A Side Trip

Yesterday I wrote a little about what I know about Jamaica. It wasn't much. To be honest, much of what I do know is drawn from Ian Fleming's novels about James Bond. At least one of them (The Man With The Golden Gun) is partly set there. As the novels reflect Britain's attitude in the 1950s and 60s, I don't expect I can make much use of that on my trip. That would be a sure way of getting myself into trouble.

Fleming was not especially a politically correct man, whatever his other qualities may have been. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt and apply that description to Bond instead, but the fact remains that the books contain some troubling stuff about women, and more pertinently, about race. Even as a boy I found myself uneasy whenever Fleming would get to describing people from the exotic places Bond visited. He would have Bond speculating about the person's racial makeup, and it never sounds good.

Having read the books may not have been entirely useless. Ian Fleming didn't just write about Jamaica. He also lived there. I don't recall how much time he spent there, but he had an estate called "Goldeneye" on the island. This was, I assume, where the name for Pierce Brosnan's first Bond film originated. The estate is unfortunately a bit distant from where I'll be, but it's my hope that we still might be able to make it over there.

Certainly the trip will be a memorable one regardless, but that certainly would be a neat thing to do, since I'm a pretty big fan of James Bond and I don't know when I'll ever get to Jamaica again. If I do manage a trip to Goldeneye, you'll hear all about it. If I don't manage a trip over there, you'll hear about all my excuses and the really much better things that I spent my time on instead. Either way, it should be an interesting read.