The Penguin Blog

It's the way he tells it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘I’m a licensed private investigator and have been for quite a while. I’m a lone wolf, unmarried, getting middle-aged, and not rich. I’ve been in jail more than once and I don’t do divorce business. I like liquor and women and chess and a few other things. The cops don’t like me too well, but I know a couple I get along with. I’m a native son, born in Santa Rosa, both parents dead, no brothers or sisters, and when I get knocked off in a dark alley sometime, if it happens, as it could to anyone in my business, nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life.’*

This is Philip Marlowe in the raw, stripped of his wisecracks and telling it like it is. Bleak, sharp and cynical, it tells you almost everything you need to know about the private detective and his world.

Raymond Chandler is one of the great stylists. As good as, if not better than, PG Wodehouse, who also created an equally extraordinary world or way of viewing the world in Bertie Wooster (and who shared with Chandler the Alma Mater of Dulwich College).

You don't read Chandler or Wodehouse for the stories. What happens, and to who, is not why we're reading. The plot is not really the point, whether it might be good, bad or indifferent. Like Shakespeare the plot might be borrowed or secondhand or become secondary to the author's real concern (or, in Chandler's case, made up as he went along). What matters to these writers is the telling of the story.

This is what separates the truly great writers from the mere scribblers.

A few months ago I had a brief discussion with a science-fiction editor-cum-writer over at his blog. He was saying that he'd been told by his agent to alter the style of the story he was working on as big publishers weren't buying that kind of thing: it simply wouldn't sell. He did as his agent advised and they made the sale to one of the majors. I wanted to know what he'd been told to change, which he found difficult to answer, but this led to a discussion of whether readability or a good story was at the heart of these things. He concluded by saying that telling a good story was ultimately what mattered in getting published.

Perhaps this is the case with genre publishing. If so, then it's a shame. Because that suggests the telling of the story - the author's voice - has become a secondary concern. It's the voice that transports us into the author's world, not the story - which is what happens (or 'a narrative of incidents' according to my Chambers). Chandler made his novels up as he went along, famously claiming that when he didn't know what to write next, he'd have someone walk in holding a gun. (Which perhaps explains why there is a murder that goes unaccounted for in The Big Sleep.) The effort went into the words, into bringing Marlowe and his Hollywood neighbourhood alive. This might explain why Marlowe is a more human character than, say, James Bond (who Fleming once described as a blunt instrument) and Sherlock Holmes, who looks at humanity like a scientist might a freakish bug in a petri dish. Marlowe is a man, he has failings. But those failings come out of his strengths: his wits and his morals.

Trouble Is My Business is released on July 31st. This, at last, completes Penguin's reissue of the Philip Marlowe stories (excluding the tantalizingly titled 'Philip Marlowe's Last Case', which I've never read). Eight books to match the eight books featuring the other greatest private detective in the world recently released by Penguin.

If you like crime fiction you should read Chandler. If you like fine writing and sneer at genre fiction then read him and learn to revise your opinion.

And if you still think the story is more important than how it is told, then this might just be the book for you.

Colin Brush
Senior Copywriter

* I can't for the life of me remember which title this comes from since I scribbled this piece down to go on the page one of these eight editions (great Saul Bass-influenced covers by former Penguin designer Steve Marking) about three years ago.

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Bond Girl Forever

So, it’s not every day that you watch your sister being ferried down the Thames by a phalanx of marines, flanked by two navy helicopters.

Today is the publication day of DEVIL MAY CARE, something that we’re only mildly excited about here at Penguin. And something I promise we’ll stop shouting about soon. Well, maybe not soon, but certainly in the next year or so...

And I’m perhaps more excited than most about it here, as my sister’s the Bond girl on the front cover.  My sister’s been a successful model since she was 16, and this is the first time that our professional worlds have collided. And what a collision! Not only is Tuuli the cover girl, and therefore on display in every bookshop in the country, but she also had to deliver the first 7 copies yesterday by speedboat, to a waiting Sebastian Faulks on HMS Exeter.  And to look at the pictures of her stiff and steely stance as the figurehead on that speedboat, dressed in a skin tight red stretch-leather Jitrois catsuit, as it raced up the Thames, you’d never guess how nervous she was!  And the fact that at the last minute she got clearance to arrive without a safety lifejacket on, meant that the arrival looked even more fabulous. 

But she didn’t drop the suitcase in the Thames, thank goodness, and delivered it safely to Sebastian, by now having changed into 6-inch stiletto heels (which weren’t obviously allowed on the rubber boat). Sebastian, Commander Paul Brown (the Captain of HMS Exeter), and Lucy Fleming signed the 7 books, before Tuuli was put in charge of them again, to escort them to Waterstones Piccadilly in a beautiful open-top Bentley. As I wasn’t on HMS Exeter, but watching from the bank of the river with my mum and Tuuli’s fiancé, the first we knew of the press attention on board was when they disembarked to make their way to Waterstones. They had to pose in front of the Bentley for a good 15 minutes, with a bank of about 50 photographers shouting ‘Over here Tuuli’, ‘To your left Tuuli’ – it was madness! It also made it very obvious that I could certainly never do her job. As I organise publicity for our authors at Penguin, I’m much happier behind the scenes directing the action. I turned around to remark this to my mum, but she’d vanished, until I spotted her right in the middle of the press pack, clicking away with the best of them.

