As always, beware of spoilers! I warned you.
Introduction
I’ll tell you right away that I’m not a Bond fan, but I have nothing against it, in general I have a neutral attitude towards it. I’ve only seen the movie «Casino Royale» of 2006 with Daniel Craig and recently the very first movie «Dr. No» of 1962 with Sean Connery. Here we will talk exclusively about the books by Ian Fleming.
Judging by what I’ve read, I’ll express an unflattering opinion for James Bond fans – the famous Agent 007 is just a talentless employee who survives every time just by a miracle. If you read the original stories from Mr. Fleming, then anyone willy-nilly must come to this sad conclusion.
Although I originally planned to read the entire James Bond series written by Mr. Fleming, and there are 14 of them, I was only enough to read 4, and I finished the fourth one through force, just to finish it for the sake of “ticking off”.
4 novels
4 books I’ve gotten over:
- Casino Royale (1953)
- Live and Let Die (1954)
- Moonraker (1955)
- Diamonds Are Forever (1956)
So, judge for yourself, here’s a list of arguments I’ve noticed in favor of the utter mediocrity of an agent who should have been killed on his very first trial assignment somewhere abroad. I’ll go through each book I’ve read.
Casino Royale
First mr. Bond “missed” the assassination attempt on himself, surviving by pure chance, simply because the attackers themselves were “a little” crooked and decided to act a little out of plan. Then he went off in pursuit of Mr. Le Chiffre alone, wanting to save his partner Vesper Lynd. This shows not professionalism, but rather inexperience and overestimation of his powers. What was he even counting on? As a result, he gets caught. Then he survives again by a miracle, because just at this very time a SMERSH agent comes for Le Chiffre and kills everyone except Vesper and Bond himself. Why he doesn’t kill his partner becomes clear at the end of the book, and why he doesn’t eliminate Bond is because he’s a proud Soviet special agent who follows orders exactly, and nothing more. Instead, he leaves a mark on Bond’s arm so that he’ll be easier to recognize next time. And apparently to make life easier for this agent, because he doesn’t look for easy ways, not eliminating agents from the opposing side just like that.
Live and Let Die
In the second book Bond and his partner Felix Leiter went to Harlem without any cover, knowing in advance that this is the fiefdom of crime boss Big Man, which is under his absolute control. In the book the author tried many times to justify why he couldn’t just kill them, because then the FBI and the police would descend on him, it would attract attention, etc., but nevertheless Big Man brings them to his main lair, where Leiter is brutally beaten up, then thrown out near the hospital, and Bond’s pinky finger is broken, wanting to throw him into the lake in Central Park after the interrogation. So this wouldn’t draw attention to Big Man’s persona? And Big Man made it clear right off the bat that he wasn’t gonna kill them. My logic met depression somewhere around this point.
A little later, Leiter also just “sparks” his genius and decides to go on a reconnaissance of one of the piers, according to preliminary data under Big Man’s control. As a result, Bond finds Leiter’s body completely wrapped in bandages in his hotel room. Luckily he is alive, but very badly crippled, and unfortunately will not be able to continue on the mission.
Then I don’t understand why, with so much circumstantial evidence in hand, the FBI didn’t just quietly arrest or “remove” Big Man (times were rougher back then). Allegedly, this would cause outrage among black people, and the authorities don’t want a repeat of recent events when there were mass protests in New York City. And yet Big Man is killed at the end, even though it didn’t happen in New York, but he still died. And his death has already given an excuse to apprehend everyone else from the huge organization he’s managed to build up in the meantime. What prevented to catch him on the same way during the next trip abroad, liquidating him under “mysterious circumstances”? Instead of that they send one Bond on a mission (it seems that at that time in the secret services was just a terrible staff shortage, and they took anyone), who managed to get caught by Big Man for the second time, and survives only by a miracle. For the sake of interest, just read one chapter, how Big Man and his team die and how James Bond survives.
