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This massive novel in five parts was the last thing the author did, and the first I have read by him, but it looks like a masterpiece so far.
That's the year you travelled here from, correct?
Ah, yes. I took the same flight then.
BOOK 4
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
by Ian Fleming
They say that variety is the spice of life, but when the new school semester commenced about a week ago, I felt somewhat miserable for having to break up my recently established “Fleming routine”. Duty calls remorselessly and without compromise; and since I abhor a fragmented and systematically disturbed reading experience, I decided to put certain diamonds on ice until the weekend. But the very moment the alluring prospect of several uninterrupted hours presented itself, I dove straight into the diamond smuggling pipeline running from Sierra Leone to Vegas. With John Barry’s score for DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (movie) and a nostalgically pleasing 90s “James Bond Synthesizer Themes” collection in heavy rotation, the perfect mood was set for one of Fleming’s shadier novels.
The story of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER seems simple enough. Diamond smugglers cost Britain a small fortune and it is thus considered imperative that any illegal trafficking of African diamonds be terminated. James Bond is sent by mi6 to probe the hidden pipeline and discover where it ends, yet he is never stipulated to actually fight it with force. He’s required to investigate rather than execute, which begs the question why someone of his professional preeminence is “wasted” on this fairly meek and tepid assignment. Swiftly though, Bond discovers that he’s not at all dealing with a bunch of harmless two-timers and comic book hoodlums; instead, he enters a tight network of dangerous and well-organized men who leave no stone unturned in their unrelenting effort to maintain control of the diamond smuggling business. They will threaten, maim and kill if they must, without compunction. Bond himself will be beaten to within an inch of his life. Underestimating these criminals is the first of many mistakes an imperfect James Bond will make in this book.
Emerging from decades of chauvinism and absolute trust in his country’s cultural and imperial superiority, Fleming’s strained endeavour to cope with Britain’s changing place in the world is made evident in this book. A frustrated British writer tries to come to terms with the fact that America has taken centre stage now, that those wild and uncivilized Yanks are gaining prominence and in fact are supplanting Britain as a military and economic superpower. It renders Fleming, and by association Bond, darkly cynical and decidedly judgemental. Bond’s initial sarcasm regarding his adversaries feels more like an attempt to compensate for these global power shifts than a thoughtless miscalculation from his side. His efforts to make this mission a walk in the park are as encompassing as they are futile. Fleming exposes the diamond smugglers as the very opposite of cardboard gangsters from a 40s Western. They are part of a secret power, the government behind the government, to be factored in when assessing a growing sense of domestic instability. This time, Bond isn’t working against “Red Land”, our common Cold War enemy, but against the inconspicuous yet inexorable enemy within: the “Spangled Mob”.
Helping Bond to infiltrate the diamond pipeline is his close friend Felix Leiter, back from the emergency room after his intimate acquaintance with famished sharks in LIVE AND LET DIE. Now supported by prosthetics and working for Pinkertons instead of the CIA, Leiter continues to enjoy a great chemistry with Bond, almost as if Fleming, through Leiter, is striving for a balanced treatment of his geopolitical anxieties. Leiter introduces Bond to horse racing and aids him in causing minor upheaval for the mobsters. It always makes me wince a little when their cunning plans get a poor jockey into stern trouble. Two unrestrained, sadistic thugs by the name of Kidd and Wint whom Fleming describes as a pair of homos—-and they often make for the most brutal killers!--take great pleasure in submitting the jockey to a torture which he only survives by the skin of his teeth. Fleming made it an accidental trademark of his that Bond’s opponents are often sexually inferior to him. Kidd and Wint are dangerous and not to be scoffed at, but at least they won’t beat Bond in the sack. Any appraisal of Fleming’s progressive acknowledgement of homosexuality would be seriously compromised in view of this tendency of his to use homos and lesbians as villains or disturbed people. And yet, I don’t think the issue warrants too much debate as Fleming never openly attacked gays and lesbians, even if his character choices most likely reflect personal taste.
