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Or, more likely, I'm doing it wrong.
(Edit: or the third possibility - I am too puny to pinch myself properly.)
Are you talking about this?
Or this?
Dr. No continues to be simply an enjoyable read. I'm glad we're reading this one when we are, when it's still warm out where I am. It really is a great summertime book. And I'm noticing that the feel of the novel really does have a kind of laid back, easy going, luxuriantly paced vibe. Sort of an island vibe you might say—the pacing of the book mirroring its locale. Up until this point, Fleming's chapters have all been rather brief, but in Dr. No he starts to really take his time, settle in, and begin lengthening his chapters.
There are multiple echoes back to LALD here, from Strangways to Quarrel to Beau Desert to the delivery of fruit to Bond's hotel room mirroring the "pineapple" he's sent in New York. This proves a bit of a red herring—red nectarine?—for the reader, however, with that ghastly centipede delivering the goods. It's a wonderfully, horrifically detailed scene with Bond's anxiety over whether the centipede might burrow into his crevices while traversing his groin completely and utterly taking the proverbial cake.
And beginning with Bond's being violently sick over the "yellowly" demise of the centipede, while changed to a tarantula in the film, there really is quite a lot in these five chapters that crossed over onto the screen. Dr. No really is one of the more faithfully adapted films. Thus far.
Breakfast at Beau Desert. Still nary a mention of scrambled eggs. But Bond's mind, surprisingly or not so surprisingly, turns briefly to Solitaire before "driving the phantoms away from him." I love these moments that tie the novels in together and ground Bond as a real man with real thoughts and a real history. The girls may disappear at the end of each novel, but do they really?
Bond asking Quarrel to train him again for their island journey, just like in LALD, is a great moment too.
A sad moment when Quarrel requests life insurance be taken out on him for his "folks back in da Caymans." Bond looks at him affectionately and obliges.
Cheeky humor from Pleydell-Smith's telegram: "SUGGEST YOU CHANGE YOUR GROCER STOP."
And lovely descriptions of Jamaican life that will carry throughout these next chapters and, probably, the rest of the book. "For a moment the melancholy of the tropical dusk caught at Bond's heart. He picked up the bottle and looked at it. He had drunk a quarter of it. He poured another big slug into his glass and added some ice. What was he drinking for?" They aren't much, necessarily, but it's small moments like those that make Bond feel like a part of our world.
Honeychile Rider—a new breed of Bond girl, and a kind of amazing one at that. Ash blonde hair, cafe au lait skin, powerful muscles. That firm butt like a boy's that prompted Nöel Coward to remark: "I know that we are all becoming more broadminded nowadays, but really old chap what could you have been thinking of?" (To be fair to Fleming, this description is really no more peculiar than him saying that that one dancer in LALD had an attractive face like a dog's; merely a way of painting an image of unusual features on a character—not some bizarre admission of an attraction toward dogs or anything else.)
Perhaps most peculiar is the damaged nose Fleming provides Honey. A sort of deformity heretofore only found in his villains (or Leiter perhaps?). This automatically sets Honey apart as an object of interest, something further compounded by her animality, her independence, her resourcefulness. Fleming repeatedly describes her as this sort of wild and abandoned thing: "something uncared for about her - a dog that nobody wants to pet." Nobody but Bond...and Fleming...and the reader, evidently.
Unlike DAF, where Fleming repeatedly reminds the reader how tough Bond is going to have it, here he actually turns Bond's "holiday" in Jamaica into a waking nightmare, sending him through the most viscerally stinking swamp-marshes committed to ink. My absolute favorite sentence throughout Bond's journey through Crab Key is: "...after a while Bond's nostrils even got used to the marsh gas, except when Quarrel's feet disturbed some aged pocket in the mud and a vintage bubble wobbled up from the bottom and burst stinking under his nose."
The island is expansive. Far grander than the film suggests. And as with the rest of the book, Fleming takes his time describing it and sending Bond and co. along their treacherous journey. The Doberman Pinschers are a great threat to throw into the mix, and much more is yet to come. We make it to the island pretty quickly in the book, but that's a good thing because it's an interesting place to be.
FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE
Edition I read: 1963 Pan with the film tie-in cover
Where I read it: In the highly glamorous surroundings of the Taunton Travelodge
James Bond
Outside work, Bond really doesn’t have much going on in his life. There are signs of this in MR and it’s very apparent here, as we see how very grumpy he gets without a case to work on.
