Michael Bond
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Since 1983 mystery fans have
enjoyed Michael Bond's series of detective comedies
featuring retired Sûreté member Monsieur Pamplemousse
and his dog Pommes Frites, and since 1958 children have
been delighting in Bond's books chronicling the very
funny adventures of Paddington Bear-one of the most
beloved children's characters of all time.
The
Monsieur Pamplemousse series is a unique blend of comedy
and mystery. As an inspector for the prestigious
restaurant rating directory Le Guide, Monsieur
Pamplemousse (along with Pommes Frites) travels around
the country sampling the finest cuisine and wines at the
best restaurants in France, while stumbling into one
hilarious mystery after another. Mr. Bond has recently
completed another novel, Monsieur Pamplemousse on
Probation. He spoke to us about his early writing
career, the inspiration behind his two most famous
characters, and the state of writing in
general.
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TSM: You've probably been asked
this many times, but how did you create
Paddington?
MB: Well, one morning I had a
blank sheet of paper in my typewriter, and, as I am sure
you know only too well, unless you put some words on it
nobody else is going to. I had bought my first wife a
toy bear the previous Christmas as a stocking filler and
because we lived near Paddington Station we called it
Paddington. I think the names of characters are
important because they conjure up an immediate picture,
and certainly to English ears, Paddington is a very safe
sounding name; solid and dependable. It was sitting on
the mantelpiece and to get my mind working I started
writing a few words about it. They caught my fancy, so I
wrote on, and by the end of the morning I had what
turned out to be the first chapter of a book. It wasn't
intended for any particular age group, which is probably
the ideal way to write a children's book. Most children
hate being written down to anyway, and provided the
meaning is clear within the context, they don't even
mind long words. I used to like long words myself when I
was a child, even if I did mispronounce them.
"Established" I thought of as "estuarated," and it still
comes back to me that way when I see it over a shop
doorway. I wrote the first book very quickly-a chapter a
day for eight days. As with all books in a series, the
first is comparatively easy because you go wherever your
fancy takes you. The ones that follow are often more
difficult because the parameters are set and it's too
late to change them. Paddington is very firmly set in
his particular surroundings in London. He's not the sort
of character who would go to the moon or do anything
adventurous like that.
TSM: Were you
surprised by Paddington's success?
MB:
Well, yes and no, and it certainly wasn't instant. The
book went the rounds of half a dozen publishers and it
was rejected for one reason or another, either because
they already had a bear character or it was the wrong
length or whatever. I think if you're an author and
something isn't right with what you've written there's a
little voice inside you which tells you so, and you
ignore it at your peril. Deep down I was very happy with
it, and even now I wouldn't change anything. The first
book-A Bear Called Paddington-did well in the sense that
it got on to one or two best seller lists and a
"recommended reading" list for schools. But with books
you are writing for a relatively small audience.
Generally speaking, however successful it is, the
audience is relatively small compared with television.
So it wasn't really until some years later when I
decided to try my hand at adapting it for the relatively
new medium that the series really took off. Suddenly,
instead of sales figures measured in tens of thousands,
you have an audience of millions. Then there is the fact
that because the cost of making animated films is so
high, there has to be a lot of merchandising (to use a
horrible word) to help pay for them, and that adds to
the general awareness. If you create a character who
lends himself to that kind of thing, although the books
remain the foundation stone, you become involved in many
other areas you probably hadn't even dreamed
of.
TSM: I remember reading one of your
books when I was a young boy, and I kept thinking
"Paddington"-what a great name. Then I grew up and read
Agatha Christie's 4:50 From Paddington and I thought to
myself, so that's where the name is from-it's from
Paddington Station.
MB: Yes, years ago I
had a letter from a small boy in America who said he was
so used to Paddington being the name of a bear it seemed
a funny name for a station.
TSM: So do you
think of the plot beforehand or does the plot sort of
happen as you go along?
MB: Usually with
the Monsieur Pamplemousse books it starts with a setting
or a situation and it develops as I go along. I'm very
fond of France, and compared with England it's much
bigger and being bounded by other countries more varied,
so there are always new areas to explore. I find that I
visit a place, maybe staying a week (to get the feel of
it) and doing research, and in that way ideas are
triggered. Not necessarily at the time, but often much
later. For instance, Monsieur Pamplemousse Stands Firm
came about some time after I'd visited a place called
Arcachon, which is on the west coast of France, near
Bordeaux. I had always avoided it because, looking on
the map, it's a very dull, flat area. Then, when I went
there, I actually fell in love with it. It's very
French, a major oyster growing area on the edge of a big
inland sea, and there were hardly any foreigners about.
One of the scenic features is that all along that part
of the coast there are enormous sand dunes, and just
outside Arcachon they have the biggest one in Europe. In
fact, if you try to walk up it, it takes about a quarter
of an hour to get to the top.