Neither Wint, Kidd, the Spangs or the slightly comical Shady Tree can be singled out as “the” villain of DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. For the first time in his books, Fleming makes Bond fight a slick engine rather than one bad guy and his henchmen. In a way, this choice gives him ample opportunity for several welcome albeit less exciting climaxes in the book; like in a video game, he moves from one target to the next. Though killing was not part of M’s instructions, Bond’s life or that of his allies often hinges on his ability to eliminate his foes. But it takes a while to get there. At one point in the story, Bond’s mission has almost reached a frozen state. Fleming then decides to let Bond suddenly wreak some minor havoc in Las Vegas; to let the chips fall where they may, so to speak. By distorting the status quo, the mobsters are suddenly thrown off and jolted into action. After quite a few chapters of Bond playing his role of “carrier” with reserved submission, he suddenly gives the Spangs the finger in no uncertain ways. And while this offers the story a new avenue for electricity, I always furrow my brows at the cheap narrative trick Fleming just used. Furthermore, Bond pockets a lot of money he wasn’t supposed to pursue in Jack Spang’s casino, and rather than spending it himself, he ships it to Britain. This can be seen as yet another means for Fleming to “take some of it back” from the Americans, as his stubborn dismissal of America's rise to the top, although perhaps I’m reading too much in it.
What I can’t read too much into is Fleming’s characterization of Tiffany Case, this book’s enigmatic damsel. A vicious gang-rape has left her asexual with a clear hint of misandry. Now she works for the mobsters because they treat her well and the money’s good. Then Bond walks into her life and whatever abstinence she had decided to conserve in perpetuity, leaks into oblivion hard and fast. It strikes me as off the mark that her inner conflicts are resolved so quickly and effortlessly when 007 makes a few glib remarks. Any emotional disturbances are furthermore relegated to two episodes of inadequate melodrama. This is particularly shameful given how Fleming has her back-story suffused with painful suffering. Obviously I wouldn’t want the book to become exploitative, but the relative ease with which Bond gets to “cure” this girl, is somewhat off-putting. Yet Fleming makes it happen in other books too, as Bond must “correct” Pussy Galore, a lesbian, in GOLDFINGER and “heal” Tracy Draco, a plagued girl, in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. In fact, with the exception of Gala Brandt in MOONRAKER, it is difficult to find any girl in Fleming’s books who isn’t, in some way, tormented by a tragic fate or past and who puts most if not all of her trust in Bond to help her escape this life of grim despair. Tiffany Case isn’t, as such, an oddity in the Bond girls’ hall of fame. And though she does start out as being portentously disinterested in sex, she becomes tantalizingly flirtatious with Bond very quickly. One could see this as a sign of female weakness although she does display a tough and resilient disposition when saving Bond from his life-threatening predicaments. Because of her small but sometimes unearned moments of astonishing vigour, the literary Tiffany Case is at least persistently more entertaining and in fact more respectable than her flawed and poorly developed cinematic counterpart, played by Jill St. John. Bond, in turn, must also save her from the demonic clutches of Kidd and Wint in the one truly tense chapter of the book. And while doing so, he effectively and affectionately evacuates the materialistic but emotionally high-priced indulgences from Tiffany’s current life, to be replaced by a bright and hopeful future at Bond’s side. Of course armed with the meta-knowledge most Bond fans possess, we can see Tiffany’s hope of a romantic life with Bond as adding insult to her injuries, if not just as bleakly naive. Yet once again Bond will contemplate marriage, for which he must first “divorce” himself from M, although at the same time it is sceptically remarked that marriage usually doesn’t add two people but subtracts one from the other.
Unlike MOONRAKER, in which Fleming kept building momentum during the final six or seven chapters, culminating in one of the tensest and climatically most satisfying chapters he’d ever write, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER never truly reaches out to a spectacular multi-chapter climax. Quite the opposite in fact; Fleming introduces a problem, then solves it, then introduces another. The pipeline structure of the diamond mob neatly serves as the backbone of the story. Bond will move link by link, finding himself in trouble often enough to deal the mobsters a linear sequence of destructive blows. But at least he makes it happen; he represents Britain’s confidence that it can ultimately still make a difference. After three hundred pages of “Limey” this and “Limey” that, at least this “Limey” gets the job done, at least this “Limey” does what the Americans themselves can’t. At least Bond takes out the trash, though not without the help of Leiter, his friend Ernie Cuneo and of course, in her occasional anti-hero role, Tiffany Case. The iciness of Fleming’s shattered patriotic pride melts away under the light of diplomatic comprehension. The pawns have been moved, some have been replaced, but we’re still in this thing together, and Bond can still be more relevant than ever. America may have outgrown Britain’s token dominance, but it still needs the Union Jack to accomplish something of great importance.
