When MGM rebooted James Bond with the origin story Casino Royale in 2006, Bond got younger—but had never looked older. Though some of Bond’s overall fatigue was due to the casting of Daniel Craig, a 38-year-old with a rugged physique and craggy facial features, in the title role, much was the result of a storyline that explained Bond’s character with a sobering tale of childhood woe and formative romantic tragedy. Pierce Brosnan, after all, had been 42, Timothy Dalton 43, Roger Moore 46: yet none of these Bonds had ever appeared so beat-down, so weary about carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, or, by Craig's own admission, so serious.
But if Craig's Bond-in-crisis diverges from the movie franchise's campy past, it may be pretty faithful to the spirit of the original books. That's one takeaway from Matthew Parker's Goldeneye, Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica, the first book to explore the north-shore estate where the author and former intelligence officer Ian Fleming spent two months each year and wrote all the Bond books. The purchase of his tropical lair, the retreat from society, the way Fleming spent the latter half of his life there—these are all apparently telltale signs of a man who just can't handle getting older. What Parker's new book shows is how much that crisis latched itself onto James Bond, and how the defiant fantasy he provided against decline both restored Fleming and gave life to an immortal franchise.
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