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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Live and Let Die is one of my favorite Bond films and certainly my favorite non-Connery version especially with Jane Seymour as Solitaire so naturally I had to buy it when it went on sale for $1.99. The book is good although it departs mightily from the movie.
Live and Let Die is the second Bond book by creator Ian Fleming but was the seventh Bond movie made. The action scenes are good and the cool sophistication of agent 007 emerges in the book. Bond smoked and drank everything rather than his movie signature shaken and not stirred martini.
The book was written in 1955 and casts a much different description of African Americans than would be acceptable today. That difference is stark and thumps today's reader in the forehead immediately and throughout the book.
The role of Solitaire in the book is quite a bit different than the movie where she read tarot cards and lost her powers upon losing her virginity to 007. Bond is also less invincible in the book and sort of gets lucky to escape and destroy the villainous Mr. Big rather than through amazing feats. The book never goes near New Orleans or the Louisiana bayous where the boat chase scenes were so cinematically memorable.
Bottom line is that it is a good book and a fun romp if you like Bond even 62 years later.
Live and Let Die is the second Bond book by creator Ian Fleming but was the seventh Bond movie made. The action scenes are good and the cool sophistication of agent 007 emerges in the book. Bond smoked and drank everything rather than his movie signature shaken and not stirred martini.
The book was written in 1955 and casts a much different description of African Americans than would be acceptable today. That difference is stark and thumps today's reader in the forehead immediately and throughout the book.
The role of Solitaire in the book is quite a bit different than the movie where she read tarot cards and lost her powers upon losing her virginity to 007. Bond is also less invincible in the book and sort of gets lucky to escape and destroy the villainous Mr. Big rather than through amazing feats. The book never goes near New Orleans or the Louisiana bayous where the boat chase scenes were so cinematically memorable.
Bottom line is that it is a good book and a fun romp if you like Bond even 62 years later.
I feel a little bit bad going as high as 3 stars for LALD. There’s enough interesting moments, action-wise, that I feel generally positive about it. But that is with some *strong* reservations.
I was bothered by the racism of ‘Casino Royale’ and it is turned up to 11 here. Bond starts the book in Harlem and it’s all comments about “negroes” and “negresses” and their “negroid” features. He goes to a strip club, I guess, and describes the “feral” smell of the men’s sweat. Also, chapter 5 is literally titled “N***** Heaven”. During the end part of the book when Bond is in Jamaica, he keeps running across knobs of sand in the water he refers to as “n*****heads” SEVERAL times.
“But when this book was written it was a different time!” No, it wasn’t. It was not a different time. There is no such thing.
On a more positive note, I love that Bond is such a shitty secret agent. That is absolutely not what I had expected when I began reading these books (I’ve never seen the movies), but James Bond is captured and tortured 3 times in the first two books alone and falls for the most obvious traps. Great going, Jim.
The misogyny is still present, but not as front and center as before. I read another recent (?) review here on GoodReads suggesting Bond didn’t feel the need to talk down about Solitaire here because she is more submissive to begin with, whereas Vesper had the audacity to also be a secret agent herself. I can definitely see that perspective. Nonetheless, when all is said and done Bond is sipping vodka martinis with Solitaire, whom he describes as “the prize”, sitting at his knee. It couldn’t be more explicit: he won and she is the prize. She doesn’t have much of a role except to whimper at Bond throughout, even though she has PSYCHIC POWERS. Uh, why not use that more?
The plot itself, like ‘Casino Royale’, is sort of incomprehensible and dumb. It’s about illegal trafficking of sunken treasure and... let’s just leave it at that. Why multiple international spy agencies are involved with this scheme, or why Mr. Big is a part of SMERSH (the Russian anti-spy outfit introduced in the first book) when that is not important to the plot at all, these are questions best left unasked.
I mean, it’s fun in that trashy, pulpy way. The villain sneering at a captive Jim Bond is cool. The whole “shark” scene is fun. The sequence where Bond swims through a bunch of tropical sea creatures and gets attacked by an octopus (!) is the best part of the book by far. It’s good enough. It’s also terrible in a lot of ways, but I didn’t expect a masterpiece here. Overall, ickiness factor aside, it was fine. You won’t miss much by skipping it, though.
EDIT: I’m changing it to 2 stars. Three *was* too high.