While not exactly tense, DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is a very fascinating book. In almost every chapter, Fleming exudes resentment, admiration and hope. His fight is not with his own wartime demons, but with Britain’s fear that it may soon become irrelevant. Bond personifies Fleming's confidence that there are still common battles to be fought, and that seems to make Fleming himself cautiously optimistic. Bond is a beacon of light for Tiffany Case too, a damaged, scarred and cold girl, who will very soon find Bond radiating hope though not through any clear action of his own. They mostly just talk, but Bond doesn’t always say the right things. Because James Bond isn’t perfect. He doesn’t always have the answers. Whether Fleming was bit by bit trying to say goodbye to his creation, or he merely preferred a more naturalistic approach, something was changing. Bond was never a superhero; ever since CASINO ROYALE he has found himself in trouble often and his survival has more than once been based on blind luck and stupid coincidence. But now James Bond’s imperfections are accentuated. His moves are sometimes miscalculated and solely based on prejudice. His fate is often in the hands of those who have befriended him. And yet, there is something intriguing about this. Fleming may not have given me the same nail-biting thrills I got in MOONRAKER, but he kept me engaged in this adventure. I’m willing to hypothesize that with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, Fleming effectively avoided empty writing and pastiche. The book therefore serves more as a character study of several very judgemental people than as an escapist adventure in the same vein as MOONRAKER. One of these people is Bond himself, who, in several of the later books, will have to exorcise demons even more personal, challenging and angry than the ones presented here.
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is a nuanced book, and said nuance is never detrimental to the fun one can have with its story. But it’s a different kind of fun than CASINO ROYALE, LIVE AND LET DIE and MOONRAKER. Bond’s world has become bleaker, colder and more uncertain. Counterbalancing that are warm friends like Leiter and Ernie Cuneo, and some wonderfully comedic lines. My favourite of those is dropped about Shady Tree and how he’s so crooked that if you shake hands with him, you ought to count your fingers afterwards. Always makes me chuckle. It’s one of many examples of how good Fleming writes and how enjoyable his prose is. He challenges us with his characters and their quandaries, but he’s firmly in command of his words. DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER is also a far better book than its 1971 adaptation is a film. Little of the book’s subtext was retained for the borderline slapstick treatment it was given on film. But the film can be a lot of outrageously hysteric fun, a nonsensical drinking game, a shocking example of self-spoofing. The book, by contrast, is a serious examination of the flaws of the world, of impotent governments—-our governments--overshadowed by crime, and of the very people who put the thrust behind said crime and those who labour hard to stop it. And so it's definitely worth your time, even if I would concede that it's not my favourite Bond novel.
Once again satisfied and very much enthralled, I close the book and take a deep breath. It was a lot to chew, even more so because I have tried to grasp the book on all its levels. Whether I have succeeded or not is of no further importance; I had a good time with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER and that’s all that matters. And thus concludes the first “quadrilogy” of the Fleming Bond books, at least as I see it. After this one comes the duology of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and DR. NO, a few standalones after that, and then it’s SPECTRE time. I am quite fond of the next two books, so I must admit I’m looking forward to picking up FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. But this weekend won’t offer me enough reading time any more and so I’ll probably have to wait yet another week before fighting Donovan Grant on the Orient Express…
7.5/10
DD's 2018 book ranking
1) Casino Royale - 10/10
2) Moonraker - 9.5/10
3) Live And Let Die - 8/10
4) Diamonds Are Forever - 7.5/10
I was just thinking that @DarthDimi is putting us all to shame. It's taken us since June to reach YOLT!
Pardon? There aren't many writers around that write more humorous than Deighton. He's a true heir to the great Dashiel Hammett.
Oh, yes, you're quite right of course. I was referring more to plot complexity I suppose.
Correct. He thought Fleming's best book was Casino Royale and that Fleming had disimproved since then.
