Star Characters, Spun Anew, May Live Well More Than Twice James Bond, Jeeves and Philip Marlowe Return in New Books

By SARAH LYALL - The New York Times

Published: October 22, 2013 

William Boyd’s new James Bond book, “Solo,” takes Britain’s best-known spy to the war-ravaged jungles of West Africa and the insalubrious streets of 1960s Washington, with interludes of sex, drinking, the suggestion of homoerotic torture and other familiar Bondian amusements. But in writing nearly 50 years after the death of Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, Mr. Boyd faced some contemporary dangers.

William Boyd wrote about James Bond nearly 50 years after the death of the creator, Ian Fleming. Photo - Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

These included: How to appease Bond zealots suspicious of anyone tampering with their beloved character. How to satisfy Fleming’s estate, which hired Mr. Boyd for the project. And how to remain true to his own standards while honoring the spirit of an author he never met and getting inside the head of an anachronistic character he did not create.

Mr. Boyd is not the first to grapple with these kinds of questions. Fleming produced 14 Bond books, but at least 35 more have been published since his death by a parade of talented and less-talented authors, including Kingsley Amis and, most recently, the British novelist Sebastian Faulks. Also these days — whether by design or by that strange alchemic process by which publishers all do the same thing at the same time — a number of sequels, homages and retellings of tales from long-dead authors are suddenly crowding the shelves.

Next month, Mr. Faulks is to publish “Jeeves and the Wedding Bells,” a valentine to the singularly exquisite prose and intricate plotting of P. G. Wodehouse. Next year, the British mystery writer Sophie Hannah plans to resurrect Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot in a new novel. And Alexander McCall Smith is writing a contemporary version of Jane Austen’s “Emma,” one in a HarperCollins series that will eventually include a retelling of “Pride and Prejudice” by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Meanwhile, the Irish author John Banville (using the pen name Benjamin Black) has written a new Raymond Chandler novel to be published in March. And the British writer Anthony Horowitz in 2011 published “The House of Silk,” a Conan Doyle-esque mystery starring Sherlock Holmes.

What is going on here? These are all successful novelists. Can’t they stick to their own creations? And what about readers? How much do they want to trust cherished fictional characters to the whims and imaginations of people who might not share the original authors’ sense or sensibility? 

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