My brother and I have a longstanding discussion topic: James Bond titles.
Ian Fleming had a way with words. His titles (and character names) resonate with a quality that combines a sense of simplicity with sophistication. From single words like “Goldfinger” and “Moonraker” to altered phrases like “You Only Live Twice,” Fleming captured an appealing feel. (Fleming also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with a classic “Bond girl” character – Truly Scrumptious.)
You may disagree. Perhaps you find the sexual innuendo childish and the wordplay obvious. (Pussy Galore? Tiffany Case?) But the point is that there seems to be a “Bond” type of title. Consider some of the novels written about the character by others. “Colonel Sun.” Hmm. It has almost the flavor of “Doctor No” – a title followed by a one-syllable word that can be a name but usually isn’t – but it doesn’t quite work. “No” as a name suggests negativity. It’s vaguely menacing. “Sun” doesn’t really tell me anything. Or what about “No Deals, Mr. Bond.” That one doesn’t even try.
How about the movies, since they ran out of Fleming titles to attach to them? “Tomorrow Never Dies.” Hmm. It has one of the classic Fleming Life/Death words….but….it doesn’t quite make it. “Live and Let Die” is simultaneously absurdist and scary. Tomorrow is a day. We don’t expect it to die. If it could be said to “die” when the sun goes down, then the title is saying … the sun will never go down? I guess that’s a scary thought….
“Goldeneye” was pretty good. But….that was the name of Fleming’s home.
So, the debate is….did Fleming have a unique, irreplicable ability with titles? Or are we just fooled into thinking it because we are so familiar with his actual titles? This would be a testable claim, if only an undiscovered, unheard of Bond draft by Fleming turned up, with title. If my brother or I heard of this title without knowing it was Fleming and concluded that, for the first time, someone else had made fire with two sticks, then we would have some proof. Contrarily, if we decided it “wasn’t Bond-like”, but then after learning it was Fleming, decided it really was after all…well then, we’d know we were reasoning from bias. Sadly, this happy event is highly unlikely.
What makes a good title? I admit I have a particular dislike of using a character’s name as a title. With obvious exceptions – if you have named your character something symbolic or meaningful, like “Doctor No,” then I’m okay with it. But Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Martin Eden….all feel lazy to me. Great books! Great authors! Poor titles.
You might be thinking, “but those books are about those characters. They are character studies!”
I would answer: all novels are about characters. It’s what characterizes the novel and distinguishes it from the short story. Stories are about events; novels are about people.
“Frankenstein” might seem to be an exception. It’s so perfect, right? But that’s a bias. We all know the story! It only seems like a scary name because the book was such a success that that name conjures images that scare us.
“Dracula” is a bit better. A big part of Stoker’s point was a panic at foreign-ness. Dracula is a Romanian name, and readers are unlikely to know anyone by that name, so it attaches more easily to the idea of a particular being. In other words, it’s not just lazily naming the book after the central character, it’s doing a little more with the word. (It’s a little ethnically biased, to be sure.)
“Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” works. It adds “strange case,” which typically wouldn’t satisfy me (“The Life and Death of Martin Eden” is little better, in fact not as good, as just “Martin Eden.”) But the Stevenson title works because even in the title is a sort of play on words. The “and” is a lie.
“Rebecca” also plays a game with the reader (title and novel both.) I won’t spoil the game, but it’s worth it to call the book by that name.
I have to admit to a fondness for titles that actually tell you what the book is about. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov. “The Puppet Masters” by Heinlein. “Five Boys in a Cave”* by Robert Church. I also like poetic titles that evoke the feel of the book. “The Last Call of Mourning” and “The Sound of Midnight” by Charles L. Grant. I’m much less fond of titles that have a meaning that only makes sense after you’ve read the book, like “Middlemarch” or “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” (Christopher Hitchens asked Salman Rushdie what Robert Ludlum, author of”The Bourne Identity” and “The Osterman Weekend,” would have titled Hamlet. Rushdie replied “The Elsinore Vacillation.”)
How important is a good title? I guess it depends. If the work becomes famous like “Frankenstein,” a poor title choice can borrow the glow. (I much prefer the subtitle, “A Modern Prometheus.”)
*This particular book has a special meaning for me. Not because I read it – but because I didn’t. Many, many years ago, my grandfather (a librarian and book lover) brought two books to my house, one for my sister and one for me. We were probably about 10 and 11 at the time. For my sister, Andrew Lang’s “Yellow Fairy Book” (girls, fairies….) For me, “Five Boys in a Cave.” I was in fact a boy.
We promptly traded. I have no idea if she read about those boys. I devoured the Yellow Fairy Book and it began a lifelong love of fairy stories (don’t say fairy tales!) that led me to collect all the “color” fairy books and to meditate on the nature of literature. I may add an essay about how ridiculous people sound to me when they claim to desire “a fairy tale wedding…”