With his treatment of Tania, he proves yet again that he is a thoroughly Decent Bloke. He stalls when she pretty much offers herself to him on a plate, and spends a lot of time turning over the rights and wrongs of what's expected of him.
...I find it hard to believe that Bond would look at the Turkish roofscape and think ‘ah, breasts’. I mean, it’s not as if he has a shortage of actual breasts in his life.
The villain
There's a lot of villainy going on here. You could say the villain is Smersh, or even the entire USSR.
More specifically, we get Rosa Klebb and Red Grant, and to a lesser extent Kronsteen (a brief but compelling character sketch).
Keen on pain, torture and young women, Klebb is a horror. The proto-Irma Bunt - or else Bunt is a pale imitation of Klebb, depending on your point of view.
That said, good on Smersh for having a woman in such a high position. You won't see that around Bond's MI6 for another three decades.
(I have just looked her up on Wikipedia and found this:
'Her name is a pun on the popular Soviet phrase for women's rights, khleb i rozy (Cyrillic: хлеб и розы), which in turn was a direct Russian translation of the internationally used labour union slogan "bread and roses".'
I'd never picked up on the roses/Rosa theme before.)
Red Grant is introduced as very much an anti-Bond. On the surface the two men are similar: paid assassins for their respective countries. However, Bond kills reluctantly, out of a sense of duty; Grant has no morals or allegiances, and enjoys killing for its own sake.
It’s a pity he then disappears for most of the rest of the book, only showing up at the end. I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall while he was being taught to pose as a convincing English agent.
We see, very clearly, Fleming’s ongoing notion that if you’re not interested in sex, you must be a wrong ‘un. Grant isn’t. Klebb isn’t. Kronsteen isn’t very, despite having a wife and kids.
The girl
Tatiana Romanova. A very nice girl. Young and innocent, but also brave and thoughtful. She's learned to count her blessings and to keep her dreams secret - and to trust and obey the State, whatever it demands of her.
She could maybe stand to question the truth of what she's been told a little more. But, frankly, so could Bond, who has far less excuse.
I'm touched by the way she switches from sultry seductress to making sure Bond gets enough sleep. She just wants to settle down with someone nice, really. I hope she did.
Other cast
Ah, Kerim Bey. Bond's mancrush. Became a spy; missed his true vocation as a tour guide. It's a terrible shock when he is killed off, because it seems like such a waste of this larger-than-life character after an all too brief appearance.
I always picture him rather like Spiro in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, as portrayed on TV by Brian Blessed. HONEST TO GODS, MRS DURRELLS.
There are several nice moments with the staff at HQ: M's embarrassed probing about Bond's love life, and Loelia's concern about his flying on the 13th.
Special mention goes to Paymaster Captain Troop. Every office has one; mine certainly does. (No, it's not me.)
The plot
Famously the book in which Bond doesn't turn up for ten chapters. Instead of 007 getting briefed at HQ, we see the Soviet equivalent. Instead of love and respect for M, golf dates with Tanner and jokey flirting with Moneypenny and Ponsonby, there's an atmosphere of terror and mistrust. It should feel cartoonish, but the scene and characters are so well-described it's all chillingly convincing.
I do find the middle of the book drags a bit. Perhaps unfairly, I dismiss it as a travelogue with occasional outbursts of shooting. Things liven up for me on the train, which is also traveloguey in parts but has a lot of character development for Bond and Tania, as well as a sense of the plot gathering pace and rattling to some kind of violent conclusion.
Other good bits? The whole 'pimping for England' idea is delightful as a reversal of the usual honeytrap gender roles. The girl in the bed, with the hidden cameras behind the mirror, is iconic Bond. (Did the reference-filled DAD pinch this for the Hong Kong hotel room scene?)
The final scene in the Paris hotel room is a favourite. It's weird, claustrophobic, tense; it could have come from the pages of a John Buchan novel, and that is high praise from me.
The location
We start somewhere very different from previous books: Russia. I love both the land of roses and the city drabness of Moscow. Evocative, atmospheric and real, as Fleming's settings always are.
