The Spy Who Loved Me

I love James Bond and I love Rosamund Pike, who narrated this title, so of course I had to listen to this. This is the only Bond book told from the point of view of a woman -- Bond doesn't show up until halfway through the book -- and I'm honestly surprised at well Fleming handled the feminine perspective. Yes, she's a victim in every sense of the word and yes, he spends a whoooooooole lot of time gushing over Bond's masculinity, but for a guy who had to keep writing Bond books because he had expensive tastes and had literally no other talents or interest in doing anything, I was impressed. Viv is a whole person, not just another Bond girl. Fleming did a great job of capturing the horror experienced by so many women in their show more interactions with men, even the seemingly nice ones. And Rosamund Pike does a bang-up job with all the voices. She's my favorite narrator of everything. show less

One wonders if, having perfected the James Bond plot in Thunderball, Fleming felt his only option for going on was to abandon it completely. The Spy Who Loved Me is told from the first-person perspective of a young Canadian woman who was largely raised in England and is now traveling the United States; it covers her entire life up until she meets Bond, which means he doesn't appear until the 58% mark, when he happens to stop at the motel where she's being menaced by a pair of gangsters.

I like it but I don't love it. Like with his experiments in For Your Eyes Only, I think Fleming is surprisingly good at straight literary fiction, but this doesn't quite measure up to them. Fleming has an interesting objective here of exploring the show more tensions between a woman's sexual desires and the kind of sex both men and society expect of her (one gets quite a negative image of "sexual liberation"), and there's an effective undercurrent of minor tragedy to the whole thing. But other writers have certainly covered these areas with more insight than him, and the coda where the fatherly police chief tells Vivienne to get over Bond was a bit obnoxiously paternalistic.

Still, one is never un-entertained (I can really only say that of one Bond novel so far), and the climax is Fleming doing his Fleming thing the best he can: a small-scale series of action scenes that are nonetheless intense for how real and difficult Fleming writes it. Killing is never easy, even when it's James Bond against two small-scale mobsters. I enjoyed reading it, but it will never be my favorite Bond novel. show less

An odd book, and utterly unlike the other Bond book I've read. As the description notes, a forward by Fleming claims that it was sent to him as a manuscript by its narrator. So it's told in first person, by the "Bond Girl" of the story, and James Bond himself doesn't show up until page 89 of the 143 pages. This is because the first two third of the book alternate between the events of the story itself, and a memoir of sorts, in which the narrator grows up and has a number of experiences, some sexual, and many unpleasant, which shape her view of men and of the world. And all that colors how she reacts to the threat that arrives at the small New England motor court at which she's working, and how she reacts to Bond when he arrives.

Fleming show more here is putting himself in the mind of this woman, and giving us an idea of what and how she thinks. And she does think. But it's difficult to read at spots, because the views of 1962 were different than today's. So some bits had me thinking there was an interesting sociological point to consider all the ways in which attitudes have changed over the last 50-odd years. But other parts were just revolting.

As a result I had trouble deciding how to rate this book. The first three quarters gets a solid four stars from me, for a taut situation with menacing bad guys in a unique setting, and for being so different than the nine books that came before. But there are bits toward the end that get one star, and that only because Goodreads doesn't let you give a no-star rating. In the end, I think I mostly liked it overall, so three seems like a reasonable compromise rating, and it suggests that while I'm unlikely to remove it from my book collection, I'm also unlikely to read it again. show less

Although I have known of James Bond having seen all the wild films throughout my life, and recall finding the late 1950s and 1960s paperbacks my father had purchased, read, then stored in our basement bomb shelter (built during the nuclear scare of the early 1960s), I had actually never read an Ian Fleming James Bond novel -- until today, a month before my 68th birthday.

I chose this one upon learning (1) its main story takes place in Lake George, NY where I have a summer residence. Possibly the most entertaining part of the book for me was the main characters' dislike of the town of Lake George as a tourist trap, and the observation that tourist season ends and businesses shut down on October 15th -- both of which are true today show more sixty-three years since the book was published! 😄 I also chose it to see how Fleming depicted relationships, romance, and sex scenes as a writer of his day. They certainly cannot be as bad as in the films . . . Yet, imho, they are!

