Page "The James Bond Dossier" Paragraph 8

Each of the 14 chapters deals with one aspect of the novels — ‘ No woman had ever held this man ’ defends Bond's attitude to and treatment of women: “ Bond's habitual attitude to a girl is protective, not dominating or combative ”; ‘ Damnably clear grey eyes ’ describes M., the head of SIS: “ a peevish, priggish old monster ”; ‘ A glint of red ’ is about the villains, who have in common only physical largeness and angry eyes ; and so forth.

According to his first biographer, Eric Jacobs, the hand of sovietologist and scholar Robert Conquest is betrayed in Amis ’ s precise dissertation upon the genesis and changing nomenclatures of SMERSH, the employer of the villains of the early novels.

Three appendices deal, respectively, with science fiction, literature and escape, and ' sadism '.

With ‘ almost parodic scholarly dedication ’, Amis provides a ten-category (‘ Places ’, ‘ Girl ’, ‘ Villain ’ s Project ’, etc.

) reference guide ( pp. 156 – 159 ) to the Bond novels and short stories.