James Bond
詹姆士• 邦德
Centennial
百年诞辰
May 29th 2008
From The Economist print edition
2008年5月29日
《经济学人》印刷版
JAMES BOND may not have been in it for the money, but Ian Fleming certainly was. In March 1964 Bond’s creator was raking it in so successfully he decided to follow the advice of his good friend and fellow golfer, Sir Jock Campbell , and sell a 51% share of the copyright in his books for !ê100,000. Flemingwas not to know that within five months he would be dead. The logic at the time was that it would be cheaper to pay capital-gains tax on a one-off sale than to continue paying Harold Wilson’s astronomic income tax.
詹姆士•邦德也许不会为了钱做事，但是创造出007的作家伊安•弗莱明行事 却是金钱使然。在1964的三月，伊安•弗莱明终于大功告成，拼凑出了詹姆士•邦德系列，他决定听从他的挚友及高尔夫球友爵克•坎贝尔的意见，以10万美 元的价格卖掉了007系列51%的版权。弗莱明当时并不知晓自己在五个月后会撒手人寰。他当时考虑的只是一次性卖掉版权需要支付的资产利得税低于需要不断 支付给哈罗德•威尔逊的天文数字般的所得税。
The purchaser was Booker Brothers, a company chaired by Campbell, which had interests in sugar plantations in Africa and the West Indies. Booker went on also to buy out the copyrights of both Agatha Christie andGeorgette Heyer . In a short time its books division became so profitable it decided to plough some of its profits into a literary prize that would give British, Irish and Commonwealth writers something of the kudos and financial reward of the Prix Goncourt in France. Its name was the Booker prize.
买下版权的正是坎贝尔所执掌 的布克兄弟公司。他这家公司在非洲和西印度地区还拥有蔗糖种植园的股份，并且陆陆续续买全了阿加莎•克里斯蒂和乔吉特•海尔的版权。很快，专营图书的分公 司就赚得盆满钵溢。因此，布克公司决定从所获利润中抽取一部分来设立一个布克文学奖，以此鼓励英国、爱尔兰及英联邦国家的作家。这个文学奖类似法国的龚固 尔文学奖给予获奖作家奖章和物质奖励。
Fleming died of heart failure at the age of 56. But his heirs have worked hard to keep his spirit and his business alive. In 2000 they bought back the copyright to his work, and are about to appoint a single literary agent in London to oversee the whole Fleming estate. They have their job cut out. The rights to the James Bond films (the real moneymakers) do not belong to them, so they have to make their money where they can, mostly out of books.
弗莱明死于心脏衰竭，享年 56岁。然而，他的后人历尽了千辛万苦使他的精神和事业长存。在2000年，他们买回了弗莱明所有著作的版权，并将弗莱明所有的无形资产交给伦敦一家独立 的文学代理商打理。他们将工作量减轻了，詹姆士•邦德的电影版权（真正的摇钱树）不再属于弗莱明家族，所以他们只能尽可能从有钱可赚的地方入手，那就是那 些书上。
Over the years the Fleming clan has authorized a series for children about Bond as a boy (!°Before the name became a legend. Before the boy became the man!) and another about Miss Moneypenny. Licenses have also been sparingly given to other authors to carry on the main Bond line, including one to Kingsley Amis.
多年以来，弗莱明家族一直都在授权出版一系列针对孩子们 的小007系列（这套丛书是关于邦德成为传奇人物之前的故事。也就是男孩变成男人之前的故事。）以及另一部《Miss Moneypenny》。同时，他们还悉心挑选一些作家，授予他们创作以007为主要人物的小说写作资格，其中一个作家是金斯利•亚密斯。
This is the year to really cash in, though, which explains why, suddenly, Bond is everywhere: in an excellent exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, on postage stamps and at charity golf days. On May 28th, the centenary of Fleming’s birth, a new Bond book was published, by Sebastian Faulks, a British novelist.
直到今年他们经营的事业才开始真正盈利，这也解释了为什么突然一夜之间到处都是007的身影：从帝国战争博物馆里的一场很棒的展览上、邮票上，以及高尔夫慈善赛事上。五月二十八日是弗莱明的百年诞辰之日，英国作家塞巴斯蒂安•福克斯借此推出了新的一本007小说。
Mr. Faulks has never written a thriller, but he has a talent for superior pastiche. The first line describes a wet evening in Paris, tipping its cap at Mr. Faulks’s most famous novels, “Birdsong” and “Charlotte Gray” which are set largely in France. Mr. Faulks’s Bond is older, sadder, wiser. When the book opens he is teetotal and does deep breathing. That moment passes.
福克斯从没有写过惊悚题材的小说，但是他天生就有“依葫芦画瓢”的本领。小说以福克斯最著名的叙事手法开头，第一行 文字就描写了在巴黎的一个雨淋淋的傍晚，《鸟鸣》和《夏洛特•格雷》中大部分的故事都发生在法国。福克斯笔下的007更成熟、忧伤、睿智了。翻开此书，你 会发现007已经戒酒了，当紧张时刻过去了他还会做深呼吸。
“Devil May Care” is set in 1967, the year after Flemins last Bond novel. There are cigarettes, quantities of liquor, a brace of pretty twins and a barrel-load of prejudices: Work had never previously taken him to the Middle East, and for this he was thankful. He regarded the lands between Cyprus and India as the thieving centre of the world! Bond is also constant changing his clothes. He has tropical suits, tennis whites, Sea-Island cotton shirts and knitted ties, and he travels with what are called “bathing trousers”, though that may be because at this stage he is in Iran. The book races along. Unlike many modern novels, it gets better and better. It reads most of all like the book-of-the-movie. Ironically, none of the non-Fleming James Bond books has ever been filmed. Perhaps this one will be.
《魔鬼会在乎》一书的背景设在1967年，弗莱明写的007系列最后一部之 后一年。在本书中，邦德时常抽着雪茄，畅怀豪饮，还左拥右抱姐妹花，一副不可一世的样子。总部绝不会提前派他去中东，使得他心存感激。邦德把位于塞浦路斯 和印度间的地方看作全球的诈骗中心。他的着装不停地换来换去，一会儿穿热带风格的衣服，一会儿穿一套白色网球装，一会儿又穿着海岛风格的纯棉T恤还戴领 结。他旅行时则穿着被叫做浴裤的东西，尽管可能是因为这个场景发生在伊朗。这本书追溯到了久远的过去。和许多现代小说不同，007系列是越写越好看。《魔 鬼会在乎》读起来感觉是在看电影版的书一样。讽刺的是，非弗莱明创作的邦德系列小说迄今还没有一部被翻拍成电影。也许这本有机会。