Photographers banished, Tuuli and Sebastian swept off in their Bentleys to Waterstones, where a laser-guarded box was waiting to safeguard the books until publication day today. And official duties done, we headed off for a quiet celebration lunch (catsuit safely exchanged for something more sedate – I don’t think London lunchers were ready for red leather somehow), with the family phone calls starting about spots on ITV and the BBC.

My mum rushed out and bought all the papers this morning, and is busily sending copies to grandmothers and aunts and uncles. Today is again a normal day, and Tuuli’s back to riding the bus rather than Bentleys. But she’s a Bond girl forever for our family, and we’re prouder of her than anything.

Katya Shipster
Press Officer

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Covering Bond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not long after my parents had relocated the family from the cold, damp and impressively windy Highlands of Scotland to the less cold, only marginally less damp, but no-doubt-about-it impressively windy island of Jersey, I was invited to a rich classmate's seventh birthday party. You could tell he was rich since on the way home from school in my parents' car we passed his house. This took a while.

The signature feature of this boy's party was something so unimaginably cool that I still think of it now with fondness and envy: a home cinema. Now this wasn't some tarted-up plasma screen under a ridiculous nom de guerre available on special offer at Curries. This was the mid-1970s. A home cinema meant a roll-up screen and stand, a 16mm projector, speakers and reels of film. In his house. My jaw drops still when I think about it.

Anyway, the home cinema treated us to an abridged twenty-minute version of Live and Let Die. Being six at the time, I loved every butchered minute of it. No matter that it was one sixth the length of the original, featured cartoon-Bond Roger Moore - yet to succumb to the claggy embrace of a safari suit - and clearly could not have made any sense whatsoever. At that age as long as some things got smashed up and people got hit in an entertaining way, what was not to like?

A few years later my mother gave me a book club edition that featured two James Bond novels, Dr No and From Russia with Love. On the cover was a poorly cutout bikini-clad Ursula Andress - from that still - emerging from the water pasted on top of a scarlet background. Being a book club edition it was a hardback. Being a book club edition every other expense had been spared. You could tell because they'd managed to place the novels out of order. This might not have mattered but for the fact that frequently in Fleming's Bond books one story leads directly onto the next. In this case, From Russia with Love ends with a cliffhanger putting the survival of Bond in doubt, while Dr No begins by recounting the agent's recovery. Or, if you were reading my book club version, at the beginning Bond gets better from the poisoning he will receive some 500 pages later. Such unconventional linearity gave Bond an unexpected modernist slant.

However, it is this sort of basic inattention to details that has often been all too obvious in past editions. For much of the forty-four years since his death his books have been treated by a succession of publishers rather like that bizarre home cinema experience: a fast, enjoyable thrill not to be taken too seriously or paid much attention to, and something that is certainly not for adults.

The centenary of Fleming's birth was clearly a good time to revisit the Bonds and cover them in a package that says, yes these are fun, but also makes it implicit that there's no reason not to take them seriously. Most importantly, they should look like books worth owning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To that end Michael Gillette was commissioned to paint fourteen iconic covers. The books were numbered on their spines so it's not hard to read them in order (if you're traditionally minded). The blurbs, adapted from earlier Penguin editions, were themed around the new unified concept. Fourteen book biographies, one for each back flap, replaced the usual author biography (which is found on page one). A short extract from each book graces the back cover. They were made into demi-format hardbacks to be not so much collectible as bloody irresistible.

Having worked on the Bond novels on and off for eight years – and these are the fourth set Penguin have done in that time – I can attest to their enduring appeal. And you won't find a safari suit in sight.

The new Bond hardbacks are published on May 29th. More information available here.

Colin Brush
Senior Copywriter

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Bond is back...on MySpace

The countdown to the publishing event of the year- a new James Bond novel to mark Ian Fleming’s centenary by none other than Sebastian Faulks - officially begins today at www.myspace.com/devilmaycarebook.
Devil May Care has come to MySpace, and we’re looking for someone to create the book’s theme tune. Not only will this bring the winner fame, glory and admiration, but their song will be featured on the audio book (published this May), and they’ll also receive £1000 to spend on music equipment.

