main article: James Bond (comic strip)
Serialisation (1968)

Colonel Sun was serialised on a daily basis in the Daily Express newspaper from 18 March 1968[32] to 30 March 1968.[33]

Comic strip (1969–1970)

Colonel Sun is the only non-Fleming Bond novel adapted as a comic strip by the Daily Express newspaper and syndicated worldwide. It was published from 1 December 1969 to 20 August 1970, adapted by Jim Lawrence and drawn by Yaroslav Horak.[34] In December 2005, Titan Books reprinted Colonel Sun and included River of Death, another original James Bond comic strip story published before the Colonel Sun strip in 1969.[35]

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

The kidnap of M was borrowed from Colonel Sun and used as a plot device in the 1999 Bond film The World Is Not Enough.[36]

Die Another Day (2002)

For the 2002 film Die Another Day Eon Productions wanted to use the name Colonel Sun Liang-tan for the main villain, but when the Fleming estate insisted on royalties for the use of the name, they changed the name to Colonel Tan-Sun Moon.[37]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Benson 1988, p. 147.
  2. ^ Benson 1988, p. 147-148.
  3. ^ a b Benson 1988, p. 148.
  4. ^ a b c d Stanley, Donald (3 May 1968). "A flabby corporate image for 007". Life: Book Reviews. Life (magazine). p. 10. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CVUEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA10&dq=%22Colonel%20Sun%22%20Amis%20M&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2 February 2012. 
  5. ^ a b Black 2005, p. 183.
  6. ^ Black 2005, p. 95.
  7. ^ Black 2005, p. 183-184.
  8. ^ Lycett, Andrew. "Fleming, Ian Lancaster (1908–1964) (subscription neeeded)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33168. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33168. Retrieved 2 February 2012. 
  9. ^ Black 2005, p. 75.
  10. ^ Lycett 1996, p. 445.
  11. ^ Black 2005, p. 181-182.
  12. ^ "Obituary: James Leasor". The Times: p. 77. 22 September 2007. 
  13. ^ Benson 1988, p. 31.
  14. ^ Black 2005, p. 182.
  15. ^ Simpson 2002, p. 54.
  16. ^ a b Leader, Zachary (Sept 2011). "Amis, Sir Kingsley William (1922–1995) (subscription neeeded)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/60221. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60221. Retrieved 1 February 2012. 
  17. ^ Leader 2007, p. 554.
  18. ^ Chancellor 2005, p. 117.
  19. ^ Leader 2007, p. 556.
  20. ^ a b "Books in demand in March". Financial Times: p. 24. 16 April 1968. 
  21. ^ a b c Gray, Simon (28 March 1968). "Unlucky Jim". The Times Literary Supplement: p. 309. 
  22. ^ "Books in demand in April". Financial Times: p. 10. 9 May 1968. 
  23. ^ a b c Champlin, Charles (19 May 1968). "A Second Life for Agent 007". Los Angeles Times: p. D1. 
  24. ^ "Colonel Sun; a James Bond adventure (by) Robert Markham". Library of Congress Online Catalog. Library of Congress. http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=2&ti=1,2&SEQ=20120201062240&Search%5FArg=colonel%20sun&Search%5FCode=GKEY%5E%2A&CNT=100&PID=FgMjQQBM7HJUQQBRWZw_3kMZhis1&SID=1. Retrieved 1 February 2012. 
  25. ^ a b Enright, D. J. (28 March 1968). "Books". The Listener: p. 411. 
  26. ^ a b Baker, Roger (30 March 1968). "No Touch". The Times: p. 21. 
  27. ^ a b Muir, Alexander (30 March 1968). "An invisible enemy for the new 007". Daily Mirror: p. 21. 
  28. ^ a b Bradbury, Malcolm (29 March 1958). "Bond dishonoured". The Guardian: p. 12. 
  29. ^ a b Richardson, Maurice (31 March 1968). "James Bond without Fleming". The Observer: p. 29. 
  30. ^ a b "Amis is thrilled about thrillers". The New York Times. 25 April 1968. 
  31. ^ a b c Oberbeck, S K (5 May 1968). "The new James Bond: calmer music, weaker wine". Chicago Tribune: p. Q5. 
  32. ^ Markham, Robert (18 March 1968). "Colonel Sun". Daily Express: p. 5. 
  33. ^ Markham, Robert (30 March 1968). "Colonel Sun". Daily Express: p. 14. 
  34. ^ Fleming, Gammidge & McLusky 1988, p. 6.
  35. ^ "Titan Books - James Bond - Colonel Sun". Titan Books. http://titanbooks.com/james-bond-colonel-sun-2947/. Retrieved 2 February 2012. 
  36. ^ Chapman 2009, p. 231.
  37. ^ Britton 2005, p. 238.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] See also

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