It’s a little hard to believe, but the first James Bond movie, “Dr. No, ” was released more than a half-century ago, on October 5, 1962. At that time, Ian Fleming, the writer of the James Bond novels, was fifty-three. In April of that year (when Daniel Craig, it’s worth pointing out, was negative five), The New Yorker’s Geoffrey Hellman met Fleming for lunch at the Pierre (now the Taj). Fleming was in New York to visit his publishers. He’d stopped en route between his vacation house, in Jamaica (where Dr. No also has a hideaway) and his home in London. You can read the whole conversation here, in the archive. Or, if you’re too impatient, here are the key points:
也许你不相信，第一部007系列作品“诺博士”是在半个多世纪以前的1962年的10月5日初版的。007的作者伊恩弗莱明时年五十三岁。在当年的的四月（值得一提的事，那时候离丹尼尔克雷格出生还有五年多）纽约客的记者Geoffrey Hellman在皮埃尔酒店（现在的泰姬宾馆）采访了伊恩弗雷明。他在从伦敦的家去往他牙买加（诺博士曾经的藏身之地）的度假别墅的途中顺道来纽约会见他的出版商。你可以在这篇引文中阅读他们所有的谈话，但如果你不够耐心的话，下面的文章为你列出了重点。
What did they eat and drink? Each man started with “a prefatory medium-dry martini of American vermouth and Beefeater gin, with lemon peel.” Then they both had a second martini. Then Fleming ordered a dozen cherrystones and a Miller High Life. (“I like the name ‘High Life, ’” he said. “That’s why I order it.”) Then they had coffee and Camembert.
他们吃了什么喝了些什么？每个男人都会为以一杯中曲美式苦艾酒和加了一片柠檬的百金酒作为开始，他们都喝了第二杯马蒂尼，然后弗莱明点了点了一打小蛤蜊和米勒高生活牌的啤酒（“我喜欢高生活这个名字，所以我点了它。”）接着他们喝了咖啡吃了些乳酪。
Where did Fleming get the name James Bond? He borrowed it from an ornithologist. “When I wrote the first one, in 1953, ” he explained, “I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened…. One of the bibles of my youth was ‘Birds of the West Indies, ’ by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, My God, that’s the dullest name I’ve ever heard, so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one. Mrs. Bond once wrote me a letter thanking me for using it.”
弗雷明是怎么给007起詹姆斯邦德这个名字的？他借用了一个鸟类学家的名字。”1953年当我写第一部007些列的时候，”，他说道。“我设定邦德是一个十分木讷无趣的人。我年轻时最推崇的一本书是一个著名的鸟类学家詹姆斯邦德写的‘西印度群岛的鸟’。当我为我书中的主角取名字的时候我想这是个我听过的最无趣的名字了，我很欣赏他。现在这个无趣的名字在世界范围内都能然人激动人心。邦德的夫人曾经写信给我感谢我用了这个名字。
What did Fleming do in New York? He walked to Central Park: “I went there to see if I’d get murdered, but I didn’t.” He watched the girls at the skating rink, and came up with a possible scenario for a James Bond novel: “What a wonderful place to meet a spy! A spy with a child. A child is the most wonderful cover for a spy, like a dog for a tart. Do tarts here have dogs?”
弗雷明在纽约都做了些什么？他散步去了中央公园“我去那儿是想看看我是否会被谋杀，但是我没有。”他观察在冰场里滑冰的女孩儿，然后想起了一个可以在书中用到的情节：“这儿是个会见间谍的绝佳的地方。一个带着小孩儿的间谍。孩子成为间谍最好的掩护。就像一个带着狗的妓女。美国的妓女都养狗么？”
What did Fleming do for a living before writing the James Bond novels? He went to Eton and Sandhurst, served in the Army, worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters, became a stockbroker (“Those financial firms are tremendous clubs, and great fun”), and then, during the Second World War, was personal assistant to the director of naval intelligence. After the war, he wrote for the London Times.
