Thunderball (James Bond Novels) by Ian Fleming
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Book Reviews of Thunderball (James Bond Novels)
Book Review: Best of James Bond
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my favorite in the series. Would be great if the films were as good as the books.
TF
City of Fire
Book Review: Enter Blofeld
Summary: 4 Stars
"Thunderball" was Ian Fleming's ninth published James Bond book, his first Bond novel published in the 1960s (1961), and the first to feature a threat residing not in Soviet Russia, but from a shadowy international conspiracy, known as SPECTRE and run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
"...he was one of those men - one meets perhaps only two or three in a lifetime - who seem almost to suck the eyes out of your head," Fleming writes of the enigmatic criminal mastermind, who goes here also by the alias "Number Two".
"Number One", for the moment, is Emilio Largo, one of Blofeld's underlings. Largo is Blofeld's selected leader for a plot which involves stealing two atomic bombs from a hijacked bomber and holding the world at ransom for 100 million British pounds in gold. Bond is sent to the Bahamas on a hunch by his superior M. There, 007 discovers Largo's operation and grows suspicious.
"Thunderball" makes good use of one of the best plots in the series, one Fleming worked on in script form with Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory. The novel itself bears the unmistakable stamp of Fleming, weaving his usual descriptive magic with sunny tourist-trap landscapes and wondrous, deadly undersea scuba expeditions at night.
You also got to love the left-field opening. Bond is sent by M to get himself purged of what M considers a too-deadly lifestyle. Not the kill-or-be-killed missions M sends him on, but Bond's smoking, drinking, and consumption of rich foods. Off Bond goes to a health farm, Shrublands, where he ironically comes up against SPECTRE for the first time in the form of a wolfish minor player named Count Lippe. For a while, Bond even accepts the regimen, counseling his housekeeper May on the pitfalls of denatured or "dead" foods. Thankfully, Bond snaps out of his granola ecstasy after a final run-in with the Count.
"It just occurred to me that life's too short," he tells May. "Plenty of time to watch the calories when one goes to heaven."
The book Bond was always a different character from the more rogue-ish Bond of the movies. Prone to the blues, self-questioning (especially about whether Largo is worth his suspicions), and emotionally connected here with at least one of his lovers, Domino Vitali, Largo's kept woman who earns Bond's respect initially with her no-apologies lifestyle. Domino is one woman who takes her sex as opportunistically as any man, even Bond, but Bond senses she has a real heart worth protecting.
The story moves along quickly, much of it underwater. Bond wards off barracudas and sharks, dodges venom-tipped spears and grenades, and chews on Domino's foot when she steps on some sea-egg spines. The seduction is one of the best in the canon, especially when it's not clear who's doing the seducing.
"This is the first time I've eaten a woman," Bond says. "They're rather good."
The novel does sag in the last act, like "gobirds2" notes in another review here. Fleming seemed to have trouble ending his Bond novels. To this point, only "Casino Royale" and "From Russia With Love" had endings that lived up to their build-up. "Thunderball", unlike them, plays it rather straight, yet winds up rushed and convoluted anyway.
SPOILERS - Three problems with the story worth relating to those who have already read the book. One, why does Largo enlist the brother of his mistress to execute his deadly plan, risking the possibility someone might look for her as a result? Two, why does Bond trust her anyway after making this connection, which would seem to tie her in with Largo's plan? Three, why can't Bond have Largo's craft intercepted by the sizable Navy assets at his disposal, once Largo's plot is found to be underway, rather than attempt a more dangerous attack underwater? - END SPOILERS
I know, I know. It's Bond. If you ask too many questions, you're missing the point. Fortunately, "Thunderball" is the kind of novel that keeps those questions from being asked until after you are done reading it.
Book Review: "I Thought I Saw A Spectre..."
Summary: 4 Stars
In a sense, THUNDERBALL is where it all started and where it all ended for James Bond. Although the novel was not released until 1961, it is based upon a earlier screenplay (MR. KISS-KISS BANG BANG) written by Fleming, Jack Whittingham and Kevin McClory, many elements of which were adapted for the first Bond Films.
(In)famously, McClory and Eon Productions became embroiled in an epic lawsuit that lasted decades over the rights to the intellectual property of SPECTRE and Blofeld. As a result, SPECTRE vanished from the later films, the producers decided never to follow another of Fleming's plotlines (much to the detriment of the movies), McClory was awarded partial rights to THUNDERBALL (which was remade as NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN), and Connery was wooed home for the role, a thumb in the eye of Cubby Broccoli, who had argued with Connery years before. In the end, MGM/Eon bought everybody out, this is all a footnote, and CASINO ROYALE is expected in 2006 with as yet an unnamed actor as Bond.
While not one of the best of Fleming's works, THUNDERBALL has a charming wit that makes it irresistible, especially in its earlier scenes at Shrublands the exclusive health spa where Bond is forced to go for the cure.
Fleming obviously wrote the Shrublands episode with his tongue jammed firmly into his cheek, and has a wonderful time poking fun at critics who find Bond's hedonism distressing. After two weeks of drinking wheatgrass juice and eating pine nut tofu, Bond is feeling absolutely "mahvelous," he has practically turned into "Jim-Bob Gandhi," and his Scots housekeeper May is in tears warning him against the danger of a grown man eating such "bairn's food." Bond patiently explains, with the insufferable air of a true zealot, the difference between "live" foods and "dead foods," and dismisses May with the grumbled imprecation, "Change of life."
But May is right. When called to action, Bond immediately reverts to steak and eggs, black coffee, Morland Balkan cigarettes, and whisky neat. His nemesis, Blofeld, by the way, indulges in nothing.