Moonraker
If in the first half of the book he finally behaves appropriately, then later on he starts to get “stupid” again – he knows that the previous security officer, instead of whom Bond himself is sent, was killed under mysterious circumstances. He sees Krebs’ strange behavior, and Gala confirms it. They report this to Hugo Drax, to which he reacts with negativity, but nevertheless does not take any action against it, justifying it by the fact that there are a few days left before the rocket launch, and nothing should overshadow this great event. In principle, any inconsistency, strangeness is swept under the carpet, just not to “wash dirty laundry in public”.
After a fortunate coincidence Bond survives the cliff collapse and shows up at the dinner as if nothing had happened, to which Drax reacts in amazement. After that one could have realized who the antagonist is and guessed what was going on, but no, Bond still doesn’t understand anything. Gala also behaves no better – the next day she gets into the car with Drax and Krebs, and even after pulling out the diary with calculations, leaves the car under a spurious pretext and is personally convinced that the calculations are deviated by 90 degrees, meaning that the missile should fall directly on London, and with a nuclear charge, and Gala, without notifying anyone of her suspicions and without even trying to escape, still returns to the car. Then she is kidnapped, and Bond again miraculously manages to get on the trail and chases Drax. This is where I had deja vu – it was in the very first book! And then I thought “well, let me guess – Bond has another accident and gets captured”. Yes, that’s what happens… In typical 80’s-90’s action movie style, Drax tells his Bond background, confident that Bond has very little left. He then leaves Gala and Bond tied to chairs, leaving a blowtorch and a lighter on the table. Naturally, they free themselves, even manage to take a shower (!!!), climb into the rocket, changing its direction of flight, and hide in the ventilation shaft.
The ending of the book is “epic” – according to Drax’s plan, he and his crew get on a Russian submarine and sail away. And again by happy coincidence, it turns out that the submarine sails to the point where the missile should officially fall, but Drax thinks that it will fall on London, but since Bond changed everything back, the missile with a nuclear charge hits right in the area where the submarine is located. I told you the ending was epic.
Diamonds Are Forever
Book 4 was the final knockout because the entire plot here is the apotheosis of stupidity.
From the very beginning, Bond, as befits the greatest agent of all time, acting under a false identity to infiltrate the Spang Brothers gang and establish a diamond smuggling chain, obtains false documents in the name of… James Bond. Such artistic twists make me want to quit reading this “masterpiece” at once and never touch such “creativity” again.
Then, having pulled off an operation with his companion Tiffany Case, who works for the Spangs, to transport diamonds from Great Britain to the USA, James Bond meets his friend Leiter, who has already recovered from the events that took place in the second book of the series, and they start working on the case together. Leiter is in for a rough ride, as he is missing one arm and one leg, and is no longer a secret service officer, but a private investigator. And as usual, disregarding any hint of any conspiracy, they meet in public places and even eat together in restaurants. Apparently Leiter wasn’t satisfied with those mutilations and wanted someone to continue Big Man’s work of inflicting grievous bodily harm on him, and a whole and unharmed James Bond wanted to at least become like Leiter. Forgive me for my outright sarcasm, but such basic mistakes are repeated from book to book, and Mr. Bond doesn’t learn from them at all.
And, of course, James Bond, following his faithful tradition, is once again captured…
He then makes the stupid decision to break free at the worst possible moment, while already in enemy territory. He throws himself at his captors, not knowing how many people can come to their aid. As a result, he is still captured, beaten to a pulp, and rescued by Tiffany, who has become so sympathetic to James Bond that she decides to save him. Again epic twist.
Once again, having miraculously survived a lucky coincidence (how many times have I written a similar phrase already?), they are taken to safety by Leiter, who suddenly shows up. Leiter says that the gangsters have already announced a reward of 10,000 dollars for each of them, and that the two of them need to leave the United States immediately.
Next, Bond and Case are airlifted across the continent to New York, where they board a ship to the UK. They are strongly advised to sit in their cabins and keep their heads down until they arrive. On their trail are two mercenaries, how could they not… It seems that the bandits are better at tracking and searching than the special services.