He certainly wasn't very interested in plots, and most of the storylines in his books turn into gigantic messes. But is true that Fleming's version of a gangster story doesn't have the originality of his other books, whereas when Chandler imitated himself he was at least imitating an original. Had Fleming been more interested in the Spangs he would have written a better book. Chandler probably liked CR best because it had a hardboiled noir atmosphere and a hard-hitting series of emotional climaxes. By contrast LALD, MR were less hardboiled, while DAF didn't hit as hard as CR.
I think that DAF was weaker because Fleming's heart was not into it and he knew less the gangster world. Chandler knew the American crime fiction genre back and forth and thus even when his plots were iffy he'd made up for it in character and atmosphere. There's always something authentic in his work that I did not quite feel in DAF compared to the other Bond novels.
@Lancaster007
You can find the review several posts ago. :)
Well, you've put more thought into reading that book than I ever have. Another excellent, very readable review. You've almost given me a new appreciation of DAF…almost.
Although I don't totally dislike DAF, I do find it to be one of the weakest books, but saying that there is still some good stuff in it. And I believe it gives a very good picture of the USofA in the 50s. Fleming's descriptions of people and places is excellent.
One of my biggest negatives about this book, is Bond himself. When one thinks that he relies on his wits and observation, indeed the slightest thing could mean life or death. And this is what bugs me. In at least two or three occasions, after being told about one of the killer's penchant for sucking a wart on his thumb, Bond doesn't make use of this information other than a nagging doubt. Come on Bond slackness like this could get you killed!
I don't think Fleming was tired of Bond yet, but he was disappointed with sales. And in his next book it was going to be kill or cure…indeed it would be left open ended. Is Bond dead or will he survive?
Up next my two favourites, FRWL and Dr No - as a teen in the 70s Dr No was my all-time fav Bond book, now I'm all growed up FRWL (book and film) is my top, never-to-be-beaten Bond.
Looking forward to you reviews on these @DarthDimi (oh, and of course GF, TB and OHMSS).
Fleming's gangsters are definitely very stagey and inauthentic. Not just DAF, but also Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me and so on. On one level I enjoy how outrageously cartoony they are, on another I realize that Fleming just couldn't connect with such characters in the way that he connected with his European villains. Mr. Big is the only exception, but he's not really American either.
Thanks for the positive comments; I appreciate that.
You're right, Bond is far from perfect. I didn't want to elaborate on the wart thing but that bugs me too.
I'm very much looking forward to returning to FRWL, one of my favourite books along with DN. Compulsive reading and all that. But I'll be needing another week, sadly enough. Bloody job's keeping me occupied all the time and I prefer to read at least half a book in one sitting rather than to cut it up.
And he's connected to the East and the Cold War.
Be my guest. I've really set my mind on typing out these reviews for all of Fleming's novels, which takes a long time for me to do as I try to make them as readable as possible. ;)
You could make a case for King Arthur as the original. He's only sleeping until we need him.
(Wake up, Arthur!)
Might need to give him a big nudge. Don't be shy now.
BOOK 5
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
by Ian Fleming
A sudden illness can be a sign of great portent, or it can be an unexpected blessing. The other day, a catastrophic misunderstanding between my generally vigorous appetite and my sometimes uncooperative stomach, abruptly prevented me from going to work. I would require at least half a day to fully recover from these digestive unpleasantries and so I figured the time was right to kick another Fleming adventure into gears. Up next was FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, and I never need a particularly strong incentive to read that book anyway. (Here’s at least one thing JFK and I have in common, besides our enduring affection for Monroe type blondes.) Still feeling a bit under the weather, I stubbornly refused to take off my pyjamas, let some sunlight in for a change and also threw Barry’s FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and Arnold’s DIE ANOTHER DAY and THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH in the mix. Several steady hours later, the story had reached its venomous climax, and I had brought myself to the following two simple deductions: 1) reading Fleming can effectively cure temporary physical discomfort, and 2) James Bond’s fate is now very much uncertain.
