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The Law of the Quantum of Solace.
Dec. 1st, 2010 11:07 pmI was feeling in a James Bond mood tonight, but I knew that I didn't have the time to devote to a full-length adventure so I turned to the short story collection For Your Eyes Only for a quick fix. Since it'd been years, and since I was curious about the relationship of the story to the recent film, I settled on the vignette "Quantum of Solace."
It's an odd James Bond story, taking place as it does well after the adventure has concluded and Bond has found himself doing his duty at an insufferably boring dinner party. After the rest of the guests have left, the host offers to tell Bond a story that relates his [the host's] theory of the Law of the Quantum of Solace.
The quantum of solace is that small bit of human decency that always exists at the very least between two people who can tolerate one another. Once it is gone (once one of the two people has violated the law) they can no longer even be polite to one another, having passed even beyond hate into a state of emotional warfare. Violation of the law involves treating the person in question as if you didn't care whether they lived or died, and the storyteller reflects that more than an assault upon the ego it constitutes an irrevocable attack upon the sense of self-preservation that is integral to human well-being. As long as the quantum of solace remains, two people can recover from anything (fights, snubs, infidelity) to remain at least cordial, but if the quantum does not remain have mercy.
At the end of the tale Bond thanks his host, having been truly moved by the story. He reflects, for perhaps the only time in his life, on the fact that - compared with the crueler vagaries of human interaction - what he does for a living really isn't that dangerous.
Ian Fleming, much as I love him, was a pulp writer. But even a pulp writer can proffer a kernel of truth to the discerning reader. The Law of the Quantum of Solace may very well have been Fleming's singular kernel. Reading this tale, I felt as though I had made a great rediscovery. I highly recommend it.
It's an odd James Bond story, taking place as it does well after the adventure has concluded and Bond has found himself doing his duty at an insufferably boring dinner party. After the rest of the guests have left, the host offers to tell Bond a story that relates his [the host's] theory of the Law of the Quantum of Solace.
The quantum of solace is that small bit of human decency that always exists at the very least between two people who can tolerate one another. Once it is gone (once one of the two people has violated the law) they can no longer even be polite to one another, having passed even beyond hate into a state of emotional warfare. Violation of the law involves treating the person in question as if you didn't care whether they lived or died, and the storyteller reflects that more than an assault upon the ego it constitutes an irrevocable attack upon the sense of self-preservation that is integral to human well-being. As long as the quantum of solace remains, two people can recover from anything (fights, snubs, infidelity) to remain at least cordial, but if the quantum does not remain have mercy.
At the end of the tale Bond thanks his host, having been truly moved by the story. He reflects, for perhaps the only time in his life, on the fact that - compared with the crueler vagaries of human interaction - what he does for a living really isn't that dangerous.
Ian Fleming, much as I love him, was a pulp writer. But even a pulp writer can proffer a kernel of truth to the discerning reader. The Law of the Quantum of Solace may very well have been Fleming's singular kernel. Reading this tale, I felt as though I had made a great rediscovery. I highly recommend it.