Not so Emilio Largo, who is a true Roman epicurean. Largo's favorite indulgences are the hydrofoil yacht Disco Volante and Domino Vitali. Bond quickly develops a fondness for the latter as well, a far more explicit fondness than the films ever could describe.
The plot is familiar to everyone who has seen the movies. (Isn't that everyone?) SPECTRE steals two atom bombs and holds the world hostage. Bond must retrieve them.
What makes THUNDERBALL the book so vastly different from THUNDERBALL/NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN is Fleming's style as an author. He is a true "sensualist" as a writer, able to pack a scene with smells, sounds, sights and textures, all while practicing an economy with words that is admirable.
While Fleming's Bond is vaguely sketched by intent, it is Fleming's language that essentially animated the "James Bond Style," far and beyond any one film. This is most evident in THUNDERBALL, the movie that became a book that became two movies. The Bond films merely solidified Fleming's prose. The cinematic Bond is a different character, but wears the same shoes.
A blasted good read!
Book Review: Bond vs. Blofeld, Part 1
Summary: 4 Stars
With Thunderball, Ian Fleming's James Bond books take a new direction. Gone is the Cold War threat of SMERSH; now Bond must contend with villains motivated not by ideology but instead simple greed. In particular, Thunderball begins what I think of as the SPECTRE or Blofeld trilogy (along with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice), in which Bond battles his greatest opponent, the cunning Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who is also the inspiration for Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies).
Actually, Blofeld may be the ringleader of the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion (no glossing over the evil of this group!) or SPECTRE, but it is actually his number two man who is the main villain. Emilio Largo is the head of operations for a global extortion plan: either pay 100,000,000 British pounds or SPECTRE will use two stolen nuclear bombs in a week.
Bond has initially gotten tangled up with SPECTRE in an inadvertent manner. During an idle period between missions, Bond has partied too hard and now requires time at a health spa; while recovering there (and briefly becoming something of a health nut), he crosses paths with Count Lippe. Their quarrel will inconvenience Lippe, a minor SPECTRE operative, and in turn cause a temporary setback for Blofeld, Largo and company.
Once out of the spa, Bond is briefed on the extortion plot and is sent to Nassau in the Bahamas to see if there are any leads there. He meets up with old CIA friend Felix Leiter and soon has reason to suspect Largo, who is maintaining a cover as a treasure hunter. In today's era, when there it is common to arrest possible terrorists and worry about due process later, Bond and Leiter's concerns about legality and probable cause seem almost quaint, but they do delay any action against Largo.
In a way, this is the first "cinematic" Bond novel. The copyright page indicates that this was not even fully Fleming's book; instead it was based on a screen treatment by Fleming, K. McClory and J. Whittingham. This shared copyright has definitely had its effects on the Bond movies, allowing an "unofficial" remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again. It has also stood in the way of a "resurrection" of Blofeld as a Bond villain, whose apparent death at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was rather ignominious for the bad guy most closely associated with Bond.
Back to the book, Thunderball is a good enough read, but this is not Fleming at his peak (which is really From Russia With Love, Dr. No and Goldfinger). Perhaps his hope that this novel would be made into a movie made this tale a little shallower (although none of the books are really deep). Bond fans, however, should be reasonably pleased with this effort.
Book Review: Another Bond classic
Summary: 4 Stars
A pilot in the pay of a terrorist organization kills his comrades while on a training flight, takes the controls of their bomber, and makes off with two nuclear bombs. He delivers them to his contact in the organization. His contact kills him and hides the bombs among the reefs and shoals of the Bahamas, and the terrorists, the bombs now in their possession, threaten the free world with destruction unless they pay huge sums of cash.
Meanwhile, 007 is at a spa.
I kid you not. These two paragraphs set up the plot of Thunderball, one of the best in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Bond's stay at the spa is eventful, of course, and before he is even aware of it he becomes involved in the events of the first paragraph. His superior, M, has a hunch that the bomber may have headed to the Caribbean, and Bond is sent away on what he feels is a wild goose chase while the rest of the espionage world hunts the warheads without him. While in the Bahamas he reteams with an old friend and discovers that M's hunch was right. A man called Emilio Largo, who has an enormous yacht and crew at his service for a supposed treasure hunt, arouses his suspicions. But how to prove Largo has the bombs, find them, and prevent the enemy from using them? I'll stop there.
Up until Thunderball I had really shortchanged Fleming's ability as a writer. I credited him for writing good action and creating great heroes and villains (Thunderball introduces the notorious Ernst Stavro Blofeld), but I failed to appreciate him as a craftsman. Each Bond novel is really different from the others in some way. Thunderball has an incredibly weird structure--virtually the first fifth of the book is a comedy starring Bond at a health spa--but a structure that nevertheless builds to a great action climax.
My only problem with the novel is that Fleming seems to have forgotten a few traits in one of his most important characters. (Spoiler warning) In Live and Let Die, Felix Leiter loses an arm and a leg when the villains dangle him over a pit of sharks. In his appearances in books since then, Leiter has had a prosthetic arm with a hook hand and, in Diamonds are Forever, used crutches. In Thunderball his only apparent handicap is the hook; he walks, runs, swims, and skin-dives with no apparent lack of one leg. There is one reference to a "gimpy leg" but given the rest of the novel it makes little sense.
But whatever. That bothered me but didn't ruin the story by any means. Fleming's novels are always roaring good reads, and Thunderball is no exception. I'd rank it among the best of the Bond series.
Highly recommended.