I was bothered by the racism of ‘Casino Royale’ and it is turned up to 11 here. Bond starts the book in Harlem and it’s all comments about “negroes” and “negresses” and their “negroid” features. He goes to a strip club, I guess, and describes the “feral” smell of the men’s sweat. Also, chapter 5 is literally titled “N***** Heaven”. During the end part of the book when Bond is in Jamaica, he keeps running across knobs of sand in the water he refers to as “n*****heads” SEVERAL times.
“But when this book was written it was a different time!” No, it wasn’t. It was not a different time. There is no such thing.
On a more positive note, I love that Bond is such a shitty secret agent. That is absolutely not what I had expected when I began reading these books (I’ve never seen the movies), but James Bond is captured and tortured 3 times in the first two books alone and falls for the most obvious traps. Great going, Jim.
The misogyny is still present, but not as front and center as before. I read another recent (?) review here on GoodReads suggesting Bond didn’t feel the need to talk down about Solitaire here because she is more submissive to begin with, whereas Vesper had the audacity to also be a secret agent herself. I can definitely see that perspective. Nonetheless, when all is said and done Bond is sipping vodka martinis with Solitaire, whom he describes as “the prize”, sitting at his knee. It couldn’t be more explicit: he won and she is the prize. She doesn’t have much of a role except to whimper at Bond throughout, even though she has PSYCHIC POWERS. Uh, why not use that more?
The plot itself, like ‘Casino Royale’, is sort of incomprehensible and dumb. It’s about illegal trafficking of sunken treasure and... let’s just leave it at that. Why multiple international spy agencies are involved with this scheme, or why Mr. Big is a part of SMERSH (the Russian anti-spy outfit introduced in the first book) when that is not important to the plot at all, these are questions best left unasked.
I mean, it’s fun in that trashy, pulpy way. The villain sneering at a captive Jim Bond is cool. The whole “shark” scene is fun. The sequence where Bond swims through a bunch of tropical sea creatures and gets attacked by an octopus (!) is the best part of the book by far. It’s good enough. It’s also terrible in a lot of ways, but I didn’t expect a masterpiece here. Overall, ickiness factor aside, it was fine. You won’t miss much by skipping it, though.
EDIT: I’m changing it to 2 stars. Three *was* too high.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Very good book - language very old fashioned and found this off-putting but apart from that a great read
Outrageously dated. Attitudes to race are very hard to look beyond.
I can't even begin to untangle the many levels on which this book displays deep and unashamed racism. Even accounting for the attitudes of the time, even dismissing language that was socially acceptable (to white men, anyway) at the time but isn't any longer, there is still plenty of unchallenged racism to go around, ranging from the small but frequent likening of black people to animals, to the middling depiction of black vernacular language across all characters but Mr. Big (the sole intelligent, polished "negro", which is a problem in its own right), to the broad exotification and demonization of voodoo practices.
It's gross, and I felt gross reading it.
But I knew, from reading Casino Royale previously, that I had to expect a certain level of sexism and racism from this series. When I finished that work, I still clung to my desire to read the whole series, learning what I could from it even if there were parts of it I despised.
Live and Let Die has me questioning that resolve. When you strip away the worst parts, what's left is still pretty bad--from a technical standpoint, there's a whole host of issues that have nothing to do with any moral failings of the content.
Bond and Leiter speak in precisely the same way, despite Leiter being a Texan to Bond's classic British splendor--they both exchange information solely at two extremes of conversation, either the rapid-fire back-and-forth that probably sounds more realistic in the mouths of talented actors, or the page-long exposition dumps of one of them catching the other up to speed. Aside from Leiter's tendency to smile more than Bond, and his notable blond hair, they might as well be the same person. They should not be the same person.
Solitaire goes beyond a mere damsel in distress that Bond needs to save. She actively causes Bond to make bad decisions while providing no real benefits to outweigh the harm she does. Even as an informant on Mr. Big's dealings, Bond notes that she doesn't tell him anything he didn't already know or could guess. Her role in the story is to be a pretty girl for Bond to want to have sex with, to "fall in love" with.
Of course he doesn't really fall in love, because he's sworn off love, remember? The entire point of the first book's ending was that Bond was never going to love again. So I wasn't surprised at all by how he manipulates Solitaire. Sickened, but not surprised.