Bond’s hard-earned successes during previous assignments may seem completely disconnected, but it turns out they have virtually always bothered the Soviets in some way. Le Chiffre had been working for them, so had Mr. Big and so had Drax. And Bond had beaten them all at their individual, precarious games. The Russians have discovered Bond’s involvement in all of these unfortunate defeats and their own secret service now decides to retaliate with full force in order to put themselves out of embarrassment once and for all. A formidable plan is fabricated which involves the toad-like SMERSH colonel Klebb, chess master Kronsteen and ruthless killer Donovan Grant. The book is divided into two parts and part 1, “The Plan”, strategically positions all these chess pieces on the board for a mission contrived with the dual purpose of spy shaming the British and killing 007. Fleming introduces Grant as the anti-Bond, a cold-blooded monster who will kill for pleasure but is downright uninterested in sex. This strongly underlined character trait perpetuates the trend that Bond’s adversaries are either obnoxious trolls or sexually impotent freaks, leaving Bond at least one forgone advantage: he gets to have the girl, almost by default. Apart from that, Grant is set up as perhaps the most fearsome of Bond’s opponents to date, and we immediately understand that the Soviets have a pretty big ace up their sleeve.
We then proceed to various meetings with generals, colonels and corporals who will each play at least some part in the execution of the plan. Corporal Romanova—her friends call her Tanja—is perchance the most crucial of these, as she must lure Bond to Istanbul on the false premises of political defection, a star-struck infatuation with one of Bond’s photos and a Spektor machine that would earn the West some interesting insights in Redland’s well-kept military secrets. Of simple tastes and romantically somewhat immature, Romanova understands that unless she compliantly does as she’s told, her country may not be quite so kind towards her. An endless string of well-mannered exchanges notwithstanding, her instructions, as delivered by that lesbian hag Klebb, come with inflexible demands for discipline, loyalty and devotion. Harsh threats are implicitly delivered with what appear to be, at most, perfunctory warnings. Any deviation from the plan will inescapably result in death. Romanova’s interview with Klebb involves a nicely dressed up meeting room and rare chocolates, and yet it’s anything but comfortable or warm. Nothing in this first part of the book is. Everyone is tough, intrusive, vicious and calculated, dispassionate and assiduous. A sense of cold sterility creeps in fast with Grant’s inability to passionately surrender to the fleshly indulgences provided by his attractive and naked masseuse. These are different people than we are, immoral and unethical, almost vampiric in nature; these people plot and conspire and worry little to nothing about other people’s lives. We feel trapped in their hard, despicable regime; we can sense the raw obedience that is demanded from everyone involved. The first part of the book therefore seems antithetical to the book’s title. There is no love in Russia and even less love coming from Russia, as we, the readers, know that Romanova is simply following orders and that shadow figures will operate outside her knowledge, executing even darker orders. The Soviets will show no mercy and take no prisoners; they are cold-hearted and almost inhumanly fierce. I give credit to Fleming for convincingly presenting their plot as almost ineffably nefarious, but without letting all the cats out of the bag just yet.
Tonally contrasting this is part 2 of the book, called “The Execution”, which starts with Bond’s relatively stress-free recovery from his breakup with Tiffany Case. It would seem that in matters of love, Bond must always face the music; Fleming is not going to let him go steady as long as there are more villains to fight. But the matter is tossed aside pretty quickly and M delivers Bond’s latest mission. Both men smell a rat but exactly how aquiver with menace and traps the mission is, fails to become evident at this point. They find the apparent love-affair rather discombobulating but the illicit acquirement of a Spektor is definitely worth the risky pursuit. One thing stands to reason; there’s mutual respect, room for non-committal impressions and even some jocular comments. The difference between the good guys’ approach and that of the Russians couldn’t have been more obviously established. It’s almost whiplash inducing in fact. And yet Fleming never aspires to making the British look incompetent. By dehumanizing the Russians and in particular SMERSH, he has implicitly accentuated the all-around superiority of his fellow countrymen, even if Bond’s mission is still very much laden with a sense of foreboding of which only we are aware. Culturally and ethically savage, the Russians are no match for Bond’s far more erudite and nobler disposition. Still, those qualities may not be enough against Redland's remorseless practices.
