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A review by martha_is_reading
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
2.0
Apparently a glutton for punishment (and far too committed to The Seasonal Reading Challenge) I pressed on to Bond #2 after the unpleasant experience that was Casino Royale.
Imagine the joy that came from discovering that wild misogyny wasn't the only treat in store; this time we get the thrill of casual racism too! Win!
All the issues with Casino Royale still stand - descriptive passages that are more technical than anything else (aka, DULL); James Bond being a massive douche etc. Having a second book to compare it to has made me realise that Fleming is incredibly poor at opening novels in any kind of engaging way. Bear in mind these books are 200-250 pages long - this is the kind of thing I can usually inhale in a day or two, and I struggled over the first half of both Casino Royale and Live and Let Die. They do start to improve as the action picks up, and the situations in which Bond finds himself are not without their creativity, but overall they are incredibly boring.
I was briefly hopeful that Solitaire might have held her own as she was presented as some kind of powerful telepath, but that quickly evaporated into a pathetic damsel making a nuisance of herself while James saves her so that he can have his way with her (he at least possesses enough morals to be above necrophilia).
The characters (villains and heroes) are completely two-dimensional; and as with any series (not at all unique to Bond), the tension is greatly reduced by the knowledge that Bond will live to utter another derogatory remark for many books to come!
Imagine the joy that came from discovering that wild misogyny wasn't the only treat in store; this time we get the thrill of casual racism too! Win!
All the issues with Casino Royale still stand - descriptive passages that are more technical than anything else (aka, DULL); James Bond being a massive douche etc. Having a second book to compare it to has made me realise that Fleming is incredibly poor at opening novels in any kind of engaging way. Bear in mind these books are 200-250 pages long - this is the kind of thing I can usually inhale in a day or two, and I struggled over the first half of both Casino Royale and Live and Let Die. They do start to improve as the action picks up, and the situations in which Bond finds himself are not without their creativity, but overall they are incredibly boring.
I was briefly hopeful that Solitaire might have held her own as she was presented as some kind of powerful telepath, but that quickly evaporated into a pathetic damsel making a nuisance of herself while James saves her so that he can have his way with her (he at least possesses enough morals to be above necrophilia).
The characters (villains and heroes) are completely two-dimensional; and as with any series (not at all unique to Bond), the tension is greatly reduced by the knowledge that Bond will live to utter another derogatory remark for many books to come!