Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir

by Robert Harling

This is Robert Harling's account of his close and enduring friendship with one of the twentieth century's most iconic writers; a friendship forged on the front line of the Second World War. Their paths met in the early 1940s upon the creation of 30 Assault Unit, a British Commando unit Ian Fleming founded and ran. While Fleming was based in London, Harling, his second-in-command, operated on the front. The war made the men fast friends, and Fleming would later write Harling into his Bond novels Thunderball and The Spy Who Loved Me . Despite the pair's friendship, this book is a searching psychological investigation. This is Fleming, warts and his magnetism and charm often tempered by bouts of depression, failing health, and a deep-rooted misogyny dooming his relationships with women to end in failure and recrimination. Harling brings a unique and authoritative perspective to a compelling subject. Ordered by the author not to be published in his lifetime, this extraordinary memoir offers a fascinating and unprecedented insight into the mind and life of Fleming, from one of those who knew him best. Robert Harling ’s postwar career included twenty-eight years as editor of House & Garden magazine, and almost forty as the Sunday Times ’s celebrated typographic adviser. He was the author of some eighteen books of fiction and nonfiction. He died in 2008.

Genres: Biography

384 pages, Hardcover

First published June 7, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Robert Henry Harling was a British typographer, designer, journalist and novelist.

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Andrew Lycett's comprehensive biography of Ian Fleming, I enjoyed this posthumously published memoir by his lifelong friend Robert Harling, an interesting biography subject in his own right. Rather than disclose anything new per se, it offers a different perspective on Fleming's wartime service and the birth of Bond and growth of the phenomenon. As such it is recommended for Bond aficionados.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Harling’s account of his friendship with James Bond author/creator, Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir, is difficult to pin down — he blends his clear writing talent with subject matter that 1. doesn’t pertain to Fleming, 2. is categorically uninteresting, and/or 3. is maybe lightly fabricated.

On point #1, Fleming is a mere side note for the first half of the book, which is more about Harling’s experience in the Second World War (which would be an interesting standalone subject for another book). The book should have been called “Robert Harling: A Personal Memoir Featuring Ian Fleming”, despite Fleming featuring more prominently in the second half. Secondly, Harling himself is an interesting guy — a WWII veteran, world traveler, writer, and journalist — who litters this book about Fleming with too much text about his love for typography, design, and other shit I do! not! care about! I never care about typography or the design of magazines or newspapers, particularly when I’m acutely looking to read about Ian Fleming. Harling wastes entire sections of the book droning about his publishing/magazine career (see chapter 21). Thirdly, the content also was frustrating in that text actually devoted to Fleming was either nauseating or maybe…fabricated? Their conversations at their regular, cosmopolitan lunches made them sound like horny teenagers (they’re really horny in chapter 17. Like really horny). Harling devotes countless pages to these conversations with his friend — far too many to believable. It’s patently impossible for Harling to remember the conversations verbatim so many years later, even if he kept a very detailed diary. Why not just paraphrase, or say that you’re paraphrasing? I fear Harling added all these conversations because he would’ve had a short book otherwise. Harling’s relaying of his memories is also slightly undermined by his word choice. It could be due to generational vernacular and Harling’s Britishness, but holy hell: who uses words like grandiloquently and writes sentences like, “he sponsored a rapprochement between dame and foreign manager verging on the obsequious.” Harling’s Britishness also manifests in some stiff upper lip understatement, e.g. he devoted one (1) paragraph to his unit’s role at Dunkirk¿ In closing, Harling is a good writer and brings an interesting perspective on his dear friend — about whom I just wish the book had actually been written.

P.S. Writing a memoir about one of your friends is a fascinating concept to me. If any of my friends ever wanted to write a personal memoir about me after I’m gone, here’s some guidance: don’t.

[Steve Payne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was about a third of the way into this book when I vaguely remembered reading one of the original newspaper reviews a few years back which asked the question of how this had gotten past the trade's description act. On the front cover is a picture of Ian Fleming, and indeed the book is called – Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir. But for the first half Fleming barely makes an appearance. It’s more about the war experiences of the writer, Robert Harling. Fleming was Harling’s boss, in their secret operations department. But whereas Harling was an out-in-the-fields operative, Fleming was a more desk-bound officer, so he’s rarely in the story.

Come the second half.

I’m guessing Mr Harling’s editor pointed out the lack of space given to the star of the show. So what does the writer do? Given that I don’t actually think he has a huge number of stories to tell. He comes up with pages and pages of spoken dialogue between the two of them, which I’ve no doubt have elements of truth and can indeed provide some illumination as to the Fleming character, but I often found myself laughing at times at the silliness of it all. This was evidently first published in 2015; Fleming died in 1964. What a memory!

There is little detail and illumination on Fleming the writer, but plenty of gossipy asides on sex; money; ladder-climbing; Fleming’s wife, Anne; and their social circle. Some of the constructed conversations can be tiresome, like two teenage boys giggling over sex.

It’s a difficult book to mark. For much of its length it’s certainly not what it says it is on the cover, but it is nevertheless well written, and does add some illustration to areas covered in more detail in other books. The office-working Fleming was certainly not Bond in any way (a round of golf was almost the full extent of his physical exertions); he, along with his wife, saw social climbing as very much a part of life; and to contradict the first point in this sentence, their sex life was seemingly a very colourful one!

I’m not one to skim through books, and I didn’t here; but if you are coming to this to read about Ian Fleming, there is a great deal that can be skipped in the first half. The cover and title page are misleading.

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

A man who hates women?? Sigh, incredibly boring