Hello Bill, I always enjoyed the comic strip version, and
knew that there were both prose and strip versions in
paperback, but have never come across any. Does anyone have a
list or some for sale/trade? Best regards, Ramon
>Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 23:54:24 -0400
(EDT)
>From: William Denton <
buff@pobox.com>
>Subject: RARA-AVIS: Modesty Blaise
>
>I just read MODESTY BLAISE, the 1965 spy thriller by
Peter O'Donnell
>featuring ultrasexy international supercriminal
Modesty Blaise, who's
>brought out of retirement at 26 and recruited by the
British government to
>make sure a diamond shipment goes through. She and
her sidekick, who can
>shoot and fight as well as Modesty, plus design
gizmos as well as James
>Bond's Q, take on a pancontinental
megavillain.
>
>I thought Modesty Blaise had been mentioned many
times on the list, but it
>turns out it's only three or four. Some rare birds
regard her as one of
>the top female hardboiled characters, and I'd agree
somewhat. She's
>certainly tough, and she can kick ass up and down the
Mediterranean.
>She can be cold and hard like James Bond (the one in
the books), but
>that's expected of everyone in this kind of spy
thriller. Against her we
>must hold the way she breaks down and cries at the
end of the book, as she
>does after all her most dangerous escapades. She
doesn't have the hard
>inner heart that asks for nothing from
nobody.
>
>There's a nice bit of conversation about her
professionalism:
>
>| "You're an amateur" [Modesty says]. "I'm a
professional. You're
>| smart, fast, good with a gun, good with your hands.
It's not enough.
>| You rely on your gifts, and it's not enough." There
was no cruelty
>| in her eyes, but neither was there any
mercy.
>| "Go on," Hagan said.
>| "I wasn't good with a gun, like you. I spent two
hours a day for two
>| years, making myself good. It might not seem worth
it. How often do
>| you really need to use a gun--I mean to shoot with
it? Once in three,
>| four, five years? All right, I spent fifteen
hundred hours making
>| myself ready for that one time. Because I'm a
professional, Paul. I've
>| spent thousands of hours making myself ready in all
kinds of different
>| ways for those few times when being ready means
living instead of dying.
>| Thousands of hours. Because I'm a professional. I'm
not proud of being
>| professional, or ashamed of it. But that's what I
am."
>
>Bill
>- --
>William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/
: Caveat
>lector.
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