The plot is the sort of campy and improbable thing I'd expect, but in this case, more so than with Casino Royale, most of what happens seems to happen because of Bond's stupidity or poor decisions. Mr. Suave Secret Agent is just screwing up left and right in this story, and if I'd actually cared about him, I would have been screaming at the page, especially when he decides to trust Solitaire based on absolutely nothing. I can accept Bond being an asshole, I can accept him being a sexist manipulator, I can even accept his profound British distaste for all things American (he's constantly ragging on our food and our cars, to the point where it was interfering with the flow of the story.) But I cannot accept a stupid Bond. What's the point of his antihero, power-fantasy appeal if he's a blithering idiot? What redeeming qualities does he have, if not intelligence?
So what good did I find, from a writerly perspective, in this work? Not much. There were occasional moments of compelling imagery, all the more vivid for being surprises in the midst of overworked, pedestrian action sequences. And I was impressed with how much dread and tension the train-travel section was imbued with, given that traveling on the page can often be boring rather than suspenseful.
Not really enough to justify the time I put into reading this.
I'm done. 2019 being the year of me reading the entire Bond series is a bust. I won't keep wading through this garbage any longer.
It's gross, and I felt gross reading it.
But I knew, from reading Casino Royale previously, that I had to expect a certain level of sexism and racism from this series. When I finished that work, I still clung to my desire to read the whole series, learning what I could from it even if there were parts of it I despised.
Live and Let Die has me questioning that resolve. When you strip away the worst parts, what's left is still pretty bad--from a technical standpoint, there's a whole host of issues that have nothing to do with any moral failings of the content.
Bond and Leiter speak in precisely the same way, despite Leiter being a Texan to Bond's classic British splendor--they both exchange information solely at two extremes of conversation, either the rapid-fire back-and-forth that probably sounds more realistic in the mouths of talented actors, or the page-long exposition dumps of one of them catching the other up to speed. Aside from Leiter's tendency to smile more than Bond, and his notable blond hair, they might as well be the same person. They should not be the same person.
Solitaire goes beyond a mere damsel in distress that Bond needs to save. She actively causes Bond to make bad decisions while providing no real benefits to outweigh the harm she does. Even as an informant on Mr. Big's dealings, Bond notes that she doesn't tell him anything he didn't already know or could guess. Her role in the story is to be a pretty girl for Bond to want to have sex with, to "fall in love" with.
Of course he doesn't really fall in love, because he's sworn off love, remember? The entire point of the first book's ending was that Bond was never going to love again. So I wasn't surprised at all by how he manipulates Solitaire. Sickened, but not surprised.
The plot is the sort of campy and improbable thing I'd expect, but in this case, more so than with Casino Royale, most of what happens seems to happen because of Bond's stupidity or poor decisions. Mr. Suave Secret Agent is just screwing up left and right in this story, and if I'd actually cared about him, I would have been screaming at the page, especially when he decides to trust Solitaire based on absolutely nothing. I can accept Bond being an asshole, I can accept him being a sexist manipulator, I can even accept his profound British distaste for all things American (he's constantly ragging on our food and our cars, to the point where it was interfering with the flow of the story.) But I cannot accept a stupid Bond. What's the point of his antihero, power-fantasy appeal if he's a blithering idiot? What redeeming qualities does he have, if not intelligence?
So what good did I find, from a writerly perspective, in this work? Not much. There were occasional moments of compelling imagery, all the more vivid for being surprises in the midst of overworked, pedestrian action sequences. And I was impressed with how much dread and tension the train-travel section was imbued with, given that traveling on the page can often be boring rather than suspenseful.
Not really enough to justify the time I put into reading this.
I'm done. 2019 being the year of me reading the entire Bond series is a bust. I won't keep wading through this garbage any longer.
About a year ago I picked up what I think is the entire Bond series in paperback form through a sale (except for Casino Royale, which wasn’t available anymore), as I figured that it’s about time I read all of these books. Yes, as much a Bond fanatic that I am, that’s always been on the movie side, and I’ve only read a few of the books over the years. So I’m reading them in chronological order, with Live and Let Die being the second Bond novel. It’s of course quite different from what we got in the movie, and there is a lot of unfortunate vocabulary that is used that certainly hasn’t aged well, but I still found myself enjoying it.
DNF'd at 50 pages. The racism and the misogyny in this one were truly unbearable. It did not age well.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No