Bond Reshaken: My review of Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Redland
NYCPosts: 19MI6 Agent
Greetings AJB. I used to post here when I was in 4th and 5th grade under the name of Jaws. Somehow, I got banned, could never figure out why, and in the meantime, aged considerably (now a collegiate senior) and felt ready to rejoin polite society. Like many other classic Bond fans, I was thrilled with Skyfall and it helped to re-ignite my dormant passion for the character. With its arrival on home video, I decided to revisit the other 22 Bond films and the 14 Ian Fleming novels that I enjoyed so much in my early to mid-teenage years. You can find these reviews on my blog under the Bond Reshaken tag here:
Bond Reshaken
So far there are only two posts. The oldest is my manifesto, and quick review of the first four films I watched (I am doing my marathon in reverse order, starting with Quantum, heading to Dr. No, and finishing with Skyfall). The second, more recent post is a review of Casino Royale, which I am pasting here for your convenience:
Bond Reshaken: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
This was my second or third third time reading the book (certainly the first time since I was a young teenager) and I was enthralled for every single spine-tingling page. Fleming may have wanted Bond to be a blunt instrument, but a real human being shows through the grim mask. It is possibly Fleming’s hidden personality, subversive tendencies, subconscious desires, and personal affiliations that come to light in his characterization of James Bond. It says a lot about Fleming when you hear Bond’s thoughts on Vesper: “she was profoundly, excitingly sensual […] the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.” Despite this, Bond’s sadistic tendencies feel incredibly natural and instinctual, and he is aware and conditioned enough to be occasionally embarrassed by them and his innate misogyny. He is conflicted about being a spy, being a chauvinist, being in danger…being James Bond.
The last chapters of the book, Vesper and Bond’s time relaxing and recovering together, are an allegorical tale of a couple’s breakup, something I couldn’t appreciate when I last read the book. Bond knows this relationship (and romantic relationships in general) are a doomed prospect for him, and several of his internal monologues anticipate and foreshadow these chapters with crushing inevitability. The very natural and genuine peaks and valleys of passion, ennui, love, and despair are remarkably identifiable, as is his conflicted heartbreak. There is a fair amount of self-deception when Bond declares, “The bitch is dead now,” as if he has something prove about his own masculinity…as if he doesn’t actually feel heartbroken. At the end he resolves to reassume his mask, and not retire as planned. He’s too afraid to leave himself that exposed ever again, and so he remains 007. His gruff pomposity and machismo belie a wounded man, something of an infant in his surroundings, afraid to ever let his guard down again.
The rest of the book: the action, the baccarat, the espionage are all as thrilling and captivating as I remembered. Fleming’s pacing and structure are built for swift page-turnery and the chapters are a smooth and dry cocktail-sized length. Speaking of, I tried a Vesper for the first time while reading this book. Unlike Bond, I’ll be more than willing to drink it again.
Grade: A+
I hope you enjoyed or got something out of my writings so far. As I add more posts to this blog, whether on the novels, films, theme tunes, etc, I will post about them in their respective forums. Thank you!
Bond Reshaken
So far there are only two posts. The oldest is my manifesto, and quick review of the first four films I watched (I am doing my marathon in reverse order, starting with Quantum, heading to Dr. No, and finishing with Skyfall). The second, more recent post is a review of Casino Royale, which I am pasting here for your convenience:
Bond Reshaken: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
This was my second or third third time reading the book (certainly the first time since I was a young teenager) and I was enthralled for every single spine-tingling page. Fleming may have wanted Bond to be a blunt instrument, but a real human being shows through the grim mask. It is possibly Fleming’s hidden personality, subversive tendencies, subconscious desires, and personal affiliations that come to light in his characterization of James Bond. It says a lot about Fleming when you hear Bond’s thoughts on Vesper: “she was profoundly, excitingly sensual […] the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.” Despite this, Bond’s sadistic tendencies feel incredibly natural and instinctual, and he is aware and conditioned enough to be occasionally embarrassed by them and his innate misogyny. He is conflicted about being a spy, being a chauvinist, being in danger…being James Bond.
