I'm currently re-reading the Fleming novels - just started FRWL - and there's a greater emphasis on internal continuity than in the films. But, as with everything Bond, the continuity is a bit of a mess.
Year One
CR takes place in late summer (less than two years after Bond receives his 00 status)
Year Two
LALD takes place the following February (Bond's briefing is the first time he's seen M since "the end of last summer" following the skin graft on his hand)
MR takes place three months later in May (this is explicitly stated by Fleming in a footnote)
DAF takes place two months later in July (Bond's just returned from his leave in France and notes that MR was his last mission)
Year Three
FRWL takes place in July, almost exactly 1 year after DAF. DAF was his last mission and Bond has been living "the soft life" for a year. Tiffany Case has just moved out of his flat and back to the States.
All pretty straightforward so far.
But FRWL is where we start to hit trouble because during the SMERSH briefing General G. states that "the rocket affair [i.e. Moonraker] was three years ago" but that "the diamond smuggling affair [i.e. Diamonds Are Forever]. That was last year." It seems that this is the point where Fleming decides to retcon the dating of the novels in order to keep the stories contemporary to their publishing dates.
Just interested to hear people's thoughts on this. It's the first time I've re-read Fleming in many years and I'm sure there will be more examples as I get through the later novels. It seems clear that Fleming didn't really have a plan and just retconned the continuity as he went. Has anyone found a way of figuring out a "fan continuity" for the novels that works?
Comments
Year One
CR takes place in late summer (less than two years after Bond receives his 00 status)
Year Two
LALD takes place the following February (Bond's briefing is the first time he's seen M since "the end of last summer" following the skin graft on his hand)
MR takes place three months later in May (this is explicitly stated by Fleming in a footnote) and receives a new Beretta as a gift from M and takes two weeks' leave in France.
Year Three
?
Year Four
Bond ends a mission in late Spring and receives a new Beretta as a gift from M and takes two weeks' leave in France.
DAF takes place two months later in July.
Year Five
FRWL takes place in July, almost exactly 1 year after DAF. DAF was his last mission and Bond has been living "the soft life" for a year. Tiffany Case has just moved out of his flat and back to the States.
Although it's a bit unwieldily as it leaves over 2 years of Bond's career unaccounted, means that M gives him 2 new Berettas in that time, raises a question over what exactly Bond means when he reflects that M has "recently" developed the bad habit of becoming involved in other departments' business in DAF (strongly implied to be MR and DAF in the text), and means that he's probably stretching things slightly when he tells Tiffany he's "under 40" in DAF.
I've only been looking at the internal references to continuity up to this point and haven't even begun to look at the dates as I imagine this is where is will get really tricky. There are a few mentioned in the early novels too - we know that MR takes place in May 1954 at the earliest because Sir Hugo hosted a Coronation reception (which would have been in June 1953) and a few years are mentioned in FRWL too.
It's going to be fun piecing it all together even though I'm sure there's no way of making it all add up. Any other dates would be helpful too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_novels_and_short_stories#Fictional_chronologies
I have to say that I disagree with both sets of interpretations, dating of LALD and MR a year apart, as it's explicitly stated in the text that MR takes place a few months after LALD. Not a criticism as it's pretty much impossible to square Fleming's chronology as he plays fast and loose with it and contradicts himself.
I might have a go at doing my own as I re-read the rest of the series.
"Risico" October 1957
"Quantum of Solace" February 1958
"The Hildebrand Rarity" April 1958
"From a View to a Kill" May 1958
"For Your Eyes Only" September to October 1958
[Thunderball May to June 1959]
"Octopussy" June 1960
"The Living Daylights" September to October 1960
"The Property of a Lady" June 1961 June 1961
[Chapters 1–5 of On Her Majesty's Secret Service September 1961]
"007 in New York" end of September 1961 1961
here's a wikipedia link to Griswold's chronology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_novels_and_short_stories#Fictional_chronologies
Another Bond-scholar Henry Chancellor, also made a chronology which broadly agrees with Griswold.
@Cameron_Mott, you may well be right. I'm up to DN now in my Fleming Marathon and it's pretty clear by this point that he's abandoned all attempts to maintain chronological continuity and is retconning the timeframe he established in earlier novels like mad. It's now "five years" since LALD. This is despite the fact that LALD, MR and (probably) DAF were all established as taking place during the same year and that FRWL was exactly one year later. Does Griswold try to explain Fleming's inconsistencies?
Not so. The latest that Bond could have killed the Japanese Diplomat would have been in 1941. According to Goldfinger, the events of CR takes place in 1953 or twelve years later.
We know that FRWL takes place in 1954 since Friday August 13th, could have only taken place in the decade of the 50s in 1954.
Spy Who Loved Me takes place in October 1961 (Friday October 13th)
Quite, Perdogg. I don't know who came up with those dates, but they're wrong, that I do know.
Hi @Perdogg. You're right - it's not necessarily two years.
Here's the passage from CR I was thinking of, "In the last few years I've killed two villains [...] for those two jobs I was awarded a Double O number in the service." I was misremembering it as two years. But it would be a bit of a stretch to think that "a few years" could mean 12 years. Also, it would mean that Bond doesn't kill anyone in over a decade as a OO Agent (until LALD, in fact.)
I don't remember that passage from Goldfinger. Working my way back through Fleming and now up to DN so should be coming back to this very soon. But I guess this is a perfect example of my point about Fleming not giving a damn about continuity as a "few years" suddenly becomes 12 years!
Also, I might be misremembering, but doesn't Junius Du Pont date CR as Summer '51?
Dates seem to be a real problem for Fleming which is why I'm so interested to see how Griswold works his way through the mess. MR has to take place in 1954 too, as it takes place in May and we know that Drax held a coronation reception for charity the year before (Queen Elizabeth was crowned in June 1953.)
It's a tangle, isn't it?
"He [Mr Du Pont] Picked up his own and lit the cigarette. "France,'51, Royale les Eaux."
The events in From Russia with Love take place on Thursday August 12th. The only time this could have occurred would have been in 1954.
I made a mistake about CR it was 1951 not 1953, but I stand by FRWL in 1954.
"At 730 on the morning of Thursday, August 12th, Bond awoke in his..."
That's faultless logic but the problem, aside from the point about MR and the coronation, is that the text dates it as 1955 at the earliest. Before he gets involved with the Spektor plot, Bond is appointed to a Committee of Inquiry under Paymaster Captain Troop which M had initiated "purely as a sop to the Privy Council Inquiry into the Security Services which the Prime Minister had ordered in 1955."
Dating is not the only inconsistency in FRWL. Fleming also declares that Bond has never killed in cold blood and Bond tells Darko that his mother, "Monique Delacroix, from the Canton de Vaud" according to YOLT, is from Somerset.
I've missed that Somerset reference. I really need to re-read FRWL, then!