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It was the same with Lucky Luke. Even though Morris started it,the quality dropped significantly after Goscinny s passing. I completely lost interest in both properties after a few albums, and the same goes for Iznogoud.
West End Voodoo, 2015. There is a Haitian character called Solitude Lemaitre here. LALD reference?
Yet another rich, classic entry from the master of horror, albeit a touching tale of love, loss, new friendships, new relationships, all surrounded by a murder mystery. I thought it was fantastic, some incredible moments that lingered that really let you feel for the characters. Made the finale (and the final few pages) that much more emotional for me. It's now the fifth novel of his I've read (and dozens more to go), but I noticed a bit of a pattern with the endings to his books: he tends to save the most impactful, emotional, or shocking bits for the end, hitting you hard before you close the book for the final time. Loved it - now time to find the next one to read.
I happened to catch the last half of The Return of the King on TV the other night and forgot how amazing those films are. It got me in a Lord of the Rings mood. Instead of watching all the films, I decided to go out and purchase the books, or rather THE book. I picked up a copy of the 50th anniversary edition which has all three books in one. I just started The Fellowship of the Ring last night but haven't made it more than about fifteen pages before I needed to go to bed. I'm looking forward to getting off work and going home to reading more!
What a great writer McBain was.
The 87th series was absolutely outstanding and your mention of it makes The Pussy want to read the whole lot again.
That said, PussyNoMore sometimes thinks that McBain’s prodigious output prohibits him being remembered in the same way as Chandler, Ross Macdonald and some of the other noir greats.
Literary snobbery at its worst. He was equally good and clearly the influence behind ‘Hill Street Blues’ and other great cop shows.
Right now, The Pussy is reading ‘Icarus’ by Deon Meyer and would highly recommend it.
Meyer is a fabulous writer and his Griessel books are knock-out.
Might have to check them out @Agent_99, second Airborne not out in paperback till September. Cheers.
Incredible stuff by King yet again; had seen the movie adaptation many years ago, and while I only recall slight details here and there, I was happy to see the major points from the book end up quite different, and in much more brutal, harrowing and haunting detail. Love the feeling of being trapped in the house alongside Paul the entire time, building towards yet another satisfying yet nightmarish conclusion. Think I might take a detour from the twisted world of Stephen King and work through some Fleming now.
Currently I'm reading The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.
They do if they think like me.
Of course, progress must end somewhere.
I'm very much for progress.
BOOK 12
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
by Ian Fleming
Fleming’s novels continue to keep hold of the top spot on my list of favourite books. It should come as no surprise then that many damning reviews of the Bond novels leave me puzzled. In my opinion, countless contemporary and modern critics tend(ed) to overlook several of the trend-defying, bold and unique qualities of Fleming’s prose and storytelling. Some critics won’t even deign to acknowledge Fleming as a writer of books; they argue that he’s barely more than a snob who hastily barfs some sex and sadism on paper and calls it a novel. Are they uncomfortable with the audacious nature of Fleming’s books? Or with the success of the Bond films perhaps? Or am I simply not seeing the flaws that are so obvious to everyone else? It could just be that, really, given that English isn’t my native language and that I’m no literary expert. Furthermore, I love to read a book “fast”, not unlike how Fleming loved fast writing, for the sake of keeping the tension and natural flow of the story as unspoiled as possible by unwanted interruptions or the generally detrimental exploration of every literary nook and cranny of the author’s work. By not submitting them to academic scrutiny, it could very well be that various problems with the books escape my notice. It is, however, my indubitable belief that Fleming’s books are in general stronger than their film adaptations. Lastly, I simply happen to like them very much and I surely needn’t apologise for that. Take YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE for example. After the nail-biting but disheartening finale of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, one can only wonder how Bond will proceed, if at all. Some hints of a self-destructive nature had been dropped by Fleming before, and not merely in the medical sense that Bond’s heavy smoking, drinking and benzedrine use are extremely hazardous. If Fleming was going to keep Bond in character, the next book was destined to be caustic and violent, full of hatred and possibly fatalistic. It wasn’t going to be all fun and jubilant delight. Fleming would almost inevitably have to provide the very thing many critics disliked him for. Whatever else he did certainly wasn’t going to help his case. And indeed, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is targeted for taking a very long time before any action is delivered and for being a tourist guide more than anything else. And as usual, I disagree. In fact, having just finished ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, I can’t wait to get to Japan for some local flavours and a much needed final confrontation with our number one nemesis: Blofeld. I select Barry’s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and Arnold’s SHAKEN & STIRRED and get ready for a game of rock-paper-scissors.