Then it's off to Turkey, the borderland between Eastern and Western Europe, where agents of both powers come and go as they please. There’s a sort of truce or gentleman’s agreement between the two sides, like enemy soldiers occupying neighbouring trenches in WW1. Some great settings here, from the tunnel beneath the streets to the gypsy encampment.
Finally, another wonderful train journey, on the most famous and romantic train in the world. I especially love the sense of a return to civilisation as the electric lights in the West burn with Swiss efficiency.
(A couple of years ago I took the train into Victoria and found myself on the platform next to the Orient Express. The urge to leap on board and conceal myself somewhere was strong.)
Food & drink
Despite Kerim Bey’s protests, everything Bond has to eat in Turkey sounds pretty great, especially the hotel breakfast.
(I have just remembered that as a somewhat picky youngster, it was a genuine worry to me that in my future as a globetrotting secret agent I might not be able to eat what was put in front of me, thus jeopardising my mission and international relations. I got better.)
Miscellany
Since the last time I read FRWL, I have moved to Crystal Palace (a suburb of south London), so I had extra appreciation for Bond’s whimsical hotel choice. I'd have done the same.
I am so using ‘That is not kulturny’ next time someone says something rude on the forum.
One of my favourite spoof spy movies, The Spy with a Cold Nose, has the hero reading FRWL and lamenting the fact that he has never found a beautiful Russian agent in his bed. Guess what happens later?
Likewise, I find FRWL an impressively written novel, yet I have never felt a strong personal connection or draw to the story as I have with some of Fleming's others.
I hope she did too. I forget whether we ever hear of Tania again. She's been a question mark looming over my reading of Dr. No.
Speaking of which...I don't know how many of you listen to music to set the mood while reading—I don't always; sometimes though—but I've been finding select tracks from Casino Royale a fantastic mood-setter for Dr. No. Especially those Bahamas-based tracks like "Nothing Sinister," "Blunt Instrument," "Solange," and "Trip Aces," and the sweeping vista cues like "I'm the Money," "Aston Montenegro," and "City of Lovers," and that classic, rip-roaring "The Name's Bond...James Bond" with a hint of bongos in the background. Puts me right there on the island.
I started off being interested in the novel and not being as bothered by the slowly start of part one as much as I thought I would, simply because I was learning things about the characters from the film I loved so much and that added a special something. Once we actually see Bond and the action goes to Istanbul, however, I'm afraid things begin to fall apart for me. The pacing is all over the place, as is the scope of the novel where Bond seems to do little dealing with his mission and before you know it he's already on the Orient Express. It feels very empty at the end of things, like those 80 some pages of planning amounting to a plan that wasn't as thrilling in execution as promised.
Like others I can respect the book for setting up a nice foundation for a film script to be made from it, but I actually walk away from my reading if it appreciating the movie even more for "fixing" so much. It may be controversial to say it, but I find the film to be superior to a very severe degree to this text, from use of character to pacing, plot and overall storytelling. The movie moves quite beautifully and really fleshes out the plot around Bond, whereas the book just zooms past it all, sometimes sloppily. I never realized just how much the film added to the story, from the change in the decoder's role to Bond and Tatiana's relationship, and how the action of the Orient Express plays out with Grant that really is night and day to the book in suspense, drama and impact.
I think there's just so much about this story that really only works on the film screen, and that would fail in the book. For example, one of the greatest things about the film is that we are able to see Grant shadow Bond throughout, seeing that he is behind so many of the big moves behind made that Bond faces the aftermath of. He's always a presence, a ghost at his shoulder, and that adds so much tension and impact to the film as it goes long. In the book Fleming couldn't create this effect without giving us chapters in between the major ones from Grant's perspective to show him in the action, but that would hurt the momentum and pacing of the text even more and since he never comes into it until far into the train ride anyway, what would it add?
The overall feeling of the film just hits a special spot for me, and the book sadly doesn't meet that in the way I expected. In addition to that, because I know the movie so well much of what I read in the book was just content I could see coming through that memorization beat for beat. Even worse, the events I read were those that I found to be better achieved in the film, including Bond and Tatiana's meeting, the gypsy camp scenes, Krilenu's death, the Orient Express events, and the final fight with Grant and Bond that truly feels monumental, with the result being me reading a lesser version of a story I love. I wish I walked away from this happier than I am.