The last chapters of the book, Vesper and Bond’s time relaxing and recovering together, are an allegorical tale of a couple’s breakup, something I couldn’t appreciate when I last read the book. Bond knows this relationship (and romantic relationships in general) are a doomed prospect for him, and several of his internal monologues anticipate and foreshadow these chapters with crushing inevitability. The very natural and genuine peaks and valleys of passion, ennui, love, and despair are remarkably identifiable, as is his conflicted heartbreak. There is a fair amount of self-deception when Bond declares, “The bitch is dead now,” as if he has something prove about his own masculinity…as if he doesn’t actually feel heartbroken. At the end he resolves to reassume his mask, and not retire as planned. He’s too afraid to leave himself that exposed ever again, and so he remains 007. His gruff pomposity and machismo belie a wounded man, something of an infant in his surroundings, afraid to ever let his guard down again.
The rest of the book: the action, the baccarat, the espionage are all as thrilling and captivating as I remembered. Fleming’s pacing and structure are built for swift page-turnery and the chapters are a smooth and dry cocktail-sized length. Speaking of, I tried a Vesper for the first time while reading this book. Unlike Bond, I’ll be more than willing to drink it again.
Grade: A+
I hope you enjoyed or got something out of my writings so far. As I add more posts to this blog, whether on the novels, films, theme tunes, etc, I will post about them in their respective forums. Thank you!
The bitch is dead now.
Comments
True, though Bond is also colder and more of a blunt instrument here than in the other books. And the last line shows the mask firmly adhering to his face, after it had nearly fallen off during his courtship of Vesper.
A good point. I've read reactions from lots of readers (especially on Goodreads) who complain about Bond's misogyny without actually thinking about where it comes from or how it's used by the author.
This is something lost in the movie version (which was a very good Bond film but adulterated every big set-piece in the book: poker instead of baccarat, a lightened torture scene, Vesper's death being turned into a mini-action movie, entirely cutting Bond's discourse on evil).
I'm not sure about that. Bond goes in pretty naive and stays that way up to the end.
That's a compelling way of interpreting the end, though I think Bond's reactions have more to do with his own personal humiliation and hurt professional pride (realizing he's been "playing red indians"). If Bond feels heartbreak, it's quickly suppressed. Fleming tells us:
"He saw her now only as a spy. Their love and his grief were relegated to the boxroom of his mind. Later, perhaps, they would be dragged out, dispassionately examined, and then bitterly thrust back with other sentimental baggage he would rather forget. Now he could only think of her treachery to the service and to her country and of the damage it had done."
True to form, Bond doesn't bother thinking of Vesper again until Goldfinger and OHMSS.
I haven't tried it myself. When Fleming did, he said it was unpalatable. Reaction elsewhere has been mixed--Kingsley Amis said adding the Kina Lillett was a mistake, while Simon Raven said the drink was delicious. (I'll be posting Raven's review soon.)
As for his trepidation about romantic entanglements, read this excerpt:
"With most women his manner was a mixture of taciturnity and passion. The lengthy approaches to a seduction bored him almost as much as the subsequent mess of disentanglement. He found something grisly in the inevitability of the pattern of each affair. The conventional parabola—sentiment, the touch of the hand, the kiss, the passionate kiss, the feel of the body, the climax in the bed, then more bed, then less bed, then the boredom, the tears and the final bitterness—was to him shameful and hypocritical. Even more he shunned the mise en scène for each of these acts in the play—the meeting at a party, the restaurant, the taxi, his flat, her flat, then the week-end by the sea, then the flats again, then the furtive alibis and the final angry farewell on some doorstep in the rain.”
This is the break-up he has with Vesper, except hers is the thriller novel version. The hypothetical one here is the authentic Fleming one. Bond and Fleming have parallel heartbreaks. Bond's involve Russian double agents, Fleming's are as relatable and hopelessly mundane as they come. This was one of a couple of moments (can't find the other at present), where I felt Bond's thoughts foreshadowed his hopeless going through the motions with Vesper. The last time Bond and Vesper have sex, there's something heartbreaking about it. Those last nostalgic rungs Bond grasps on to in order to have two last hours of the happy passion after so many days of boredom, fatigue, and mistrust. The way Vesper ends the relationship at the end of the penultimate chapter could just as well have led to her leaving the next morning without a trace if this were a romance novel or indeed, if this were a real couple's relationship.
