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Fiction. Thriller. HTML: When Agent 007 goes to Harlem, it's not just for the jazz. Harlem is the kingdom of Mr. Big, voodoo baron, black master of crime, and senior partner in SMERSH's grim company of death. As gold coins from a Jamaican pirate hoard start turning up in pawnshops in Harlem, M suspects the treasure is being used to finance SMERSH activity in America. Agent 007 is sent to New York to uncover Mr. Big's criminal operation. Those Mr. Big cannot possess he crushes; those who cross him will meet painful ends, like his beautiful prisoner, Solitaire, and her lover, James Bond. Both are marked as victims in a trail of terror, treachery, and torture that leads from New York's black underworld to the shark-infested island in the sun that Mr. Big calls his own. Bond realizes Big is one of the most dangerous men that he has ever faced, and no one, not even the mysterious Solitaire, can be sure how their battle of wills is going to end..… (more)
User reviews
My main beef with Bond's previous adventure at Royale les Eaux was the entirety of the last 20 pages after Le Chiffre's sudden assassination, and here my feelings are somewhat opposite. Instead I'm bored with the first section here. What goes down in Harlem didn't really interest me. I didn't mind the racism, in fact I thought it was almost hilarious, definitely campy (and on the note of racism that makes this book so controversial, most claims exaggerate it. It's really not so strong, the maligned 'n-word' only shows up about 3 or 4 times, but Negro about 400, and Fleming has M talk about how well the "black community" is doing over the world, how sharp those fellas are, how they're getting top jobs in science and medicine. I don't really see much hatred in the words from this high-class British cracker, but I do see some more Faulkner-esque sentiments, feelings of "Oh, they're our equals...but...they need our help to get anywhere." Heft amounts of patronizing going down by all of Fleming's characters, which is probably why it's so controversial: there are a LOT of internal monologues or dialogue pondering the 'Negro race'), definitely helping to put you in the time period of this literary pulp '50s fiction.
Straight out of Harlem, Bond travels towards Florida via train, working with our old pal from Royale, Felix Leiter. And reading these train scenes with Solitaire (probably the sexiest of Bond girls, but I may just be thinking that because of the modern Penguin cover I stared as many hours as I spent reading the 159-page ['60s paperback edition] story) made me think heavily about train scenes in general. Just think about them a minute. Aren't they nice? Every great story absolutely requires a scene contained within a rolling train compartment. God, I love it. I love it so hard.
The following chunks of the book within Florida (sharks! Leiter! poor Leiter! NO!) and Jamaica are consistent with the improved quality starting within the train compartment. Except one thing: in Jamaica, Bond comes up with a plan on surviving Mr. BIG's means of murdering Bond and Solitaire via internal monologue, and then pulls it off just about flawlessly exactly as he planned. Come on. Seriously? Ah well, it was still good.
The Bond of the novels is much more fascinating a character than the Bond of the films. You'll read that everywhere, and it's true. He screws up quite a bit more, seems to come within an inch of death in every story, sometimes loses a friend, doesn't always get the girl, and cetera, cetera, whatever. Fleming's writing is wonderful, and what pulled me into the Bond stories. I picked up Casino Royale not really expecting much at all (to be known: I had not seen the Craig film [after seeing it now, I think he's made the best Bond, and the closest the book--my image of Bond has been similar to his rough but handsome looks, minus the excess of muscle], and couldn't remember a single older film except GoldenEye, and only because of the N64 game [which continues to destroy so many faces to this day]), just hungering for a break from my stupid pomo reading, and came away thinking that Fleming was indeed a literary writer producing stories fit for a penny dreadful. Ahh, good stuff.
F.V.: 75%
[627]
Inevitably, the story is of its time and there are racial epithets and
The story itself is as fast-paced as you'd expect, with Bond flitting from one near-death experience to the next with hardly a breath, though his injuries are not glossed over - he's not a superhuman by any means.
To a post-war austerity-stricken Britain, the American and Caribbean locations must have been strange and exotic, the people of those places wonderful and alien. It's little surprise that these exciting stories set in far-away places resonated so keenly in the imaginations of Bond's parochial countrymen.
I'm two books into the series and slowly collecting the 60s Pan editions, because I like the covers. Moonraker next, once I track it down.
**THIS REVIEW IS OF THE FILM** (The novel doesn't resemble the film too terribly much, being a very Cold-Warry Russkis versus Good Guys in the Caribbean; deeply uninteresting to a 1970s audience)
It's the 1973 first outing by Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...that I review
Holy pimpmobile! I'd forgotten this was the blaxploitation Bond flick. Appallingly racist. Horrifyingly insultingly so. And may I just say, "INTRODUCING JANE SEYMOUR" is the most chilling phrase I've ever in all my life seen on a movie screen?
Introducing. Jane. Seymour. As in, "not seen on the big screen before?" She was in some other stuff...but nothing as big as Bond. And the horrible thing is that Jane Seymour's character is only able to tell the future as a tarot reader while she's a virgin. Does that clue you in on what Bond's gonna do?
