Sebastian Faulks calls James Bond a 'snob'

02-Feb-2011 • Literary

The esteemed British writer, speaking to the BBC ahead of the forthcoming miniseries "Faulks on Fiction", described James Bond as a snob and not a hero. All of this despite having penned the 2008 centenary James Bond novel "Devil May Care".

Faulks: "The funny thing about heroes is that, right from the beginning, they were never these beautiful, perfect figures people imagined. They were always flawed. And really the word hero was a bit of a misnomer so far as authors were concerned, because they never were these demigods of myths and so on... Robinson Crueso is a slave trader, a mercenary... That was always the way in a novel. What they do is they hold our attention, our point of identification in the story, they don't have to be good."

Interviewer: "You split characters into four categories: heroes, lovers, snobs and villains. I was intrigued by two things, John Self from "Money" by Martin Amis, is a hero, in your view, and James Bond is a snob?"

Faulks: "Yeah, well you want to ruffle people's feathers a bit. The point of this programme [Faulks on Fiction] is to be inclusive and accessible, but we also want to rough it up a bit. James Bond is a snob because he is what is called a connoisseur-snob. A man obsessed by brands. And this is how he defines himself..."

Click here to watch the complete interview