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ENTERTAINMENT
January 24, 2008 The next James Bond movie has a name. Quantum of Solace. The majority of moviedom uttered a collective "Huh?" while I said, "Hey, I remember what that means." "Quantum of Solace" is actually the title of the third story in "For Your Eyes Only", which was a short story collection Ian Fleming wrote that I read when I was 13 or 14. I read that book thinking it was a novelization about the movie For Your Eyes Only. That goofy mistake ended up being my introduction to Ian Fleming's novels about James Bond, who turned out to be nothing like Roger Moore in the books. If memory serves, the story is actually one told to Bond at a party. After that my memory fails me. The Internet says: "This story has no spies, no guns, no supervillains, no global conspiracies, and yet it might be one of the most significant pieces Ian Fleming ever wrote about James Bond. Bond is sitting on a sofa, after a dinner party, talking with the Colonial Governor. After Bond (who despises small talk) [hey, so do I!] makes a comment about marrying a stewardess, the Governor launches into a story of one of his old coworkers, and it is this tale, told in the older man's voice, that comprises the bulk of the short story. In brief, it is the story of a young Diplomatic Services man who marries a flight attendant. When she becomes disillusioned with her less-than-flashy life and her husband, she has a blatant affair. It ruins her husband, who is eventually transferred to Washington for six months. When he returns, he ruthlessly crushes her spirit much as she did his -- but privately, over the course of a year. In the end he leaves her financially and emotionally ruined, but pays the price of the coarsening of his soul. In the end, she hits bottom and slowly recovers, even finding happiness. The crux of the story is the emotional phenomenon the Governor calls the Quantum of Solace, the smallest unit of human compassion that two people can have. As long as that compassion exists, people can survive, but when it is gone, when your partner no longer cares about your essential humanity, the relationship is over. At the end of the story Bond is depressed, and suddenly finds his life of adventure to be fundamentally boring and unfulfilling compared to the real human drama the Governor has told him about. The unwritten part of the story, the essential truth never spelled out in so many words is this -- No one in the world has a Quantum of Solace for James Bond. He is alone. The people closest to him are M, who, in the end treats him like a fine hunting dog, and his elderly housekeeper May, who, as much as she may fuss and fret about his health, will eventually retire and be done with him. From this point on in the series [of novels], Bond is crumbling, a man sliding down the slope of his career, a human being rather than the automaton Fleming originally set out to create." Quantum of Solace has nothing to do with the plot of the short story it borrows its title from. |
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