伊恩弗雷明在写零零七系列小说之前干过什么营生？他在伊顿公学和陆军军官学校接受教育，在军中服役，后来成为了一名路透社驻海外的记者，之后又成为了一名股票经纪人。（他说：“那些金融公司好像一个个巨型的俱乐部，非常有趣。”）在二次世界大战期间，他是军队智库的助手。战后，他为伦敦时报撰稿。
What did he think of his own books? “I don’t regard James Bond precisely as a hero, but at least he does get on and do his duty, in an extremely corny way…. My books have no social significance, except a deleterious one; they’re considered to have too much violence and too much sex. But all history has that.”
他自己怎么评价自己的作品？我不认为詹姆斯邦德是个严格意义上的英雄，但他至少认真履行了他的职尽管方法不那么简单。我的作品除了在一个非常糟糕的方面没有反映社会现实，那就是充斥着太多的暴力和性。但是所有的历史都记载着那些内容。
His favorite fan encounter? He was in Washington, D.C., driving with a friend. “She spotted a young couple coming out of church, and she stopped our cab. ‘You must meet them, ’ she said. ‘They’re great fans of yours.’ And she introduced me to Jack and Jackie Kennedy. ‘Not the Ian Fleming!’ they said. What could be more gratifying than that?…. I think the President likes my books because he enjoys the combination of physical violence, effort, and winning in the end—like his PT-boat experiences.”
他最喜欢的和粉丝的偶遇是什么样的？有一次他和个朋友在华盛顿特区乘出租车，“我的朋友发现一对年轻的夫妇从教堂出来就让司机停车，‘你一定要见他们，’她说，‘他们是你忠实的粉丝。’然后他把我介绍给肯尼迪总统夫妇。‘你不是那个伊恩弗莱明么！还有什么比遇见你更令人高兴的呢？我想总统喜欢我的说是因为里面充斥了暴力，奋斗，最终成为赢家的情节，唤起了他在鱼雷舰艇上服役的经历。
The next year, “Dr. No” was released in the United States. Brendan Gill started his review, “Yes to ‘No, ’” on a grudging note: “The two qualities chiefly required to write a thriller on the order of Ian Fleming’s famous ‘Dr. No’ are hard to find — at any rate, they’re hard to find in a grown man, ” he wrote. “The first of them is the overwrought imagination of a sex-starved schoolboy, and the second is an almost total ignorance of the real world and how it works.” And yet, he admitted, even if “Dr. No” the novel was a “trashy failure, ” “Dr. No” the movie was a “trashy success”; Sean Connery, he felt, made such an “admirable Bond” that “on the strength of his triumph here … he could go on starring in Fleming decalomanias until his legs give out.” Gill’s reaction would be the reaction of pretty much everyone, for the next fifty years. The Bond movies are trashy, and yet good. In the days before reality television, that was a surprisingly rare combination.
翌年，《诺博士》电影在美国公映。Brenda Gill（美国著名作家）在他的评论中写道“很难对‘诺博士’给出肯定的评价。根据弗雷明著名的小说《诺博士》改编的电影无论怎么看都缺少惊险片的两个主要元素。首先，剧中的男主角怎么看都不像是一个成年人，反而像是一个过度兴奋的性饥渴的青涩小生。另外就是电影忽略了真实世界以及它运行的法则。但是，他不得不承认”虽然《诺博士》小说是部粗制滥造的作品，但是《诺博士》电影的确是个蹩脚的成功之作。他认为肖恩康纳利凭借着他的成功的表演塑造了一个令人崇拜的邦德形象。他可以继续出演弗莱明小说改编的电影，直到哪一天他跑不动了为止。”Gill的反应恐怕是多数观众在之后的五十多年来对于007系列的反应。邦德系列电影很蹩脚但同时是巨大的成功，在真人秀节目诞生之前 ，他足够吸引人的眼球。
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