Anyway, we spent
about a week there, and when we came away I didn't
really have any ideas at all for a story. Then, about
six months later, the daily paper arrived and on the
front page there was a picture of that very dune. It was
a winter when all of Europe had suffered terrible gales
and the sand had shifted to reveal an old army tank
which had been there for, I suppose, about fifty years.
At the time I happened to be reading about the state of
Germany immediately after the war when people were
unearthing a lot of buried treasure and artworks which
had been looted by the Germans. I also read that a lot
of it had "disappeared" a second time, only to turn up
in America. So the two things came together in my mind
and out of it sprang a story which involved Monsieur Pamplemousse staying in Arcachon when some characters
turned up out of the blue hoping to retrieve their loot.
Wondering how they might pin-point the spot where it was
buried in the sand dune, I remembered that on the far
side of the inland sea there was a lighthouse which
could be used to take a bearing from the hotel where
they would be staying. Then more research revealed that
just after the war the original had been knocked down
and moved to a new site about a hundred yards away,
which of course they wouldn't know about, so straight
away there was a twist in the plot. Having started off
with no ideas at all and ended up with the bones of a
situation, I returned to Arcachon to take lots of
reference photographs, because however well you think
you know a place as soon as you begin to write about it
you realise how little remains in your memory. Were the
streets cobbled? What colour were the roof tiles? All
the little details that help to make a story
believable.
TSM: How did you create
Pamplemousse? Was he inspired by anyone you met or knew?
MB: I always find that I need something
tangible to focus on. I think if you have a clear
picture in your mind of what a character looks like you
start to build up a kind of mental dossier of how he or
she will react in a given situation. Plots should
develop through the character's reactions and mode of
behaviour and not the other way round. With Paddington
for instance, if I put him into, say, a tennis match,
but have no idea for a story, because I know him so well
the dialogue immediately starts to come to life, and one
idea triggers off another. I really modelled M.
Pamplemousse on an old French film star called Raimu. I
first saw him just after the war in a wonderful Marcel
Pagnol trilogy-Marius, Fanny and César-in which he
played the part of a bar owner in Marseilles. Afterwards
I went to see everything he was in. He always stayed in
my mind. I suppose I started writing detective fiction
largely because of my mother. She used to go down to the
local library every Friday and return with an armful of
mystery books, so I was brought up in a house where they
were part of the furniture. For that I shall always be
grateful.
TSM: My mother as well used to
love detective stories, whether it was Sherlock Holmes
or Arsène Lupin.
MB: Mine only read
English writers; Freeman Wills Croft and John Rhode were
her particular favourites as I remember. She liked the
gentleman detective type of stories, which were popular
at the time. She didn't care for the American ones
because she thought they were too violent. I really only
came across them for the first time when I was in the
forces. I went out to Canada when I was in the Air Force
to do my flying training and I discovered this whole new
world of Dashiell Hammett and Earle Stanley Gardner and
many others. They were wonderful. After the war I got
hooked on George Simenon and for many years read
everything he ever wrote. However, because humour is my
particular forte, when I came to take up the genre I
wanted a character who, although he was a loner like
Maigret, solved his crimes largely by accident rather
than design. Don't ask me why, but in the beginning
Monsieur Pamplemousse was going to be the last detective
in Paris who rode a bicycle. I even bought myself a
French racing machine to get the feel of the whole
thing. Then I discovered that the saddle was much harder
than I remembered as a boy and the hills had become much
steeper, so I gave up the idea. Also, I wanted get my
character outside Paris and I didn't, at the time, know
a great deal about French Police procedure.
The
idea remained in my mind for a number of years. From
time to time I took it out and dusted it, then put it
away again. Then one year my wife and I were on holiday
in France and we stayed at a hotel in the Rhône Valley
where the speciality of the chef was a chicken which had
been sewn up inside a pig's bladder along with other
things, before being cooked. When it was brought to the
table the maître d' cut the bladder and it fell open to
reveal the chicken. There was a lot of ceremony attached
to it all, and while I was watching I suddenly wondered
what would happen if instead of a chicken it was
someone's head. (Well, you have to think of something to
pass the time!)
TSM: Yes, I remember that
was the first M. Pamplemousse book. That was such a
surprise. It was very funny. Going back to your
mother-did she encourage you to write?
MB: No, but she certainly encouraged me
to read. When I was small I never went to bed without a
story. But I doubt if she ever pictured me writing for a
living. In fact, when I eventually gave up working for
the BBC in order to write full time, I think both my
parents were worried that I had given up a nice, safe
job for what sounded to them like a very precarious
existence.