Published in 1962, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is -- from a 2026 societal perspective -- quite a mess of misogyny, indirect antisemitism, and male chauvinism, and, imho poorly written with stereotypes rather than characters. The emotional responses (or lack thereof) of these stereotypes, particularly by the female protagonist/narrator, to the traumatic events depicted are unauthentic to the point that I lost the suspension of belief necessary to keep the reader in the story. To read the book, I simply accepted the blatant ridiculousness of the narrative and enjoy it for the campy absurdity much as I have done for the majority of the James Bond films for decades -- the Daniel Craig separate Bond universe quartet being, mostly, the exception. show less

Quasi un romanzo rosa...

Avete letto bene. Questi 007 versione cartacea sono un mondo a parte rispetto al cinema. Questo qui, in particolare, sembra più un diario adolescenziale che la trama di un intricato giallo di spionaggio. La protagonista (ed anche "io narrante") è più la ragazza (Viv, alias Vivienne) che non il nostro Bond. La maggior parte del libro si dilunga nella caratterizzazione psicologica della fanciulla e il nostro eroe compare soltanto oltre la metà del libro e senza mai essere preponderante nella storia che è condotta dal punto di vista di Viv. Grazioso, con una scrittura un pò retrò e romantica, mai troppo "tecnologico" (a differenza dei film) e di lettura spensierata ma dalle ampie descrizioni. Va via in un show more lampo lasciando però la voglia di inseguire ancora James ed il suo mondo nella prossima avventura.

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Riletto a distanza di quasi 10 anni... davvero divertente e diverso da quello che ci si aspetta in confronto al personaggio cinematografico che qui non è neanche il centro della storia. Può non piacere, ma per quel mi riguarda trovo deliziosi i filmetti dell'America anni '50 e quindi vado a nozze con l'atmosfera che qui si respira: il motel sulla strada, l'avventura, l'azione, i gangster, l'eroe positivo ma non troppo, la fanciulla da salvare ma non indifesa. Scrittura divertente proprio perchè stridente con le aspettative del genere "agente segreto". show less

Why did Fleming choose to write a novel in the first person of a female protagonist? I have no idea. Perhaps he was tired of complaints about the way he wrote his female characters; perhaps someone, whom he felt he must answer, had accused him of misogyny and he wanted to show an empathy for the fair sex; perhaps he was simply bored and wanted a change.

Whatever the reason, Fleming makes a fair fist of it. His Vivienne Michel is well executed; the character has had less than happy experiences with men but she is resilient and remains unembittered and untwisted. She is a strong yet attractive character. This is not the writing of a misogynist in any degree.

The problem with The Spy who Loved Me is that the reader comes away with the show more feeling that it started from the wrong premise. Graham's "Marnie", my own "Motherhood" or any of du Maurier's forays into the opposite sex, all start with the story and then tell that from the POV that seems to work best. The Spy who Loved Me, on the other hand, gives the impression that Fleming started off with the character and then groped around for a story to hang it on. Very likely under editorial pressure, he tried to turn it into a Bond novel. Unfortunately, some eighty pages have already been spent explaining how Vivienne came to be where she is at the start. When the action starts, it feels as though it has been tacked on as an afterthought. No doubt it has; it's a McGuffin (the term Hitchcock coined to describe the matter that the film purported to be about). The arrival of the villains is nothing more than an excuse to bring Bond into the thing. When, half way through the novel, James Bond actually arrives, it is far from vintage stuff: a jaded and world-weary depiction of a jaded and world-weary 007.

Had Fleming followed his apparent first instincts and written a novel about Vivienne Michel, leaving Bond out of things entirely, he might have done something creditable; it comes across in every line of the second half that he did not want to write Bond. As it is, The Spy who Loved Me ends up neither fish, flesh, fowl nor good red herring.
Many years ago, charlatan traders used to sell "mermaids", fabricated from half a monkey carcase sewn onto half a fish. The Spy who Loved Me has a similar quality.

(Incidentally, anyone concerned about the infamous "all women like semi-rape" line can rest easy. Placed in its context it is clear that it it is not referring to rape at all.) show less

An experiment for Fleming, which he ended up hating, and one of the few diversions away from formula, when he writes this memoir from the point of view of the female protagonist, who has driven down from Canada, and has ended up baby sitting a motel due for closure. Most of the book deals with her, and her alone, and in fact, Bond doesn’t appear until the last third. Although this is a diversion from his normal story telling, there are several Fleming tropes here, with a damsel in distress, some nasty dragons about to kill her, and heroism coupled with a perchance for bacon and eggs. Different but the culture and viewpoint has horrifically dated, and some of the blatant misogyny is difficult to stomach.