The story of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE begins in an unlikely place: Bond is playing a ludicrously simple game with a Japanese man in the latter’s own country. We swiftly learn, however, that a lot has transpired between Tracy’s death at the end of the previous novel and the first chapter of this new one. In trying to cope with the loss of his wife nine months ago, and failing miserably, which is understandable of course, Bond has taken to drinking and gambling and neglecting his job. In other words, he’s living more dangerously than ever before, caring about nothing or no-one, including himself. M is about to terminate Bond’s employment as a 00 and transfer him to another department, but Sir James Molony persuades M to give Bond one last chance by means of a mission that’s almost impossible to complete. The challenge just might give Bond the proper wake-up call. This particular setup isn’t so different from how DR.NO had started. Bond’s nearly fatal mistake at the end of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE had left M resentful and irritated and the DR.NO case was meant to give Bond the proverbial “last chance”. Investigating the disappearance of Strangways wasn’t, however, considered barely accomplishable, unlike Bond’s mission in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. What he has to do sounds neither dangerous nor exciting; he has to diplomatically extract Soviet-related information from the head of the Japanese secret service, Tiger Tanaka. The complications are evident, and so is the boredom factor. It would seem that Bond will have to do a lot of convincing and not so much shooting. Is this really going to be a fascinating story?
In the previous novel, we learned that Bond’s secretary, Loelia Ponsonby, had gotten married and had resigned from the secret service. One Mary Goodnight had replaced her. Goodnight, famous for being “the” Bond girl in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, both book and film, makes her second appearance in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. She’s more serious this time and worried about Bond, seeing how self-destructive he’s grown after Tracy’s death. M is dead serious too. When Bond tenders his resignation under the pretence that he considers himself a problematic element in the service, M protests in an unreserved fury. Bond will instead accept an unforeseen promotion as well as a new mission. He shall receive the number ‘7777’ and climb up the secret service ladder. This is an unexpected twist which gives Bond no cause for further mourning on company time. And we can feel the mood change almost right away. Bond’s contact in Japan, Dikko Henderson, takes him to a bar. A lot of drinking ensues and a more relaxed Bond re-appears. The transition from the train wreck Bond to a somewhat peaceful Bond feels sudden but most welcome. After all, we know where Bond’s grief comes from and we sympathize; but, in a slightly selfish manner, we also want the cool and more or less untroubled Bond doing what we enjoy so much about him. And so far, the story hasn’t exactly picked up a lot of momentum. In fact, Bond’s mission is pretty weak and devoid of Bondian potential. It feels as if Fleming is keeping us waiting for something else. That makes a lot of sense too, seeing how Bond has so far been forced to just deal with the loss of his wife while Blofeld and Bunt are still out there somewhere. We’re all clearly waiting for a chance to exact revenge on Blofeld, to restore the balance so to speak, and that obviates the need for a new adventure. In a sense, the book follows a typical revenge formula. First, we need the injustice. The previous book had ended with that. Next, we have to recover and regain our strength. That’s more or less how this book starts; the latest mission offers a lot of time to reflect, re-energize and make new friends. Finally, it all has to lead to a satisfying revenge plot.