Whoever Vesper was to Fleming, he was in love with her, and treated her in a parallel way to how Bond treats her. Perhaps, Fleming wishes he could bottle it up as much as Bond does...instead of writing a book about it.
Live and Let Die is a page-turner, but not with the same amount of success as its predecessor, Casino Royale. The Bond formula that grew into the same formula for the films is at work for the first time: a sprawling narrative, first hints of gadgetry, larger-than-life villains, and damsels in distress. The psychology of Bond falls to the wayside most of the time, which is a bit of a shame, as this book operates as more of an out-and-out thriller than as a character study.
Fortunately, it IS thrilling, with succinct and readable imagery detailing the gunfights, octopus battle, and other complicated and fast action scenes. These scenes are the highlights of the book. Fleming spends a lot of time giving background information on marine biology, Voodoo, NYC, the trains, etc. proving his expertise in many fields. Sometimes these segments drag and feel like overkill. He often over-prepares the reader for what is to come, giving full background detail about relatively trivial details. Sometimes these segments are less easily readable, so they require a brow-furrowing second pass for speed-readers like me, something that never happened in Casino Royale. The book picks up considerably when Bond and Felix get caught in Harlem, and fortunately it keeps a good pace all the way to the end.
Speaking of Harlem, the first act of the book is undeniably racist. Not surprising given the time, and environment, but it’s still impossible to forgive. Bond, M, Leiter, and Solitaire all have moments of racism that really reduce any chance of likability, while all African-American characters (less our main villain) are written in a misspelled way, Fleming’s attempt at a misguided form of dialect. The entire enterprise is cringeworthy and outdated, like when your Grandma calls any Asian “oriental” or even “chink.” As much as I enjoyed the book and had fun re-reading it, I can’t ignore this aspect which negatively affects how it comes off. This on top of some intellectual backpedaling from the genius of Casino Royale are my two main criticisms. On the plus side, Fleming treads the new waters (often literally) of the legendary Bond action set piece brilliantly, while maintaining the down-to-earth quality of such Bond films as For Your Eyes Only and Licence To Kill (both of which faithfully borrowed elements from the novel).
Another of my favorite elements in the novel is the establishment of Bond’s favorite male friendships. His reaction to hearing from Strangways that Felix was going to survive is a truly touching moment, where he shows humanity and compassion. The Bond/Quarrel relationship also established, and gives us at least one non-white hero to root for. Bond’s inner monologue on the plane about life and death is another particular highlight.
Grade: B+
Moonraker is a colorful novel with a plethora of memorable moments, though with a slight lack of sweep and focus. Fortunately, all of this book’s faults feel more like speed bumps than car crashes.
The book’s highly-praised opening section, “Monday,” gives readers a totally new color to their hero (something we’d get to see more of, especially in short stories). This small novella of an opening act features our first real glimpse at the Service and with it, Moneypenny, Lil, Tanner, etc. Additionally, M gets a lot of time in the spotlight, and his personality shines through. Scenes of Bond bored or aimless in his office, unlike any moment in film Bond, are particularly real. Fleming continues fleshing out the humanity of his lead character, with shades of ennui and vulnerability. The scenes at Blades where Bond and M meet our villain Drax are exceptionally well-written. Unfortunately, I have no idea how bridge is played, and the book assumes I have at least some idea (unlike in Casino Royale, there is no how-to scene). I can’t really fault the book for this assumption, but it was hard to get totally excited when I wasn’t sure what was happening.
This first act sets up character and mood, but doesn’t really relate so much to the rest of the story, as the reason for Bond and Drax meeting for a second time is ultimately unrelated to their card game. The structure doesn’t feel faulty at all. This is the longest book so far, and the first to be written in separately named parts, and the section is natural.
The essence of the caper provides a lot of wonderment from the reader, but far too much from Bond. Fleming is a bit lazy here, and it almost seems as if he realizes how complicated his own story is. There are an overwhelming and unprecedented amount of passages that consist entirely of hypothetical questions about the mystery from Bond’s inner monologue. It’s a very sloppy way to sum up what details are still unknown before each cliffhanger, but it seems forced and happens far too often. It’s the only time Fleming has felt at all amateurish to me. There is also a decent amount of impenetrable techno-babble (knowing Fleming, it was probably accurate) that doesn’t really help anything, but instead makes the speed come to a halt. That leads me to the biggest issue, the speed. The book is slow, despite taking place over five days. As written, it would make a fantastic film, but Fleming is having a hard time transitioning from the neat and compact first two novels to his sprawling later ones.