The question has already been asked - why MySpace? Is Penguin ignoring Bond's original audience, in their attempt to be too down with the kids? I don't believe so. And MySpace isn't just for the kids these days, anyway. We thought long and hard about what we could offer to Bond fans and would-be Bond fans online, given that there is already so much out there. We don’t believe in building websites for the sake of it. Partnering with MySpace gives us a chance to bring Bond – the original Bond as Ian Fleming created him – to a whole new audience. Entrants to the competition must sample a Fleming Bond audio book in their track, any part of five we have provided: not only will this test their creativity, but entrants will be forced to think about who the Bond of the books is. It is this Bond who appears in Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care and, with no other detail on the content of the book available to them, they are wise to consider the Fleming backlist carefully.

And you can't really argue with MySpace’s statistics of over 10 million users in the UK. This hotbed of creativity provides an army of talented people who, lucky for us, are all in one place. These are the people who will bring the literary Bond into the twenty-first century – as far as I know, there has never been a theme tune for a book before. This is a chance for someone to make their own stamp on one of our most exciting books in a long time.

As for the hardcore Bond fans, I suspect they’ll join us anywhere to get their fix: extra content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, hints of what’s to come… and there’ll be lots of all of that as the countdown continues...

Jen Doyle

Wannabe Bond girl

Zoom. There it goes.

Suddenly, another year has gone by. A final Harry Potter, the promise of more Bond, and a growing addiction to stollen - that's been my 2007 in a nutshell. The future, however, looks both golden and delicious: Bond is actually published, the shops stop selling stollen (for a while), and we give you a new Marian Keyes, the plague, a bit of musical poetry, some fairly monstrous and some very funny parenting, a gangland statistician, some number-crunching Lewis Caroll stuff, and a guide for nice guys. What more could you ask from 2008?

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a lovely New Year - I'm off to dance on the photocopier at the annual Penguin Towers bash.

Sam the Copywriter

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Introducing Penguin's own Bond Girl

Today we unveiled the cover for the new James Bond novel, Devil May Care, which I hope you'll agree is rather striking.

We're publishing this new chapter in the life of Bond in May 2008 to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth. Sebastian Faulks has written the new novel - and it's all set to be one of the most exciting moments in 'book world' next year… keep watching this space.

We knew that this book cover had to be stylish, sophisticated and iconic - all the things one associates with Fleming's world-famous spy. So our Art Directors decided to take a slightly different approach to this artwork and we took on award-winning design agency - The Partners - who have worked with leading British brands such as Jaguar, the BBC and the National Gallery. We wanted someone who would have a slightly different take on designing a book cover, one which would go beyond usual publishing preconceptions about what such things should look like.

The Partners presented us initial designs based around the concept a blood-red flower with the silhouette of a naked woman as its stem set against a jet black background. Everyone - the Estate of Ian Fleming, Sebastian Faulks and all those involved in-house - reacted really positively to the concept artwork… so the next stage was to find our Bond cover girl. Tough job.

We knew the moment we saw Tuuli that she was the one - she exuded the grace, style and beauty one associates with all the Bond girls. Most of all Tuuli was fantastically enthusiastic and engaged with the project - her vivacity really came through in the shoot. Then the Partners applied their skills in finessing and styling - and the end result was a fantastically iconic image.

Without a shadow of a doubt I think this has been one of the most rewarding covers we've produced - the moment you mention the name James Bond people's eyes light up. Everyone involved in designing the cover has leapt to the challenge with that glint in their eyes - and the artwork really reflects that enthusiasm and passion.

You can't judge a book by it's cover - but you sure as hell can make people want to pick that book up and read it…

Alex Clarke, Editor, Penguin 007

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The name is Bond, James Bond...

Today is a momentous day for us here at Penguin Towers - today we announce to the world that BOND IS BACK.

It's been a closely guarded secret here for a little while, but thankfully the time has come that we can reveal to all that in May 2008, Penguin UK will be publishing the next literary instalment in the glorious tradition of Ian Fleming's most famous double 0 agent.

And so, we bring you DEVIL MAY CARE - the new James Bond novel. Most excitingly of all - I can tell you now that the author of this next instalment is one of the true greats of British writing ... Sebastian Faulks...

Famed for his "French Trilogy" (The Girl at the Lion D'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray), and more recently for Human Traces and Engleby - Sebastian has for the last twenty years reached out to readers with his masterful prose, his meticulous eye for detail and setting, and his exceptional ability to make his characters transcend the limits of the page. And now he is applying his style and skill to writing the next chapter in the life of our favourite spy - Bond, James Bond.

Picking up exactly where Fleming left off, DEVIL MAY CARE is set during the height of the Cold War, the action played out in exotic locations across the world - and it seems Sebastian very much enjoyed getting into the swing of things:

“In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkelling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women. In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkelling.”

I can't reveal too much about the book at this stage - you'll have to wait until next May I'm afraid - but believe me - it really will be worth it. DEVIL MAY CARE has everything one could possibly ask from a James Bond novel, everything one could possibly ask from Sebastian Faulks' writing, and most of all, it's a bloody good thriller. I promise you all - you're in for a real treat.

For more information - please visit www.Penguin007.com

Alex Clarke - Senior Editor

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