And it will. But first, we jump forward two months. Bond and Tanaka have befriended each other but Bond has been unable to complete his mission. Finally, Tanaka offers him a deal. In return for the desired data, Bond must first do something for him. He tells Bond about a Swiss botanist called Dr Guntram Shatterhand and his wife Frau Shatterhand who have built their own “Garden of Death” on a volcanic island. Hundreds of suicidal Japanese have already met a gruesome demise by means of poisonous plants, deadly animals and boiling hot geysers. Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr Shatterhand for him. In many ways, Tanaka is this novel’s Kerim Bay. A local ally, powerful and useful, Tanaka learns from Bond and vice versa. But while Darko Kerim had been a charming man, rather close to Bond in terms of sinful pleasures, Tanaka is more reserved and a whole lot stricter when it comes to the cultural gap between Britain and Japan. This is of course in keeping with the stereotypical Japanese discipline. Stereotype, by the way, is often regarded as shorthand for storytelling, but in Fleming’s case, it’s anything but. In fact, because Fleming’s readership was (and is) most likely not generally well-versed in Japanese culture, the author spends many chapters instructing us, very didactically I might add. He uses Tanaka as Bond’s and therefore our teacher. What is conveyed for Bond’s personal edification is also meant to illuminate us. Fleming’s commitment is nothing short of impressive, as he lengthily discusses Japanese habits and tradition as well as the biochemical effects the poisonous plants in Shatterhand’s garden have on people. A natural consequence, of course, is that the middle section of the book becomes quite a protracted one with lots of anecdotes and trivia but relatively little to service the story. Bond visits a whore house and his wallet gets stolen but little else happens. All the while we are waiting for the reveal that practically spelt itself out when we were told that Shatterhand and his wife had come over from Switzerland rather recently. On the one hand, I appreciate Fleming’s efforts when feeding us exotic details about Japan. On the other hand, only his most disciplined readers can effectively fight off tedium while labouring through some of these chapters.
When Bond is finally shown pictures of the Swiss couple, the penny drops--officially that is. Dr Shatterhand is of course none other than Blofeld and his “frau” is Irma Bunt. It would seem that Bond gets his chance for revenge after all. Once again, Fleming relies on coincidence. If M hadn’t given Bond this assignment, it might have taken him years or possibly forever to track down Blofeld. But since his present mission wasn’t really going anywhere, a confrontation with Blofeld was to be expected. What I like about the Japanese setting is that both Bond and Blofeld are, in a way, aliens in that very foreign country. Rather than extending Bond the poetic courtesy of taking Blofeld out in, say, France or Switzerland, in one of the places where Tracy’s fate had been sealed, the battle is taken to the other side of the world. It makes the outcome of their final clash somewhat less predictable. And yet, Blofeld now lives in a “castle”, a word that in our minds has very European and Medieval connotations and is somewhat redolent of the settings of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. Ergo, the matter is to be settled far away but at some point, we are going to forget about Japan and its fauna and flora and imagine being back at Piz Gloria or at Bond’s wedding. I can’t help thinking that Fleming’s location choices were very deliberate and thought-through.
Yet despite them being strangers in a Japan, both Blofeld and Bond will try to blend in. Blofeld dons a Samurai suit when walking around in his garden, for his own protection no doubt, and Bond must “become Japanese” before he can be taken to the island. For that purpose, Tanaka has him cosmetically transformed to resemble a Japanese man and teaches him even more about Japanese lifestyle. When he notices that Bond needs some cheering up, he tells him about the girls on the island, most notably about Kissy Suzuki. She’s a former Hollywood actress with whose family Bond will stay during the completion of his training. Fleming describes her opinion of Hollywood as full of loathing. That is, except for David Niven, whom she claims was the only respectable man she ever met there. I’m always amused by this little bite at America’s movie capital. Kissy arrives fairly late into this novel, which is unusual in a Bond book. GOLDFINGER had introduced the final “Bond girl” in one of its later chapters too, but at least in that book, Bond had been in the company of two lovely girls for most of the story already. Not counting some lovelies in Tanaka’s service, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE had until this point been without any female companions for Bond. By no stretch of the imagination can this be seen as anything else than a direct result of Tracy’s death. Surely Bond can’t be expected to romance a girl while his vengeful mind hasn’t been soothed yet. And that’s not the only difference between Kissy and most other Bond girls. She’s neither a lesbian nor a troubled or traitorous girl. Her life as an Ama girl looks fairly uncomplicated and whatever issues she may be wrestling with, like her desires to find a good man, are small in comparison to the predicaments of Vesper, Solitaire, Tiffany, Viv and indeed Tracy. For once, this girl seems to be in a better place than Bond. With fewer or possibly no demons to exercise and a failed Hollywood career as her only disappointment in life so far, she makes a decent candidate for getting Bond back on track after his visit to Dr Shatterhand’s.