The book’s content and characters are very strong, with Bond’s relationships with Drax and Gala being particularly fascinating. Maybe it’s because we’ve had the Bond books and films in our head since then, but Drax’s reveal as being a super villain isn’t very surprising. There are a few unconvincing red herrings, so the reader must assume either there is no villain, or it is Drax. Despite this lack of surprise, however, I love the character, and he is probably the most enjoyable villain so far, certainly the most fleshed out. Bond and Gala have a very natural relationship and their shared pains during the violence of the last act. The last three chapter of the book is beautifully written, with the last three pages being remarkably soul-crushing, more powerful and relatable than anything in Bond yet. The BBC news cast ending of the penultimate chapter is one of the most horrifying moments in any book I’ve ever read. A truly spectacular ending, which does all it can to counter the books other faults. It’s a great book; it’s hard not for it to be. It has different flaws than Live and Let Die, but they are probably about equal in severity. Despite this, the novel finds us in a more mature place with the character and the author, and the forward trajectory of the series is optimistically assured.
Grade: B+
Bond Reshaken: Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming
At face value, Diamonds Are Forever is another page-turning romp from Mr. Fleming, but under the surface, it is another sublime chapter of the ongoing character study of Ian Fleming’s mirror image: James Bond.
Diamonds presents a caper that isn’t much of what one would a suspect of a Bond story. Obviously, the novel is a product of Fleming’s fascination and concurrent research in Diamond smuggling (he wrote a non-fiction book on the subject). The opening exposition in London takes a while to get going, but the pace comes with Fleming’s style, especially in these earlier novels. When Bond meets Tiffany Case, we are instantly reminded of Vesper via ”La Vie en Rose,” the first of many fine bits of series continuity. Tiffany is a fascinating and realistic character, and Bond’s feelings for her are warranted. Tiffany opens new things in Bond and changes him in this novel. Their romance contains moments both bitter and sweet, but always fruitful. Their scenes, some taking up entire chapters, are some of the most enjoyable. The romance in the novels has been, on the whole, the thing I’ve appreciating most in revisiting them (see the quotes I’ve been posting on my blog).
Bond also gets to work with Felix again, whose first appearance in the book brought a massive smile to my face (it’s been so long since I read this novel, I didn’t remember a thing about it; everything is a surprise). Their moments together are very endearing and, like in Live and Let Die, the way Bond describes him or thinks about them is colored with an unprecedented affection. There is true love for Felix coming from Bond.
The locales and flavors of Diamonds are also exciting. From the scene at the Sarasota mud baths, to the moments in London and Manhattan; from to the sweltering deserts of Africa, to the luxury of Las Vegas. Bond’s flight from London to NYC is one of my favorite scenes, reminiscent of Bond’s midair inner monologue in Live and Let Die. The horse racing episode is a little exhausting and over-detailed, but it doesn’t bog down too much.
Bond does feel lost in this novel. Lost in a sea of minor villains (comparative to, say, Hugo Drax) in constant rotation and pushed and pulled by his author. After the blackjack scene, Bond feels fed up with being pushed and pulled by the Spangs’ machinations and decides to take the reigns. The moment felt like Fleming realized he had to get out of this plot: Bond is told what to do by gangsters and he does it in order to gain favor. Fleming needed to take initiative and do something…anything. Bond’s inner monologue right before the roulette scene feels like a cry from the author that says “Alright, Ian, let’s actually have our protagonist move the plot for a change.” It’s a fun moment that calls out the books main weakness: Bond doesn’t do so much besides what he’s told.
The action scenes are fun, especially the darker moments aboard the Queen Elizabeth. None of the villains are particularly fleshed-out enough to have memorable personalities, but they will be memorable to Bond due to the ruthless way in which they were dispatched. Bond even tallies the death count at the end of the novel. These are the coldest kills of the series so far, and they will weigh heavily in Bond’s mind. In this story, our hero discovers that, other than diamonds, only death is forever. Love and life are temporary.