But going back to M. Pamplemousse, the
other element that came about during that fateful meal
was that I decided my character wouldn't be a working
detective. Instead, I would make him an ex-member of the
Paris Sûreté who had blotted his copybook and been
forced to take early retirement. Since then he had
become an Inspector for Le Guide-the oldest and most
prestigious restaurant guide in France. In that way he
would be free to travel the length and breadth of the
country and would meet his adventures en route. Another
thing happened. The restaurant where we were eating had
a lovely non-descript black dog called Giankin, who kept
a watchful eye on everything that was going on, never
interfering but occasionally licking his lips in
approval. I decided a dog would make an ideal travelling
companion for Monsieur Pamplemousse, especially if it
was one with gourmet tendencies and could help pass
judgement on the food. And so Pommes Frites, a
bloodhound who also had to take early retirement from
the Paris Sûreté, was born.
TSM: Have you
brought any of your own characteristics to Pamplemousse?
For example your love of travel or your appreciation of
French cuisine and wines?
MB: Yes. And
the nice thing about it is that all three come under the
heading of legitimate research! Apart from that, like
me, Monsieur Pamplemousse is a Capricorn by birth. When
Capricorns set their sights on something, they don't
necessarily reach their goal in a hurry, but they are
determined to get there in the end, which is a useful
attribute for a detective to have. I suppose most
characters have something of the author in them,
although having said that I'm not like Paddington. He's
more what I would like to be. I think he has his life
very well organised.
TSM: Yes, I know.
What's great is that when Paddington goes somewhere he's
treated as a human being.
MB: He
certainly gets more respect than I do at times! I
sometimes wish I had his "hard stare." I think the
important thing about the stories is that nobody ever
says: "Oh gosh-a talking bear!" They totally accept him
at face value. If they didn't the whole thing would
collapse like a pricked balloon. When I first dabbled in
radio plays, I wrote one or two that were set in France
and usually had some young man staying in a village
where there would be a statue of a beautiful girl who
was rumoured to come alive for the night whenever there
was a full moon, which of course there always was . .
.They were mostly rejected on the grounds that "We like
the writing, but we don't do fantasy." The fact is that
all stories are fantasy. Monsieur Pamplemousse is
fantasy. A bear living as a human being in Notting Hill
Gate in London is fantasy in the extreme, but because
nobody in the stories every queries it or finds it all
strange it becomes acceptable and totally believable. If
an author believes in his characters that's half the
battle. If you don't believe in them yourself then no
one else is going to.
TSM: The
Pamplemousse stories are light-hearted. They don't
really have any violence. What do you think of the
mysteries that are being published today, where the
emphasis seems to be more on graphic violence than on
the mystery itself?
MB: I find that
certainly with some books it worries me from a technical
point of view, because so much of it seems to go
unpunished. The pages are often littered with dead
bodies. But I suppose we live in a violent age and sadly
one gets anaesthetised to it. I've recently discovered
Lawrence Block and although his books are often violent
it isn't gratuitous.
TSM: They're a
pleasure to read. All of the books are great mysteries
but how do you manage to tie the element of humour into
the mystery plot?
MB: Well, that's the
way I write. The humour creeps in, and I tend to look
for humorous situations. I wouldn't be capable of
writing a serious book, although in the field of
detective/mystery writing humorous books are in the
minority. But then, there are so many different
categories. Last year I was in a big store in Paris and
the book department had mounted a display-I think there
were about twenty five different tables-ranging from
historical detective, police detective, private eye, an
enormous range of detective stories within the genre,
but not many humorous ones.
TSM: I think
that very few writers can successfully combine humour
and mystery.
MB: I've just finished
reading one-I'm afraid I can't remember the writer's
name-where Groucho Marx is the detective. I came across
it by chance and it's really very good.
TSM: In your writing career is there
anything which you would have liked to have written or
which you would like to write in the future which you
have not yet written?
MB: Paddington has
done most things, but he has yet to be involved in a
feature film-and that may well happen. I have a number
of children's books, Paddington and others in the
pipeline. As for Monsieur Pamplemousse-I would certainly
like to carry on with him for a while. You get very fond
of your own characters, you know. They become part of
your life.
TSM: Finally-your children-did
they grow up reading Paddington Bear?
MB:
My daughter, Karen, was born the same year, almost the
same month, that the first Paddington book came out, so
she was quite literally brought up with it. In fact, she
thought for some time that I wrote a book and sent it
off, then the publisher sent me a printed version and
that was the end of it. She came home very excited one
day and said: "Daddy, I've seen one of your books in a
shop and it's the same as mine!" The concept of numbers
is hard to grasp when you are small. I have three
grandchildren now. My grandson, he's my best . . .
TSM: ... Fan?
MB: Not just
fan-he's a salesman. If he goes into a supermarket, he
goes straight up to the cashier and says: "My
grandfather writes books about Paddington Bear." So he's
very useful. I'm encouraging him to do that.
TSM: You should have him try to sell
Pamplemousse as well.
MB: I'm working up
to that!
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