"Octopussy": a Bond Short Story Quiz

Answer: For Your Eyes Only

The book "Octopussy and The Living Daylights" (1966) was the fourteenth and last James Bond book written by Ian Fleming, though published two years after his death by Jonathan Cape. It originally contained two short stories, "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights," unsurprisingly! "Octopussy" was serialized in "The Daily Express" a year before its book publication, and "The Living Daylights" in "The Sunday Times" in 1962. In subsequent editions of "Octopussy and The Living Daylights", two other short stories, previously serialized in two different newspapers in 1963, have been included: "The Property of a Lady" and "007 in New York" (the last not added until 2002 by Penguin Books). Even with these additions, the book remains under 100 pages long. By convention the "The" is capitalized because the collection's title is a combination of the first two short stories.

"For Your Eyes Only" was first published in a collection of the same name in 1960. It has never been published as a part of the "Octopussy" anthology.

Answer: False

The two could hardly be more different. In the 1983 film adaptation of "Octopussy", starring Roger Moore as James Bond, the plot of the 1965 short story "Octopussy" served merely as the backstory for the family of a smuggler named Octavia Charlotte "Octopussy" Smythe (played by Maud Adams).

The film also borrowed plot elements from another story published in Fleming's short story collection "Octopussy and The Living Daylights" (1966), namely "The Property of a Lady."

Answer: An octopus

The eponymous creature is in fact the obvious--an octopus! Major Dexter Smythe, a retiree and widower living in Jamaica, occasionally refers to it as "Pussy" for short, as he tries to befriend it. Fleming gives us no clues as to the sex of the octopus, but Smythe is awfully fond of the beastie and feeds it daily, hoping one day to "shake hands". (As it turns out, this longing foreshadows tragedy.)

Answer: Major Dexter Smythe's

Major Smythe is a retired intelligence officer of the Miscellaneous Objectives Bureau (MOB). Fleming describes Major Smythe as a melancholic drunk who had taken to spending hours each day among his "people"--the fish and crustaceans populating the lagoon near his home in Jamaica.

Almost the entirety of "Octopussy" is a flashback. The story opens with Smythe feeding the eponymous octopus at his underwater lair. Then Smythe recollects the events of that morning, when James Bond arrived. In fact, there is a double flashback: during Bond's interrogation, the events of Major Smythe's wrongdoings are revealed before we return to the conversation between Bond and Smythe, and then back to the lagoon with Octopussy and the other "people".

Bond appears primarily as a terse memory; for a Bond story there is very little of Bond, as the villain is the central character, and not wholly unsympathetic despite his crimes. Trudi Oberhauser does not appear in the short story, though she becomes quite fleshed out (no pun intended) in the rather loose comic strip adaptation that appeared in 1966 in "The Daily Express". We never get any insight into what Octopussy is thinking.

Answer: A scorpion fish

Ian Fleming notes the scorpion fish had "erectile dorsal fins, the first few of which, acting on contact like hypodermic needles, are fed by poison glands containing enough tetrodotoxin to kill a man if they merely graze him..."! The Major was conducting an experiment on behalf of a man referred to as "Bengry at the Institute". Smythe sought to spear a scorpion fish and feed it to Octopussy, to see whether it would spurn the fish, or whether it would consume it, and survive. "Would the octopus consume the belly and leave the spines? Would it eat the lot, and if so, would it suffer from the poison?"

Answer: The assassination of Hans Oberhauser

James Bond revealed that the body of a ski instructor and mountain guide named Hans Oberhauser was discovered in the mountains after a small glacier had melted. He was last seen in a motor vehicle with Major Dexter Smythe. Some years before, Mary Smythe had overdosed on sleeping pills, which she had taken "to teach [her husband] a lesson" after the couple had quarreled (alas, she had miscalculated the dosage).

The housekeeper was alive and well, and so was Octopussy, the hungry but elusive wild octopus of whom Smythe was so very fond.

Answer: Tricked the victim into guiding him through a mountain, then shot him/her

Smythe pretended to be on official business when he took Hans Oberhauser from his home. After some conversation in the car, Smythe told Oberhauser that he was going to set him free, but wouldn't they like to do some mountain climbing first? It would pass the day, and Smythe would claim to his commander that he had spent the day interrogating Oberhauser.

The relieved Austrian agreed, and guided Smythe through some tricky slopes. At the right moment, Smythe fired two bullets into the poor man's head.

Answer: Greed

While stationed in Austria near the end of World War II, Major Smythe had discovered maps to a Nazi gold treasure buried in the mountains. He murdered Oberhauser, the man who had guided him through the summits, and threw his body into a fissure, so as to prevent any witness to the theft.

The Major scraped off the Nazi bank's marks, and buried the gold elsewhere for retrieval later. After retiring, Smythe used the gold to finance a luxurious lifestyle for his wife and himself in Jamaica.

Answer: Bond's former ski instructor

After admitting to killing Hans Oberhauser in cold blood, the Major wondered why Bond had come all the way to Jamaica to confront him, when a phone call would have sufficed. Bond revealed that he had requested the case personally because Oberhauser "had taught me to ski before the war, when I was in my teens." He described Oberhauser as a "wonderful man" and a "father figure".

Then Bond left the Major with a warning that he would be arrested within a week -- in hopes that the major would commit suicide like a gentleman.

Answer: No

Some online sources (and the 1983 film) characterize the Major Smythe's death as suicide. In fact, however, Fleming makes it clear that Smythe was looking forward to his day in court, and that his death was accidental. After Bond left, the Major began fantasizing how smart he would look, wearing his uniform in the dock.

But knowing his time in Jamaica would end soon, he was determined to find out once and for all whether Octopussy could eat a scorpion fish and avoid the poisonous barbs. Despite heart pains, Smythe successfully speared the fish, but in the process had been stung. Realizing his death was imminent, he decided his last act would be to complete his experiment. "Oh Pussy, my Pussy, this is the last meal you'll get." As Smythe thrust the spear into the octopus's lair, Octopussy ignored the bait and grabbed the old man's arm, and "terrible realization came to Major Smythe." He stabbed at the beast but was pulled under.

When fishermen found the body, the English-language papers in Jamaica printed the story merely as a drowning--"so as not to frighten the tourists." Bond assumed it was suicide when he read the news. "It is only from the notes of Dr. Greaves, who performed the autopsy," writes Fleming, "that it has been possible to construct some kind of a postscript to the bizarre and pathetic end of a once valuable officer of the Secret Service."