Grade: A-
Rank:
1. Casino Royale
2. Diamonds Are Forever
3. Moonraker
4. Live and Let Die
From Russia With Love was the first Bond novel I read, back in 5th grade. Back then, there was no in print copy of the book that was easily found, and I had to get a decades old copy through an inter-library loan. It felt like a holy grail. Reading it now, I can’t even believe I got through it, understood it, enjoyed it, etc. at that age, though I must have because I started to remember my thoughts as a 10-year-old as the novel’s all-too familiar images flew through my mind. At the same time, I remembered the 13-year-old version of myself, reading my own, recently-published, copy of the book. Having left the book dormant for that long, I was pleased to find that it was still as thrilling and intriguing as I remembered.
FRWL is the longest Bond novel and is split into two parts. The entirety of the first part is a masterstroke, slowly revealing the machine engineered to bring about Bond’s demise. Grant, Klebb, Kronsteen, and Tania get fleshed out and consistently demand the audience’s attention. Fleming takes his time, giving us the darkly hilarious scenes in SMERSH’s secret conference room: a tour de force of plot set-up and catty one-upmanship between wonderfully human characters that we do not see again. “Villain conference" scenes in the Bond films never reached this level of realism and detail, and never gave any character who wasn’t integral to the story any personality.
These opening chapters are wonderful, but the excitement can’t really last. We know the entire plot before Bond does, and Bond spends much of his first chunk of the novel asking questions, many of which the reader knows the answers to. Fortunately, to bid our time, Kerim passes the time with Bond (Fleming using the term “passing time" to head these passages), eating and drinking with him, taking him to a gypsy camp, bringing him along to kill Krilencu (these passages are so close to the film version, which certainly aids in my memory of the novel). Bond, like in Diamonds, is tired of waiting, and right where I started to get bored (we were practically two-thirds into the novel and nothing had happened to/with Bond), Tania shows up in one of my favorite cliffhangers of the novels so far. From here, the novel swiftly moves to the climax and the shocking ending.
After the under-written villains of DAF, it’s nice to have such memorable and detailed characters peppered in the adventure. Kerim is a fantastic foil to Bond and Tania, while not being revolutionary in approach, is a fine companion for Bond and an intriguing cog in SMERSH’s wheel of death. Bonus points for an appearance by Mathis, now heading the Deuxième. The only real drawback is the intermittent eventfulness in the second third, despite the colorful locales and characters. After taking his time with the first third, the book needs a jolt, and there is just more waiting around from our hero. Fleming heads on his forward trajectory, deeply exploring previously trodden ground. We find a lot more insight into the mind of our hero and more shades of his homelife. We have another philosophical plane ride, and another woman who believes Bond can rescue her from the hand of the enemy (Tiffany and Solitaire worked for the enemy; Vesper did and was a double; Gala was a double who worked for our villain). The repetition of themes doesn’t come off as lazy or uncreative if we think about it psychoanalytically. Bond (read: Fleming) is trapped in these cycles, doomed to repeat them. The only escape is death. Fleming almost delivers Bond from his purgatory, but Bond is doomed to face another mission.
Grade: A
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Bond Reshaken: Doctor No by Ian Fleming
Doctor No is an unquestionably familiar book. The first of the Flemings books to be adapted for the classic EON series, it has been represented rather faithfully in its film version. One of the difficult parts for me in reviewing either comes in remembering which details occurred in which version. I have often said of Kafka and Welles and their dual versions of the Trial, “Both are incomplete. Both need each other and understand each other. They both resound as a complete work of mutual and complementary agreement." This isn’t quite the same in that both Doctor No the book and the film work on their own, but their complementary natures make them seem just two versions of the same yarn. One wishes they could cherry pick their favorite patches from each version into their own. For the films after Goldfinger, adherence to the book isn’t really of importance. These first three films, which also appear consecutively (but in a shifted order) in Fleming’s books, are closest to their sources.