Speaking of which, Bond is finally ready to go to the Garden of Death. And for the first time in this novel, we can experience a bit of tension. This is where Fleming pulls out the big guns. Bond witnesses the lethal nature of the garden; he spots Blofeld and Bunt, and he patiently waits for an opportunity to enter the castle unnoticed. While very little occurs as such, Fleming nevertheless manages to get my blood flowing a whole lot faster. I can almost smell the stench of death surrounding Bond while he’s in that garden. I’m unsure if he will make it to the castle alive. And once in there, the prospect of meeting Blofeld again is both exciting and terrifying. This is what we’ve been waiting for the entire novel, and when it finally happens, when Bond is trapped by Blofeld and taken to an interrogation room, every word Fleming puts on paper adds chills and thrills to the climax of the book. Bond duels with Blofeld and uses a violent geyser as a tool to obliterate the castle with Blofeld and Bunt in it. A helium balloon provides Bond with a way out. Granted, Fleming’s imagination runs wild but we have to give it to him: he still manages to come up with unusual and fascinating devices to beat the villain. Bird dung killed Dr No, barracudas ate Mr Big. A hot geyser might as well kick Blofeld’s lights out. It all happens pretty fast too; no film noir moment of standing over Blofeld’s corpse with a triumphant eulogy, no elongated collapsing of a dying man. As with everything else, Fleming tries to be as matter-of-fact as he can be. But that doesn’t mean we’re done with our last-minute twists.
When debris hits Bond’s head, he falls down and suffers from amnesia. At this point, Fleming comes dangerously close to shaking my confidence in his abilities as a storyteller. You see, amnesia is a plot device which typically annoys and infuriates me. Fictional amnesiacs are rarely credible cases and their condition is usually cured rather quickly by a cliché move such as love or a knock on the head. But reading on, Fleming surprises me in a positive way. First of all, Kissy sees an opportunity to make Bond think he was always hers and start a family with him. The villagers on the island are willing to perpetuate the charade and feign knowing absolutely nothing about Bond when Henderson and Tanaka come looking for him. Next, there’s the issue of sex, or rather the lack thereof. Somehow, Bond has grown either disinterested in sex or physically incapable of having any. To liberate him from his impotence, Kissy subjects Bond to an effective therapy, effective enough, in fact, to get pregnant. Well, that’s an unexpected twist all right. Half a novel ago, Bond was still grieving over his dead wife, Tracy, and now he’s expecting a child with a Japanese girl even though he’s not aware of it yet. And he never will be. The remaining Fleming stories will never mention a child and that’s it. Perhaps Fleming had planned on bringing this up at some point in a future novel; or perhaps it’s another one of his slightly sadistic moves against his own creation. Bond will never be completely happy. His loved ones are taken from him; children grow up without knowing him. After all, when Bond reads “Vladivostok” on a sheet of paper, something clicks and he simply must pursue this potentially promising avenue for restoring his memory. He will abandon Kissy and never return. Not quite the happy ending some of the previous novels have provided.
I often wonder what Fleming had on his mind when composing these final twists. This is the second book in a row to close with a more or less open ending. If Bond goes memory hunting in Red Land, someone on the other side will undoubtedly recognize him and then what? Had Fleming jumped on the cliffhanger bandwagon or was he really intending to close the books on Bond in the immediate future? By pushing Bond ever deeper in these extreme situations--marriage, wife murdered, memory loss, walking unwarily into enemy territory--was he aiming for a grand climactic event? The next novel certainly doesn’t seem to point in that direction. Either way, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE does end on a rather curious note, with an obituary written by M. In it, Fleming sums up a few personal details about Bond’s life which have, throughout the book series, been distinctly absent. Some of these details were picked up by Fleming’s biographer John Pearson for his 1973 book, JAMES BOND: THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF 007. In the Bond films GOLDENEYE and SKYFALL, a few of these details were dropped as well. My one gripe with the obituary is Fleming’s post-modern attempt at comedy by pretending that a series of extraordinary novels was written based on Bond’s real adventures. Such an unnecessary wink at us, readers, fails to amuse me. It doesn’t spoil the fun of the book, of course, but I always have to invest a little bit of negative energy in pretending Fleming didn’t really write that.
