FLEMING, Ian.
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Manuscript notebook, including material used in You Only Live Twice. One of the very last pieces of significant Fleming manuscript material outside the Lilly Library's Fleming collection. Fleming made these notes during his visit to Japan in 1961. He returned to Japan with the express purpose of making a trip that he could funnel into a Bond story. He wrote to his friend Richard Hughes in advance with a detailed itinerary listing all the things they would need to see for the novel: "After a couple of days in Tokyo, I would like us to take the most luxurious modern train down south to the inland sea... I would also like to see pearl girls diving - my heroine will be a beautiful girl who has learned to speak English working on an underwater film in Hollywood - and hot baths, a live volcano for suicides, and any terrifying manifestation of the horrific Japan" (Pearson). Fleming kept this notebook while jaunting around the hottest spots of Japan with Hughes. Along with hotel and restaurant addresses, phone numbers, and simple Japanese phrases, the notebook contains several longer prose passages, including several that would eventually form the basis of episodes in You Only Live Twice. Other passages include philosophical jottings on the people and culture of Japan: "How many of one's own nationals want to live in another country & how many of that country want to live in yours. Moshimosh = hello! Only the good can be bad - only the believer can blaspheme - only the black can be w
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