You Only Live Twice

This starts good, with a broken Bond reeling from the death of his wife at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It continues okay, with Bond traveling to Japan, and Fleming doing an unusually good job immersing one in the local color. (Fleming is often decent at this kind of thing, but this is one of his better takes in terms of how interesting it is. On the other hand, I somehow suspect it is reductive and not entirely inaccurate!)

Where it all falls down for me is that basically Bond bumps into the man who killed his wife by complete coincidence! There's no feeling of comeuppance or vindication here; Bond just happens to discover a plot by Blofeld. And though I love the idea of Blofeld's garden of poisonous plants, it's like: show more that's it? He's just hanging out there? Where's an even more dastardly plot? Fleming tries to explain this by saying Blofeld's gone totally insane... but that's not really satisfying. Imagine if after killing Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader went nuts off screen so that when Luke met up with him again, killing him was a doddle. Meh.

And what's the point of the epilogue where Bond loses his memory?

There's a really good "Bond's wife was killed and now he's angry" novel to be written, but this isn't it. And of course, the films didn't deliver on that potential either, thanks to the departure of George Lazenby. show less

"You are to enter this Castle of Death and slay the dragon within."

SPOILER ALERTS!!!

I really enjoyed this book! It begins with Bond in mourning over his wife's assassination at the end of the previous book. He's in pretty bad shape. Then he's off to Japan to do some spy stuff, but he must exchange a favor and kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. Turns out - it's Ernst Stavro Blofeld! And Irma Bunt is there too! The two enemies who killed his wife! Woo hoo! THEN, he, 007, becomes an amnesiac! And he gets Kissy Suzuki pregnant to boot! The book ends with Bond on an island, with no memory of who he is!

Again, this was a good book, though it was hard for me to read the part about the blowfish dinner without hearing Homer Simpson's voice bellowing show more "Fugu me!" :-) I also liked chapter 21, "Obit:" quite a bit! It is M.'s obituary of 007 and reveals quite a lot of Bond's biography and background! Of course he isn't "Bond" at the end of it all, is he? Gotta read the next one! show less

Bond is left reeling after the tragic end to his ill-fated marriage that concluded the previous book. Grieving, traumatized, adrift, he's lost his mojo, baby. In a last ditch effort before giving up on him completely, M dispatches him on a low-risk but difficult assignment. Bond's despair and struggle to find meaning in life after his loss help to flesh him out as a character with almost human feelings (he's still a psychopath), and M's attempt to save him from himself is almost touching.

After Fleming's disastrous treatment of Koreans in Goldfinger, I was quite concerned about what would happen with Bond rampaging through Japan. But he seems to have some grudging respect for the Japanese, and the racism is comical more than offensive. show more Bond's addictions (alcohol, cigarettes, sex) are also shown in a slightly less glamourous light, more of a liability than an appealing trait. Not that it stops Fleming from lasciviously describing his lecherous 39 year old protagonist lustily forcing himself on a series of barely legal women.

Unfortunately, the moderately nuanced treatment doesn't extend to Blofeld. After his previous plot was foiled by Bond, he's boarded the crazy train for good, abandoning his criminal enterprise and retiring to rural Japan to operate an assisted suicide botanical garden. It makes absolutely no sense, and his downfall is equally disappointing. Blofeld started off as an even better villain than Dr. No, and ended up worse than Goldfinger.

The female companion (i.e. "Bond Girl") is also my least favourite of the series. She starts out as the Japanese version of Honeychile Rider (from Dr. No), an independent athletic self-sufficient adventurer more at home in the water than on land, living a simple life in a small island fishing village rather than sipping champagne in a fancy European capital. But that's where the similarity ends. Kissy is selfish, greedy, conniving, and deceitful. She essentially gaslights him into being her servant, then throws him to the wolves unprepared rather than deal with the truth of his identity and her pregnancy.
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Rifarsi una vita

Un uomo che non è un uomo come tutti gli altri, ma stavolta, come tutti gli altri è caduto in un profondo abisso. La morte della sua Tracy, sposata da poche ore, ha distrutto quello che nessun potere occulto, nessuna mostruosità vivente, nessuna missione impossibile erano riusciti ad abbattere. James non è più lui e trascina le sue giornate senza trovarvi più una ragione, mettendo addirittura a repentaglio la vita di altri agenti nelle missioni. Ma M, ancora una volta saprà dove colpire. Una missione "suicida" riporterà l'uomo alla vita e alle gioie della semplicità, anche se non per sempre.

Simultaneously the most and least interesting of Fleming's bond novels. The most interesting because Fleming acknowledges the eclipse of the UK's standing in the world by the US. I think this is the closest he ever got to Le Carre territory (although he is still quite far away). Fleming's weird hangups about sex also are dialed down, mercifully. On the other hand, it is the most boring because apparently Fleming did some kind of newspaper travel writing about Japan and decided to incorporate that material here and I am frankly not interested in Fleming's limited worldview about Japan. The plot with Blofeld is frankly even sillier than the film adaptation, and that's saying something.

Enjoyable, but lacked many of the hallmarks I look for when I read or watch Bond. No Q or gadgets, no high speed chase, no clever quips, very limited action (there are actually no shots fired in the whole book!) and didn't care for the ending. It's worth mentioning that the 1967 film adaptation of this book (screenplay written by Roal Dahl) manages to correct each of the above-mentioned faults.

I've heard from Fleming fans that this and Casino Royale are the best of the Bond books. I was not disappointed.

Bond is sent on a seemingly impossible mission to Japan, where he is to seek out a highly guarded piece of intelligence from the formidable head of the Japanese secret service Tiger Tanaka. Tiger agrees in exchange for the life of a certain thorn in his paw. After much training and one extreme makeover, Bond heads to The Garden of Death, an island fortress housing innumerable species of poisonous plant and animal life (and thereby attracting Japan's suicidal citizens). Bond also gets a chance at revenge from arch-nemesis Blofeld.

What I like about 007 in the books as opposed to the movies is that he's vulnerable rather than show more invincible. Here we see Bond grieving the loss of his wife, struggling to blend in with a culture he does not understand, and dealing with amnesia. The villians are fun and a bit over the top (but not nearly as campy as the disfigured-pussycat-petting-extinct-volcano-dwelling Blofeld of the movie). Kissy was a wonderful Bond girl: independent and strong.

Makes me want to try a few more Bond books... show less