22-12-2012, 04:31 PM
Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Quote:Mike Sparks: The evil villain in Thunderball, Emilio Largo's ship is called the Disco Volante. It means "Flying Saucer." Fleming is constantly dropping clues in his books of the Nazi Germans' escape and survival as industrial corporation-covered secret societies hiding in Deep Underground Military Bases (DUMBs).
Adnan Kashoggi's mega-yacht, Nabila, was used in Never Say Never Again -- a remake of Thunderball. It's name in that film?
The Flying Saucer.
As a devoted reader of Fleming, I cannot quite buy the "hidden warnings" hypothesis. While I'll keep an open mind on the issue as I read this book, right now I see Fleming as a deeply knowledgeable insider who reveled in placing "inside" references throughout his texts (see my earlier reference to "Nash" as a good example).
Did he go too far? Perhaps. If any revelation by Fleming of secret operations could have prompted his elimination, it would have been his "Red Grant"/serial killer plot (again, see above). But From Russia with Love, for which it was written, was the fifth of Fleming's fourteen Bond books. Why wait so long to take him out?
And it may be argued that the plots of Fleming's post-FRWL novels contained few if any threats to deep political systems.
Until, that is, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which he "postulates" an organized crime/intelligence agency partnership -- a Corsican crime syndicate, the Union Corse -- whose chief, Marc-Ange Draco, might have been modeled on the Guerinis.
It also should be noted that Fleming had a long history of coronary disease. From Wikipedia:
Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker throughout his adult life, and suffered from heart disease. In 1961, aged 53, he suffered a heart attack and struggled to recuperate. On 11 August 1964, whilst staying at a hotel in Canterbury, Fleming walked to the Royal St George's Golf Club for lunch and later dined at his hotel with friends. The day had been tiring for him, and he collapsed with another heart attack shortly after the meal. Fleming died in the early morning of 12 August 1964his son Caspar's twelfth birthday. His last recorded words were an apology to the ambulance drivers for having inconvenienced them,[128] saying "I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don't know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days."
Elsewhere, Fleming's last words were reported to be, "Oh, it's all been a tremendous lark."
He left no literary heirs.