From Russia With Love as a novel is clearly superior to its already masterful film. There is not much missing from the adaptation that one would want to include except for the interpretations of the actors, director, designers, composer, etc., which have proven to be of unsurpassable quality. Fleming considered ending Bond at the end of FRWL, but chose to keep him alive to die another day. After the complexity of the Cold War intrigue in FRWL, a novel which showed our villains retaliating for the devastation caused by bond in the novels previous, Fleming takes something of a step back for Doctor No. The novel is, simply, less big.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The novel is a good palate cleanser, and gets us back to basis. Compared to the incredibly long set-up chapters of FRWL, we get a quick “pre-titles sequence" and brief from M. It feels just like a Bond film. Bond gets his gun swapped and the recap some of the shenanigans from FRWL, and decide to send Bond on an easy mission. Fleming even keeps the airliner material brief (usually a moment to wax philosophical on death) and gets us right to Bond’s meeting with Quarrel. Doctor No coming after Live and Let Die makes Quarrel work so much better in the book than he does in the film (the film of LALD fills his shoes with “Quarrel, Jr."). Quarrel is irascible and hilarious, just short of being a caricature, but treated with love from Fleming and Bond all the same. What the book really misses that the film has is a second act. There’s a nice cliffhanger involved Miss Taro but it’s never picked up again. The second act, before Bond heads to Crab Key, in the film keeps the tension mounting as we prepare to meet Doctor No. Bond’s affair with Taro and encounter with Dent were two character defining moments for Connery, so perhaps given that the novel is already using an established protagonist, Fleming can keep going. I have the benefit of hindsight, but even objectively the pacing of the novel seems a little off, in that we arrive at the final location a third of the way into the novel (unusual for any Bond novel or film). The second act mainly consists of the centipede scene, which is one of the most horrifying pieces of prose I’ve ever read and Fleming gets a prize for making my skin crawl.
Arriving on Crab Key, we meet Honey who is every bit as beautiful as Ursula Andress except with much less clothing and a crooked nose (I can see why a major motion picture would do without both of those elements). Bond’s relationship with her is one of the more interesting ones, in that his instinct is to act more as a guardian to her. Much of this must come from condescension but he also feels a loving ability to want to nurture and protect. She is such a thing of nature that he can’t tarnish it.
Doctor No’s big plan is far less horrifying than the one in the 1962 film. Basically it’s all about bird poop. Fortunately, the character is still as grim and his dinner scene with Bond is one of my favorite of its category (verbal showdowns between Bond and the heavies are always one of my favorite sections of any novel). We get a lot of what we’re about to see again in Goldfinger, structurally, by way of the torture scenes. Fleming was obsessed with torture, with many explicit scenes of Bond enduring intense pain and managing to resist (usually until he faints). The climax is fun, albeit a little rushed, but the final scenes with Honey and Bond contain a refreshing role reversal: the dominating girl who seduces and overtakes Bond.
Doctor No has a lot of charms but seems to be missing something. Maybe the spend too much of the middle third of the book in Crab Key. Maybe too much of that middle third is spent doing not much of anything (Doctor No and the Deathly Hallows). There is a bit of a structural imbalance to this book that makes it feel a bit underwhelming after the last three books which were real doozies (especially in terms of scope). A book that could be a classic if it wasn’t so underwritten. It’s an easy and rewarding read, however, free of needless expository, background, or intense detail in things Fleming knew a lot about. It’s closer to something like Live and Let Die than any of the other books so far, but it deals with some great ideas and continues to develop our character, keeping him distinct from his cinematic counterpart, even if the plot remains the same.
Grade: B+
1. Casino Royale
2. From Russia With Love
3. Diamonds Are Forever
4. Moonraker
5. Doctor No
6. Live and Let Die
Next: Goldfinger
Goldfinger follows an important tradition established in FRWL and Doctor No: having a bizarre and lopsided structure. Fleming's issue with pacing seems to come to a head here. He splits the book into three parts (first time since Moonraker) and in the setup ("Happenstance," "Coincidence," "Enemy Action") it's got a built in and tremendous set-up. Not until the final third of the book do we actual have clear conflict with our villain. The film of Goldfinger reaches this point (Goldfinger capturing Bond snooping around) at around the beginning of act II. In the book, two acts worth of conflict and resolution are crammed into the all too swift final chapters.
