In the the beginning of the James Bond legacy, Ian Fleming gave us a character with which all people could relate. Contrary to many of the modern day MGM/UA films, Fleming created Bond to be a normal kind of person with suave and cool instincts. His job just happened to bring danger and suspense - not a hero from another world as some of the later movies would have you believe.
The Fleming world is similar in many ways to the film Bond, but actors like Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan can never quite depict Bond the way Fleming's novels do. The Bond books are in a class of their own and should be considered so.
Because they are, for the most part, different it is hard to compare the highly successful films to the novels. The stories Fleming wrote were, in a sense, a getaway from the ordinary. People enjoy reading about action, suspense, and such elements; these things intrigue and move a person. Fleming was especially great at creating tense atmosphere, and his stories often related to plausible, real life circumstances. In the modern world, Fleming's style of books have, in many respects, become the ordinary. In order to ensure the franchise's survival, filmmakers have had to modernize the character to keep up with the changing world.
The production crews and casts deserve credit for this modernization, however. They did it in a way that preserved the image of James Bond. They have given the world some of the most enjoyable films of all time while, most importantly, kept crucial elements of Fleming's Bond alive. They have achieved this by recylcling the same basic factors in the films that were present in the books - action, suspense, enjoyable plots, and beautiful women.
There's an old saying that "The Book is always better than the movie". In some cases, this belief holds true, as film never is never quite capable of capturing the tone and environment of the literature. In other cases, however, films prove to be more enjoyable. Either way you look at it, the early Fleming novels are in a class of their own and should be read, and enjoyed seperately by any fan of literature - bond enthusiast or not!
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