Fleming then oddly insists on a small dose of Friday the 13th superstition, a real non-sequitur to Bond’s intelligent conversation with M. Fortunately though, this is never brought up again and can therefore be seen as just silly foreplay to the real strains yet to come. Before we get there, however, we meet Kerim Bey—Darko Kerim—who has been my favourite Bond ally since seeing Pedro Armendariz play the part with perfect magnetism and charm in the 1963 film adaptation. With his performance in mind, Fleming’s scintillating character study of Darko Kerim quickly becomes the highlight of the novel for me. Smart, cunning, articulate and exceptionally well-organized, Kerim facilitates things for Bond in no uncertain ways, coming painfully close to professionally castrating Bond in certain parts of the book. Were it not for Fleming’s clever writing, Kerim could almost be seen as overshadowing Bond, reducing the latter’s contribution to merely making love to a beautiful Russian woman for the good cause. Luckily, things are safely kept in balance and Bond is one half of a powerful team which spies on the Russians, fights Bulgarians in a gypsy camp and executes the callous assassin Krilencu.
Indeed, a lot of time is spent on fighting guerilla type obstacles before jumping aboard the Orient Express and into the more thrillingly sinister parts of the conspiracy. A few Bulgarians die by Bond’s gun and Bond, in turn, is repulsed by the unforeseen murders he’s forced to commit. Fleming gives Bond a conscience, and it’s not the first time he’s done that. As far back as his CASINO ROYALE adventure, Bond had already reflected on the nature of good and evil. It gives him no pleasure to take a human life, which once again stresses the significant difference between Bond and Grant. Grant’s loyalty, after all, lies with the side that allows him the most human victims; hence, and not for any ideological or political reasons, Grant chose the Red side. And now at last, near the end of the novel, Bond is on the Orient Express with Romanova, soon to meet Donovan Grant in disguise as a British operative. While the film adaptation of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE gave Grant a pivotal part to play in Bond’s successful escape from Istanbul, in the novel he serves precisely one purpose: to kill James Bond at a specified time and in a specified place. In one of the most nerve-racking moments of the book, Bond faces certain death at the hand of Grant. This dreadful prospect is partially his own fault, however, as he trusted Grant far too easily. It was more of a blunder than a failure perhaps, but something still feels wrong. Bond typically follows his instinct, memorizes potentially important minutiae and almost effortlessly spots the spurious details in someone’s story. Yet when Grant jumps aboard the train, Bond practically immediately hands over his gun, a mistake of the same magnitude as ignoring all the signs pointing to Kidd and Wint in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. The funny thing is that Fleming even mentions the slip-up himself. In any case I wish he had found a more appropriate way to disarm Bond to Grant’s strategic advantage. Yet after Grant’s generous elucidation, Bond must now rely on his entire skill set to defeat the man. Here’s another example of where the film script may have done things a little better, stretching Bond’s nail-biting perils just a tiny bit longer and driving it all into a sensational climax, the merits of which are of course entirely cinematic—so no blame on Fleming there. No blame on Fleming at all in fact, since the book makes us feel the tension no matter what.
Unlike many writers, Fleming knows when the time is right to close the book, literally and figuratively. Rather than rattle off never-ending story conclusions for pages at a stretch, we have precisely one final moment of excitement, as Bond walks into one last trap. It is here that Fleming does what he can to obfuscate the factual outcome of things: does Bond live or doesn’t he? With none of the films yet released and no other indications that he was planning to write more novels, it wouldn’t be entirely inconceivable for Fleming to offer his spy an ambiguous dismissal. Once in a blue moon, Bond really can cock it up, and maybe this time he did it for good. The Russians have failed but so has he, like a détente in reverse. And what with Romanova? Her submission to Bond was almost instantaneous, but was she still playing a game? Was she prepared to stretch and bend the rules a little, or was she going to flat-out break them, ready to defect for real? I’m never entirely sure how reliable she can be after all is said and done, and there’s definitely room for flexibility in our reading of her immediate future. But if Fleming decides to write a follow-up to FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, it’s quite likely she won’t even be mentioned. By now, that much at least we can assume from experience.