Fleming’s twelfth Bond book is unevenly paced. For a very long time, very little is happening while a lot is told, explained and thought. Then, suddenly, the novel turns kinetic and violent and ties several loose knots from the previous novel together with a few swift strokes. “The previous novel”, yes, that is the essential part, isn’t it? YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE begins and ends as a direct sequel to ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. And even in the middle section, while it’s pretending to tell its own story, the book paves the way for a dramatic conclusion of the Blofeld episodes. This intricacy, combined with the many lulls in the middle of the story, explains why little of the book was retained when the film with the same title got made. It would, of course, have made no sense to tell this story without filming ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE first. That said, some of this book’s material, especially the Garden of Death and the geyser trap, have thus far never been used and could, in my opinion, still make a welcome appearance in a future Bond film. These are also the parts I enjoy the most in the book. It helps that I am particularly interested in Japan and its culture to sit through Fleming’s many educational intervals. I can, however, understand why this poses a problem for a lot of fans who, ultimately, may expect the thrills of MOONRAKER or the constant tension of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. The author of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE clearly is a different Ian Fleming than the author of CASINO ROYALE. It’s hard to think of this travelogue of Japan as compelling reading.
Then again, I really like this book. It’s both the final book in the so-called “Blofeld trilogy” and the middle book in a very dramatic “final trilogy” in the Fleming canon. It builds on the closing events of ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE and leads us straight to the opening events of THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. I also happen to be a bit of a “Japanophile”. The sheer beauty of the country and its culture, as presented by Fleming, is enough to get me through the book with considerable ease. I find both Tanaka and Kissy intriguing and unique. Lastly, a well-executed revenge plot always makes me happy. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE certainly delivers that, though not in the conventional Hollywood way. There’s also a lot YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE doesn’t deliver compared to, say, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. The book almost feels like one big pause, like a Bond novel that breathes and then sleeps a little and won’t wake up until it can throw its final punches and secure a nifty cliffhanger. But what it does, even if it’s not a lot, is good. Fleming makes this one decidedly different from all previous novels, and I applaud him for it. With Bond’s memory down the toilet and a Soviet trap patiently waiting for him, I close the curtains on Blofeld with satisfaction. Apart from the more abstract villain called Russia, Bond has only received one true nemesis from Fleming. And Blofeld was a good and worthy opponent, an opponent who also changed over the course of three novels. In THUNDERBALL, Blofeld was a refined and calculated mastermind. By YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, he’d become a cruel and despicable fiend. His changing looks have reflected his growing sociopathy and despotic tendencies. Despite showing up in only three of Fleming’s novels (with a brief reference in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME), Blofeld quickly became one of the great archrivals of Bond in the films. A solid creation by Ian Fleming, Blofeld is widely recognized as Bond’s supreme adversary. But it’s all over for him now, and also for YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. I’ve had a wonderful time, albeit with a varying pulse, but before Pistols Scaramanga can shoot the place up, I need some sleep. And I really won’t mind dreaming of scantily clad Japanese diving girls…
8/10
DD's 2018 book ranking
1) Casino Royale - 10/10
2) On Her Majesty's Secret Service - 9.5/10
3) Moonraker - 9.5/10
4) From Russia With Love - 9/10
5) Dr No - 8.5/10
6) You Only Live Twice - 8/10
7) The Spy Who Loved Me - 8/10
8) Live And Let Die - 8/10
9) Diamonds Are Forever - 7.5/10
10) Goldfinger - 7/10
11) For Your Eyes Only - 7/10
12) Thunderball - 6.5/10
‘Fever’ is a departure for Meyer insomuch as it’s an alternative history in the vein of Deighton’s ‘SS:GB’ or ‘The Man In The High Castle’ . Those with great taste will enjoy it. The Pussy can’t speak highly enough of Meyer.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me and for taking the time to read my reviews. I appreciate that!