In the essay about Reader Response Criticism, the author gives us this: "By redefining meaning as an event rather than as something inherent in the text, the reader-response critic once again locates meaning in time: the reader's time. A text exists and signifies while it is being read, and what it signifies or means will depend, to no small extent, on when it is read" (119).
The example given with this is that a 17th century Puritan and a 20th century atheist would both read Paradise Lost differently (119). In relation to the Bond novel, there are definite things that we read differently today than how they were read when it was first published. The most obvious and probably the most meaningful difference that today's reader of the Bond novels has that past generations didn't have is the library of Bond movies that have shaped our perceptions of what Bond is and/or should be. Although I've never seen the movies myself, I feel like I understood the character Bond from hearing other people talk about him, from seeing pictures and from playing GoldenEye on N64 with friends back in Middle School. Without the movies and without Bond as a cultural phenomenon, I have a feeling that the book was read in a completely different manner in the past. Bond seems more human and more fallible in the book then he is portrayed to be otherwise. He's often emotional, he bleeds, and his thoughts on women are misogynistic to say the least. Feel free to respond - are there any specific passages or ideas that you think would be read differently today then they were when the book was first published?
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Doug, it is interesting that you compare the "Goldeneye" Bond (I loved that N64 game!) to the Bond in the book. I am in the same boat as you, being that I also have never seen the movies. I was thinking along the same lines when reading the posts of others on this topic, because I had no bias or expectations of what was going to happen. I more clearly understand the comments of those who say "I never want to watch the movie adaptation!" of any such book because it is hard to ever look at the novel the same way again, and how much more so if you have seen the screen version first!
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