And yet, Fleming made this book feel different. With a good third of the book devoted to the Russians and their scheming, and Bond not an active character until well over a hundred pages in it, the narrative structure of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is somewhat unusual. CASINO ROYALE, LIVE AND LET DIE and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER had sent Bond on his mission right off the bat. MOONRAKER had opened with a “typical Monday” for Bond and had then given him two missions for the price of one. But an unwary reader might have forgotten Bond is even in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE until the Russians start targeting him explicitly. Only a disciplined author like Ian Fleming can prolong the active introduction of our lead character until such a huge chunk of the novel has already been read. I can imagine how tempted others may have been to constantly jump between the two stages of the game, almost as a sign of insecurity that the story isn’t strong enough without its main protagonist to keep us engaged. Fleming clearly isn’t worried about that and furthermore, he helps us to get cold feet from reading how dangerous and insolent those Reds are by hurling almost all their connivances at us at once. I admire how in charge of his chess game Fleming really is, how methodically and self-controlled the story is built and told. While the tension in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is of a different kind than the more spectacle based tension of MOONRAKER, more “dormant” and spaced out if you like, it’s definitely there, and it makes itself felt on almost every page.
Few Bond films warrant a close comparison with their source novels but FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (movie) is certainly one of them. The filmmakers have managed to leave most of Fleming’s story intact, but pasted SPECTRE over SMERSH and, as previously mentioned, gave Grant a more intricate role in the shadows of Bond’s adventure in Istanbul. The memorable Hagia Sophia scene from the film isn’t in the book but it’s never sorely missed either. In contrast, I honestly believe the Orient Express part of the story was executed better in the film, but probably because the film medium offers certain indulgences a book could never enjoy. Sadly, the film took a hard blow when it tried to add even more excitement via its tribute to NORTH BY NORTHWEST and a clash between slow boats in a sea of fire. Certainly spectacular, these scenes chew off some of the raw strains suffered during Bond’s climactic confrontation with Grant and in that sense, we could probably have done without them. Yet when the film effectively deals with the abrasive personalities of Kronsteen and Klebb, it wins another point over the book. One thing that’s remarkably present in both book and film, is Q’s fully equipped briefcase. Gadgets of this sort had hitherto been absent from Fleming’s stories, and yet they would ultimately set a very popular trend in the movies. It’s clear that both film and book are closely linked and, in their own capacity, strong entries in their corresponding series, a special quality which FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE shares with only DR NO, GOLDFINGER, THUNDERBALL and ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.
Chuffed to bits and mysteriously cured from my malaise, I closed the book, feeling quite fulfilled after Fleming’s fifth Bond novel. And what a novel it was! It wasn’t the first time that Fleming thought up a poisonous cobweb of intrigue and danger—Mr. Big had surrounded himself with one of those too in LIVE AND LET DIE—but it’s the first time for sure that the villains’ plot was all but fully revealed before Bond had even embarked on his mission. For Fleming, it’s a mission of honour. He’ll make everyone, us included, think the Russians have the upper hand, but he’ll meteorically spear down on them fast and burning. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is about triumphs which are much more symbolical than pragmatic. The Spektor device, ultimately, is of very little consequence in the story. SMERSH, Grant, Darko Kerim and Bond all have a personal sense of honour to defend. Romanova merely hitches a ride to the West, probably hoping for a better life there, but she’s never a particular obstacle and that’s more or less the best we can say about her. She’s maybe the weakest link in the book and also less present than she is in the film, but she’s not detrimental to the story either, and if nothing else, at least she does, ultimately, lend credence to the title. East versus West, devils versus angels; Fleming writes from clear bias and political resentment, but he nevertheless makes Bond’s victory hard-earned once again and even potentially fatal. Never underestimate your enemy, Fleming seems to be saying. Well, never underestimate Ian Fleming. He knows his material and he takes pride in that knowledge. After all, the book opens with a note from Fleming authenticating certain details about real places and real people within the Soviet war machine he’s about to divulge. CASINO ROYALE ended with a dead bitch; FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE with a potentially dead James Bond. But whatever would happen next, if anything at all, the bar was raised once again, as this is, without a doubt, one of Fleming’s best novels.
9/10
DD's 2018 book ranking
1) Casino Royale - 10/10
2) Moonraker - 9.5/10
3) From Russia With Love - 9/10
4) Live And Let Die - 8/10
5) Diamonds Are Forever - 7.5/10
Next up Dr No. This was always my favourite as a teen in the 70s - have to say that now I'm all grow'd up, DN and FRWL have swapped around, FRWL has been my top Fleming book (and top film too) for quite some time now.