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: Dan read the Spy Who Loved Me
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed the book. However, the end was to open, I would have liked more details about the relationship.Book Review: A Bond In Shining Armor
Summary: 3 Stars
Vivienne Michel is a pretty young woman whose tough life is about to get much worse. Caretaking a rundown hotel in the Adirondacks, she is set upon by two threatening goons. Just as they are about to brutalize her, there's a knock at the door. Who could it be?
Well, given that this is identified on the cover as "A James Bond Novel" and it's already two-thirds over, it better not be the Maytag repairman.
Nineteen sixty-two was a landmark year for Bond. That was the year Sean Connery played 007 in the first film. Yet on the page, Ian Fleming seemed still trying to kick out the jams after "From Russia With Love" set a new standard for his secret-agent series five years before. His previous two books had been a collection of short stories and a novel taken from a co-written screenplay. Could his experiment here, putting us in the head of a female character and seeing Bond through her eyes, have been another sign of fatigue?
Yet "The Spy Who Loved Me" moves at a fast clip. The story itself is a strange one, half woman's romance novel, half Mickey Spillane-type yarn, but Fleming delivers a strong sense both of place and character. You latch on readily with Vivienne as she shakes off the ennui on a rainy autumn evening, enjoying her solitude with a tumbler of bourbon while the Ink Spots play on the radio. She thinks about a life of lost virtue and broken promises, and Fleming almost makes you forget any anticipation you have about things going boom. When the bad guys show up, it's a rude surprise, especially as they are low-rent for a Bond book. But they are a real threat, and thus a source of sincere suspense, even if they are more about stealing TVs than nuclear secrets.
"Okay, sweetheart," one of them says. "So you won't give, so I'll take for myself. I reckon you've earned yourself a rough night. Get me?"
That's the one called Horror. The other is called Sluggsy. For bad-guy names, they sound right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. But you worry anyway, because Vivienne is very much alone and you have come to like her the way Fleming sets the story up. That's the good part. It's not what you expect from a Bond novel, but all the more credit for Fleming trying it and pulling it off.
Then Bond shows up. It's a funny thing to say a Bond novel starts to tail off when James Bond shows up, but that's what happens. He's not the same vivid, three-dimensional figure we come to expect. Instead, he's a stock knight in shining armor, and Vivienne loses much of her integrity as a solid character, playing instead the role of love-struck lady in distress.
"You're the most wonderful man I've met in my life!" she coos. Bond kisses her and tells her to stay out of sight while Daddy cleans up the mess.
Still there are good moments in the last third of the book. Bond has at Sluggsy and Horror in true pulp-fiction style. There's fire and a car crash, and some of the hottest sex Fleming ever put to page.
There's also oddball moments, like Vivienne's declaration: "All woman love semi-rape." Knowing Fleming, he probably had more trouble with the word "semi" than "love". "The Spy Who Loved Me" has a few gag-inducing items like that, but also some well-played moments that have nothing to do with the main battle, like Vivienne recalling a tryst in a cinema and Bond telling of his latest battle with SPECTRE (a running battle from the last novel which continues in the next).
All in all, a worthy experiment and, at times, a fine novel, although 007 fans may find it more revealing of Fleming than Bond. I wouldn't recommend it to a newbie, but Bond readers may find this change of pace to their liking. It is to mine.
Book Review: A different sort of Bond book
Summary: 3 Stars
It takes all of one word to see that Ian Fleming's tenth James Bond novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, is exceptionally out-of-the-ordinary. The first word of the book is "I". Immediately, it is obvious that unlike any other Bond book, this one will be narrated in the first person. Even more extraordinary is that the narrator is not Bond but a young woman named Vivienne Michel.
Vivienne is working at an off-the-beaten-track motel in the backwoods of upper New York. How she got there is the substance of the book's first part. Essentially, she is running after having a pair of bad love affairs, first with a college age boy who is willing to tell her anything just to sleep with her, then with an almost stereotypical German who summarily dismisses her after she disrupts the order of his life.
All this took place in England. Coming back to North America (she is Canadian) to escape her past, she winds up with a temp job at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court. After the motel has closed for the season, she winds up alone at the place while awaiting the arrival of the owner. Instead, on a dark and stormy night, two hoodlums arrive, intent on rape, murder and theft. Fortunately, by chance, another person arrives: James Bond.
Of course, as any Bond fan knows, this will end only one way, with bad guys vanquished and Vivienne falling for Bond. The title alone says it all, and points out one of the basic themes that run through many Bond books: no matter how damaged a woman is, a love affair with a real man (Bond) will cure all. This rather blatantly sexist message is definitely a product of Fleming's era and his target audience of men and comes off as more quaint than truly offensive.
If you enjoyed the movie, you will find the book unrecognizable; of all the Fleming books, this one shares only its title with its cinematic counterpart. While reasonably well-written, it is also a lesser Bond book. It has its appeal, but not as a Bond novel. The first part of the novel is pure soap opera and Bond himself doesn't appear until after the halfway point in the book. Nonetheless, if you're willing to read an offbeat Fleming novel, you should enjoy this book.
Book Review: An offbeat approach that doesn't quite work
Summary: 3 Stars
Ian Fleming wrote this novel in a deliberate attempt to do something different with James Bond. There are no super villains or world-threatening conspiracies; and Bond himself does not appear until two-thirds of the way through the book. Told in the first person by the female lead, it's readable enough but seems rather pedestrian compared to the usual Bond super-saga.
Fleming himself was not at all pleased with this book and in fact refused to sell the paperback rights to it; the paper edition didn't appear until after his death. When he sold the film rights, he specifically stipulated that Eon Productions would not attempt to film this, but create another story with the same title.
As the Bond films progressed, they had less and less to do with Fleming's plots anyway; by the time Eon got around to The Spy Who Loved Me they would undoubtedly have wanted something more spectacular in any case. Still, it's interesting that the author so disliked the results of his work.
For true-blue fans of Bond, this is a passable read; but there's nothing here that develops the character of Bond in any way. We learn nothing new about him. So if you decide to skip this and proceed directly to the vastly superior "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", you won't miss much.
Book Review: Failed Experiment -- With Good Points
Summary: 3 Stars
This novel, told from a young woman's point of view, was an attempt to do something different with Bond. Surprisingly, it is most successful when Bond is not around, and when the heroine is simply telling us the story of her life, and her travels, and her unsuccessful love affairs. Once the bad guys show up, and the "real adventure" starts, it starts to seem corny. Once Bond shows up (more than half way in) it also begins to seem strangely incongruous. Nor can it be called a spy story -- it just becomes a damsel-in-distress tale that happens to feature Bond as the Knight.
In the end, Fleming tries to add a serious edge through the fatherly warnings of the Sheriff. But this is not convincing enough, and not adequately supported by the story, to have real bite. Bond is just too NICE. The only cruel or wrong thing he does is to love a girl he meant to leave -- which is cruel enough, I guess, except that our heroine seems oddly satisfied with this outcome.
Still, Fleming's careful attention to environment, atmosphere and detail make this more rewarding than it might have been.