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latterature 's review for:
The Spy Who Loved Me
by Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming doesn't write women as sex objects, or at least not in the manner that the term is typically used. The literary Bond girls are, in fact, fleshed out characters with fears and desires and dreams. The only criticism is that their respective character arcs inevitable ends with them realizing that every single one of their problems will be solved by James Bond's penis. This phenomenon is amplified in The Spy Who Loved Me, the only Bond novel written entirely from the perspective of 007's romantic conquest and in which the superspy only makes his appearance in the final third of the story; like the fictional Vivienne Michel, the reader is left waiting around for Bond to show up and save them. It was an experiment Fleming would never try again; when the Bond film rights were sold to Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, they were permitted to use the story's title and nothing else.
Having said that, The Spy Who Loved Me is not badly written at all, just entirely at odds with the rest of the series, and once the reader has accepted this, there is no reason why they won't appreciate it as a hardboiled, pulpy-thriller in its own right.
Having said that, The Spy Who Loved Me is not badly written at all, just entirely at odds with the rest of the series, and once the reader has accepted this, there is no reason why they won't appreciate it as a hardboiled, pulpy-thriller in its own right.