As was true with Doctor No, the second act (or lack thereof) becomes the weak part. The first act of this book operates as a fantastic short story (in fact Fleming originally developed it as such), and I wouldn't change a thing about it. Bond gets to ponder murder and mortality, we have a repeat character from Casino Royale, and the clever comeuppance of Goldfinger. Our second act isn't meandering, and is full of fun details. I think the very long description of Bond and Goldfinger's golf game would totally lose the uninitiated. In fact, I found myself confused with some of Fleming's terminology and I am a golfer. I appreciate Fleming's effort to challenge his audience (or maybe he assumes we know too much), but the gold game simply runs too long with too much specific (especially when the stakes are relatively low). It has been a long while since I have posted any reviews and I blame the few weeks I spent stuck in this section of the book, too tired to continue.
But I said "fun details," didn't I? Bond's visit to Goldfinger's house, his continued pursuit, encounters with Tilly, all keep the reader engaged, but because hero barely catches up to villain, we're still asking ourselves the same questions that M asked Bond to answer in his original briefing. The plot doesn't really move until the end of the penultimate chapter of Part II when Bond's contact helps Bond put together pieces of the puzzle, discovering Goldfinger's plot. Soon enough he is captured and now that the tension between Bond and Goldfinger has exploded, we get that classic Fleming Bond/Villain dialogue. We also get a pretty classic torture scene. It's Fleming, what did you expect?
After the torture, we have a wonderful scene where Bond believes he is passing into the afterlife and it takes the form of an airline flight. Any one who has been paying attention to the series so far will know that Bond has had contemplations of life and mortality almost every time he flies or thinks about flying. Bond hears, "This is your captain speaking" and comments parenthetically "Well, well. Who was this? Saint Peter?" He asks himself what it would be like when his girlfriends met each other, and dryly discusses the practicality and geography of the afterlife. Eventually it is discovered that he was just flirting with consciousness as Goldfinger transported him back to America, but it is so wonderfully poignant and consistent with the character that the catatonic Bond latched on to the sounds of commercial aviation and associated it with death.
The final chapters are of course the meat of the story and are exciting (though I think they move much too fast...or maybe I read it too quickly). The Hoods Congress feels like the alternate version of the SMERSH conference in FRWL, and is all the better for it. We are introduced to Pussy Galore, allegedly Goldfinger's leading lady, far too late, unfortunately. Her offensive transition from homosexuality to heterosexuality in the film is actually more believable than in here, and Fleming's chauvinism here ("Bond/Fleming/Men can be so manly as to turn lesbians") makes me uneasy. I can buy Pussy joining Bond, especially after Goldfinger offs all of the other bosses, but I don't buy them getting together. On the other hand, Fleming make sit clear that Tilly is a lesbian, too, and is unflappable as such. On the other hand, he derides her for it. On the other hand. Ugh, I hate Fleming sometimes. I can't remove his sexism or racism, but I do have something else to look forward to. Our next book, For Your Eyes Only, will find Fleming working in short form. We can hope that this will focus his energy and avoid the sometimes lopsided structure of the novels.
In a lot of ways, he's matured as a writer in just a few years. I still long for the economy of Casino Royale and I could do without so much dry golf exposition, but Goldfinger mostly works. It more than mostly works. It's a really good read, and on the whole, more of a page turner than Doctor No was. Like Doctor No, the film is similar in a lot of ways and has a more formal structure, and I'm sure that has something to do with why I feel like parts of it take so long to develop. All of the dialogue is good and the characters are very memorable. I've made my grievances but they don't even get close to ruining this book. It feels similar to Moonraker in many ways. The wealthy industrialist who inexplicably cheats for seemingly menial amounts of money, and the way Bond works it all out from the inside. And in those respects, Goldfinger is an improvement. Its characters and villains are more memorable and iconic and fleshed out as those in Diamonds Are Forever (except I think Tiffany has more going for her than Pussy does). It's a lot like the film for me. For some reason, I don't feel totally jazzed about it, from a subjective standpoint. But in an objective evaluation, it's obviously a superior creature to many of the others. I may change my mind later in my ranking of this one, but we may have to wait until Bond Re-reshaken to see if anything changes. If anything, I can take a quantum of solace in the fact that Flemings books are far more consistent than the film series ever was or ever will be.
Grade: A-
Rank:
1. Casino Royale
2. From Russia With Love
3. Goldfinger
4. Diamonds Are Forever
5. Moonraker
6. Doctor No
7. Live and Let Die