aquatic germs

As writers develop their themes and characters, it can often seem to the reader that earlier books seem to pre-empt later ones, as if a germ of an idea has hatched only to await further incubation (to mix my metaphors!).

One such seems to be in Fleming's Casino Royale (yes, I'm re-reading the Bond books). In a passage of otherwise 'straight' prose of Bond at the baccarat table are these sub-marine descriptions:

The two cards slithered towards him across the green sea. Like an octopus under a rock, Le Chiffre watched him from the other side of the table. (p.86, Penguin, 2004)

Does this not bring to mind the brilliant chapter in the next book, Live and Let Die, in which Bond walks across the sea-bed towards Mr Big's lair, and observes all the aquatic life teeming about him? Almost as if Fleming, searching for similes for his first book, was struck by the picture those words conveyed and decided to render them in a more literal (yet even more poetic, even lyrical) form for the action for his next.

Felix Leiter even gets in on the literary pre-empting on page 91: "I'll walk over to the hotel with you. Might as well convoy the treasure ship right into port." Suitably aquatic, but also with shades of Leiter's role and Bond's mission in the later book Thunderball...!


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