But all that comes after Bond's first African-American love interest. He sleeps with her while in a pale-blue loser suit. With a white belt. Wearing a wife-beater under it. Oh gawd, the seventies.
Then Bond condescends to pop Jane's cherry and takes away he rpowers, which the sexist sociopath clearly doesn't believe in; things go further and further downhill as Geoffrey Holder does a horrifying turn as a voodoo priest in the most ridiculous half-white makeup...well.
So of course Bond solves the identity puzzle, rescues now-slutty Jane from her life of luxury, and brings down the (black, of course) drug dealer. Then Geoffrey Holder laughs his unique laugh as we head for the credits.
Wow. Forty years really makes a lot of difference in how things look. I never liked Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...as Bond. From the get-go, I found him too TV for the role of the big screen's biggest baddest spy. What was charming and roguish in other performances was slippery and oleaginous in Moore's performances. But I had no memory of how revoltingly racist this film was. I shudder to say it, but I was probably blind to it because it was...ulp...the way I saw the lily-white privileged Republican world I lived in.
*gaaak*
Well, that's enough of that. The dumbest car chase ever put on film takes place in an alternate New York where there are only Chevrolet Caprices, Chevrolet Impalas, and Cadillac Eldorados on the roads. Except one elderly Ford truck, which the lone Chevrolet Biscayne in New York, carrying Bond, hits head-on and somehow Bond isn't even scratched despite not wearing a seat belt. Yeah! Now that's the Bond we all love!
And the title tune. Oh my goodness, the title tune. It's one of the indelible memories of 1973, along with the Rayburn Committee hearings and the Energy Crisis. Pretty good tune. But earwormy as all hell! Once in your mind, it ain't a-comin' out easy.
"Enjoy."
I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Ian Fleming was interested in social commentary, racial social commentary to be exact. Now, I'll be the first to say that he probably got a lot of things wrong, and most certianly propagated some not-so-kind stereotypes. Those disclaimers aside, I enjoyed the basic observations that Bond makes about American society in the 1950's: going through customs at the airport, the quality of room service at certian hotels or on trains, the terror of retirement communities in suburbia Florida. It was all so delicious.
There is even a philosphical plane flight where Bond is contemplating the temporariness of life while flying through some turbulence on a small plane. Life and death is almost always out of one's control, regardless of your profession, status, or risk aversion. Might as well live life to its fullest.
I also enjoyed how much Bond read about the dangers he faced. James Bond reads books to prepare for a mission. How delightful. Roger Moore never read a book to save his life, pun intended. Furthermore, the Bond of Live and Let Die is very low tech. His secret weapon: steel toed shoes and a limpet mine.
Lastly, the Folio Society edition I read had some great illustrations, nice thick paper, and a illuminating introduction by Ken Follett.
Anyway. This one fell somewhat short of Casino Royale,
Fun, do I have to say more? After all, who doesn't know Bond, James Bond?
I really enjoyed the entire book - Fleming is a master at pacing - and loved the (now dated) scenes on the train and around St. Pete. Fleming draws a cool 50's style picture of civility and action.
Felix Lieter got eaten up by sharks and Quarrel was Bond's assitant in Jamaica.
This book is much different than its 1970's movie counterpart. I do not recall any cheesy one-liners in the book, but I can assure you there is plenty of enjoyable action, the characters all have their own slang and dialect, and there are enough SAT power words to keep the average person referring to an English dictionary.
Overall, I liked how James Bond was portrayed as a human being. The movies up until the Daniel Craig-era always seem to place him on a higher pedestal, an indestructible super spy. Simply put, I was pleasantly surprised.
This book is much different than its 1970's movie counterpart. I do not recall any cheesy one-liners in the book, but I can assure you there is plenty of enjoyable action, the characters all have their own slang and dialect, and there are enough SAT power words to keep the average person referring to an English dictionary.
Overall, I liked how James Bond was portrayed as a human being. The movies up until the Daniel Craig-era always seem to place him on a higher pedestal, an indestructible super spy. Simply put, I was pleasantly surprised.
Bonds second outing under the pen of Ian Fleming finds him in both the USA and Jamaica.
Pitted against the notorious Mr Big (who has found a stash of pirate treasure and smuggling it into the USA to aid SMERSH). Through Voodoo and the threat of the zombie Baron
After the disapointment of Casino Royale, it was pleasing to see a much tougher, slicker Bond emerge. A Bond that won't fail to get your pulse racing as he plans his next onslaught against the plentyful bad guys.
If you have seen the film, then you will be suprised to find that very little of the screenplay will be found in the novel. We still get to meet the gorgeous Solitaire though, and another Bond steadfast we encounter is his friend Felix Leiter, but whether we will meet him again remains to be seen. If we do then he definately won't be running around......
An enjoyable read and one that has left me wanting more.
A short and hence, not disappointing read.