Yet AGAIN disregarding all instruction and guidance, on the third day, James Bond decides to go out and invites Tiffany to the ship’s restaurant. Then they are present at the auction, where James begins to suspect something, because he catches sight of two mercenaries, whom he had met before, but then they were in masks, but Bond knew their signs and characteristics, and as a professional he had to keep his eyes open and notice them almost immediately. Tiffany doesn’t recognize them either, even though she told him about them earlier. They would have remained in ignorance if not for a telegram from Bond’s superior informing him that they have two mercenaries on board. Bond managed to navigate and rescue Case, who by then had already been tortured by two gangsters.
The ending of the book is very rambling and again shows all the “professionalism” of Mr. Bond – initially he was given the task to trace the diamond supply chain, which he didn’t actually do, but only killed six gang members along the way, including one of the Spang brothers, and now in the last chapter he finds himself in French Guinea, where he has to intercept the second brother and the last surviving middleman alive. Naturally, he fails even with the support of the military – the second brother arrives in a helicopter, manages to kill the middleman and tries to escape, after which Bond gives the command to shoot to kill, and the helicopter is shot from anti-aircraft guns. And at the end he just says he’s sorry he couldn’t take them alive. You didn’t even try!
That’s it, I’m wrung out…
Aftertaste
If it wasn’t the famous James Bond, but some other series, I would have quit after the second book. And if someone experimented on me by replacing key names with other names so that I didn’t realize it was the original Bond series, I’d think it was some mediocre, ill-conceived fanfic about a very inexperienced but very lucky special agent who manages to get away with it against all odds. At the moment of writing this post I was reminded of Inspector Gadget, who time after time always survives, even without realizing the danger he was in, manages to solve the case and in addition disarm the criminals. Double-checked, and indeed Inspector Gadget turned out to be a parody of James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, who himself is already a parody of a detective. Good thing I’m not the only one noticing the whole pun.
Characteristically, James Bond NEVER thinks ahead, which is amazing for an agent, and because of this time after time he is not in control of the situation at all, but gets out of it on a whim due to sudden circumstances. And somehow he is always unusually lucky. Really one in the same Inspector Gadget!
On a separate note, Mr. Bond also never cares where he eats. It’s just any restaurant, cafe, casual eatery or something like that. In addition to that, being on a mission, he can order a liter of wine, champagne, vodka with martini cocktail or something like that. I’m not even talking about cigarettes.
If I were any antagonist with substantial resources, and in every part there is such a person, I would simply and banally poison Bond, thus “elegantly” saving myself from further problems. This can happen in roadside cafes, you know, and in the 50-60s of the 20th century, and even more so. For example, in the second novel, Big Man would have had absolutely no trouble pulling this off. Wouldn’t even have to get out of his chair.
This is roughly what a typical James Bond novel consists of:
- a stable 20% description of trips to various eateries and restaurants, food, booze and smokes
- 5-10% of lovemaking and thinking about the next girl, who always turns out to be his partner.
- 10-15% description of Bond’s capture and torture.
- the rest is directly his idling, “scouting” the area (usually in the most ineffective way possible, which sometimes leads to his capture), preparing for the operation, talking to his colleagues, and the narrative itself.
On the plus side, I would note that Fleming managed the narration quite well. While reading, you can feel that the author really lived in those times and was a representative of his era with all its fears, views and hopes. There is a real sense of aesthetics behind it, and at some point you even want to be transported to those times for a limited period of time to experience it yourself. Even the author’s description of bad habits is elegantly done. I’ll give it an average score of 5 out of 10, and mostly just for the aesthetics and more or less bearable narration.
Perhaps sometime in the future, for the sake of the above mentioned feelings, I will come back to this series and try to read something else, but for now at this point it’s a definite finish for me. Now I want to read more worthy literature that deserves more attention.
