The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond Novels) by Ian Fleming
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Book Reviews of The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond Novels)
Book Review: Outstanding Concept
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. This novel gives the character of James Bond more humanity, integrity and a true sense of gallantry than all the other Fleming novels in a single read.Book Review: Bond stops for a rest and gets anything but
Summary: 4 Stars
The Spy Who Loved Me is the 11th of thirteen James Bond novels Ian Fleming wrote before he died in 1965. It is only the second I have read. I am amazed at how little the book resembles the movie.
Fleming tells it from the point of view of the woman in the story. She is Vivienne Michel a 23 year old Québécois Canadian who, to get over two failed attempts at romance, has started out on an adventure to go to Florida on her Vespa. She only gets to Lake George, New York when she is offered a job at the motel she is staying at for the last 2 weeks it is open by the strange couple who manage it. They leave her to close up the last day and say the owner will come the next day to pay her and lock up for the winter. After they leave a fierce thunderstorm sets the mood for this young girl alone in a motel on a dirt road miles from the main road. She takes a couple of chapters to reminisce her sad lost loves in which we learn that she has trouble descriminating between love and physical desire, a trait the men she has met have taken advantage of.
Suddenly there is a knock on the door and two thugs who say they were sent by the owner to do inventory start threatening her. She is pretty scrappy but ineffectual in her attempts to hold them off. Things are just about to get really nasty when there is another knock at the door. Who should be looking for a room at such a time in such a storm and at such an out of the way location? Why, it's James Bond.
Her description of Bond is: "He was about six feet tall, slim and fit-looking. The eyes in the lean, slightly tanned face were a very clear gray-blue and as they observed the men they were cold and watchful. The narrowed watchful eyes gave his good looks the dangerous, almost cruel quality that had frightened me when I first set eyes on him, but now that I knew how he could smile, I thought his face only exciting, in a way that no man's face had ever excited me before."
This is probably the only time Ian Fleming tried to write from the female point of view. He appears to believe women are masochistic in their love for Bond. The author tries to soften the image by having her say Bond's "almost" cruel looks excited her. Later on she says: "All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful." Again Fleming attempts to soften her language by saying "semi"-rape and "sweet" brutality. Yet it is his cruelty, brutality and rape that turns her on.
To find out what the two thugs were sent to do and how Bond saves and beds the heroine read The Spy Who Loved Me. Only don't expect to find SPECTRE, SMURCH, "Q" or other Bondian characteristics that the movies have caricaturized him with because you will be disappointed. As a early 1960's thriller this will please, but a 007 blockbuster it is not.
Book Review: Different, but entertaining Bond book.
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a really unusual, but most enjoyable JamesBond book. As is often the case of the Bond novels
made into movies released in the 1970's, this novel
and the 1977 film have absolutely nothing in common
other than the title. But in this case even the main
character is different. Bond does not even appear
until the final third of the book.
The story is told in first person by a woman who
ultimately crosses Bond's path. "The Spy" is Bond and
"Me" is Fleming's main character, Vivienne Michel.
She is an attractive, single, 23-year old woman who
has been shafted by two lovers as the story begins.
The very idea of a 54-year old man writing a story
from the point of view of a woman more than 30 years
his junior is interesting. However, when the older
man is Fleming and known for creating characters with
names like Pussy Galore, it is not only interesting
but amusing!
The narrator, Vivienne, uses flashback to describe the
events of her life as the novel opens. As a naive
young girl she was burned by one lover and in spite of
that experience, she allows herself to be burned
again. At the completion of her trip down memory
lane, she suddenly finds herself in the clutches of
two thugs. She has no idea what they are up to except
that they want to harm her. It is, of course, Bond
who becomes her knight in shining armor and rescues
her in spite of his admitted carelessness.
There is a story within the story here as well. Bond
describes his most recent assignment, thwarting a
SPECTRE plot involving the attempted assassination of
a Soviet defector. It is a shame that this vignette
has never been the subject of a movie. The potential
for a good action flick is there.
Although much of the book reads more like a romance
novel than a spy thriller, it is never slow. The
action is good and there are some fine
characterizations as well. Fleming uses Vivienne to
make a statement about men (himself?) and their
treatment of women. Bond is compared to the bad guys
on multiple occasions. He is cut from the same cloth
as the bad guys, but without the evil. Recommended to
anyone who has seen the same old Bond formula many
times. You may find this a pleasant surprise.
Book Review: An Unconventional 007 Story
Summary: 4 Stars
Having recently read Andrew Lycett's excellent biography of 007 creator Ian Fleming, I found rereading "The Spy Who Loved Me," his tenth James Bond novel, a very unconventional story.
James Bond doesn't appear until page 100. The novel is told from the perspective of Vivienne Michel, a Canadian woman traveling across the USA after two devastating relationships. "Viv" is an strong, sympathetic character--considering that her creator was generally the type of cad who broke her heart! She remembers her deflowering (Fleming had lost his virginity the same way) and her career before fleeing to America (like Fleming, she worked for a newspaper).
But she's a tough, resilient woman, just the type of female who would appeal to a secret agent like 007. Drawn into an insurance scam at a remote New England motel and menaced by two repellent thugs, Viv is threatened with rape and murder until a mysterious Englishman gets a flat tire on a nearby road.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" was an interesting experiment in Fleming's writing that didn't pay off for him. He discouraged any reprints and considered destroying all unsold copies. Who knows what other directions and what risks Fleming might have made if "Spy" had succeeded. In fact, when the producers of the Bond films were looking for their next entry in the series, the Fleming estate allowed them to use only the title of this one.
Reading the novel now in 2007, it appealed to me because Viv's painful past relationships and her determination not to be bitter reflect many women I know now--or wish I knew.
It was also fascinating that the unfeeling men in her past resembled the author more than the main characters. Viv was the strong, beautiful woman he wished he had. And James Bond, as usual, was the dashing super stud he wished he was. Just like the rest of us.
Book Review: A New Perspective on Bond
Summary: 4 Stars
This short story as it comes in the midst of the "Blofeld Trilogy" ("Thunderball", "You Only Live Twice" and "For Her Majesty's Secret Service") which are mentioned only in passing.
The concept is interesting, a Bond story told through the eyes of a young Canadian woman, Vivian Michel, who runs a cheap motel in the Adirondack Mountains trying to work towards a trip through America.
The book is divided into three parts, we learn about Vivian's sad love life in the first, in the second how she has been duped to take the fall for the motel burning by the owner who wants to collect the insurance money (he sent two mobsters holding her hostage) only to be interrupted by Bond. The third part is about Vivian and Bond trying to survive through the night.
The title of the book refers to Bond, who leaves Vivian after making love to her and advises her not to get involved with the likes of him on either side of aisle.
This is not a Bond novels, it didn't seem "Fleming" if that makes any sense. Bond is in the story for just a few chapters as a knight in shining armor instead of the middle-aged spy will all came to love.
That being said, the book is still enjoyable, but not as a Bond book, simply as a thriller. The action is fast paced and the theme is enjoyable.
This book was a bit ahead of its time and certainly doesn't fit the "Bond" series but it gives us a new perspective on the character because the hero (Bond) and the bad guys (mobsters) are almost indistinguishable in actions and ethics - only in loyalties.