Sunday, August 23, 2009

James Bond Daily: The Only Way To Dress For Golf Is Not to Dress for Golf

007 sniffs at the sartorial aspirations of Auric Goldfinger on pp.087-088 of Goldfinger:
Many unlikely people play golf, including people who are blind, who have only one arm, or even no legs, and people often wear bizarre clothes to the game. Other golfers don't think them odd, for there are no rules of appearance of dress at golf. That is one of its minor pleasures. But Goldfinger had made an attempt to look smart at golf and that is the only way of dressing that is incongruous on a links. Everything matched in a blaze of rust-coloured tweed from the buttoned 'golfer's cap' centered on the huge, flaming red hair, to the brilliantly polished, almost orange shoes. The plus-four suit was too well cut and the plus-fours themselves had been pressed down the sides. The stockings were of a matching heather mixture and had green garter tabs. It was as if Goldfinger had gone to his tailor and said, 'Dress me for golf -- you know, like they wear in Scotland.' Social errors made no impression on Bond, and for the matter of that he rarely noticed them. With Goldfinger it was different. Everything about the man had grated on Bond's teeth from the first moment he had seen him. The assertive blatancy of his clothes was just part of the malevolent animal magnetism that had affected Bond from the beginning.
One feels the need to note that Fleming specifically denies that Goldfinger -- ugly, grasping, uncouth, obsessed with gold -- is Jewish. That's good to know. Wouldn't want to think he's a stereotype or anything.
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Listening to: Josh Ritter - You Don't Make It Easy Babe (live)
via FoxyTunes

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