Chapter 20- Black on Pink
I found this chapter interesting from a character standpoint, and how much the momentum of the book at this point varies greatly from the film. In the movie the plan SPECTRE has feels far more entangled and interesting than the book and SMERSH’s plot, because there’s an actual decoding device involved that isn’t a trick as it seems to be here, making Bond’s fight to get Tatiana to London more important and crucial. The movie is also much better paced, with Tatiana and Bond warming to each other over time and both of them working on the plan to get the decoder out of Turkey. The book leaves me cold in this area, I hate to say, because it all feels so easy. Tatiana is already in place to make Bond think she has the real decoder and can just leave with it like that, making the plot feel like it’s not serving much because the decoder isn’t genuine and an object that needs to be smuggled out from heavy guard. At the end of the chapter we can see that a plan is forming around Tatiana that she doesn’t know about, promising a greater revelation later, but everything from this point on seems to be rushed. We will already see Bond and the girl heading for the train, and we’re heading to London post-haste after Bond hasn’t done much at all in Turkey that deals with his work.
Overall, I really enjoyed how Bond and Tatiana interacted in this chapter, and how Fleming bounced us from their points of view to tell us their reactions to each other throughout. Despite Bond knowing it’s his job to seduce, we can see that his attraction to this woman makes the act more pleasure than business, and it’s very sweet to see Tatiana becoming less anxious about performing in front of this man because he is so nice to her and not at all forceful or aggressive. They have a natural attraction and chemistry, such that when Bond tells her she’s one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she returns the favor, you don’t think either party are lying. The acting on both sides is easy, because little between them has to be acted.
We can see how Bond and Tatiana’s individual concerns are coming out despite their acting, like how Bond unconsciously feels like he’s dissuading the girl from coming with him through his concern for her, and how Tatiana seems to really like Bond and is saddened when he appears to be more interested in the decoder than her. “If only he had said the machine didn’t matter to him so long as she would come,” she thinks to herself, showing us that she must feel something for Bond beyond her role in the drama. If she was only focused on the job and felt nothing, she would simply work harder to make Bond love her. But the impact Bond’s indifference has on her shows that she wants him to feel genuine attraction for her, possibly in response to the very real feelings she has for him. In addition, over time we see how Tatiana’s dedication to serving SMERSH turns into a desire for Bond to follow her suggestions regarding travel on the train, if only because she knows she will die if the orders aren’t followed to the letter. Her fear is real, no matter how much she’s told she’s serving the state with honor by Klebb. She shouldn’t trust this company of lunatics, and is wise to worry for herself.
It’s really a testament to Fleming’s strength as a writer of characters that he was able to craft a chapter like this depicting a man and a woman playing parts in front of each other, presenting moments where their genuine feelings clash with the façade of their performances. We are left wondering at times if Bond is saying or doing things just for the job or if he feels for the girl in a genuine way, and vice versa, creating a complicated and labyrinthine dynamic between the two that is fascinating to watch unfold. It’s ultimately hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Is Tatiana simply over confident about the smuggling of the decoder, the spy wonders, or is she placing him into a trap? Is the girl’s feeling of safety around Bond genuine, or an act she’s put on to seduce him more?
The chapter ends with perhaps the most interesting piece of the whole puzzle, where we see a tape being made of the pair’s sex act that Tatiana doesn’t know about. We can’t be certain just what she knows of the plan she’s involved in, but it is heavily assumed that SMERSH has hidden a lot from her, including their plans to make mincemeat of Bond and the British. What has been sold to the girl as a simple plot of delivering false information is really one of methodically assembled murder and scandal where the girl appears to be little more than a pawn.
Chapter 21- Orient Express
The pace of the story rushes on as Bond is already prepared to climb aboard the Orient Express. I expected the book to resemble the film much more with all the talk that people have about the 1963 feature being so close to the novel, but I’m not feeling this at all. They are certainly two very different experiences, and it’s been a surprise to see just how much there is that divides them in spite of what they share.
As the train travels on the focus is on the Spektor, and Tatiana recalls how she was given it by the Resident Director. I have a massive suspicion judging from Kronsteen’s comments in a much earlier chapter that this is a dummy decoder that Tatiana has been tricked into thinking is real. This is a vast difference from how the film plays out, with a real decoder that Tatiana isn’t given, but that she must steal. I find that far more interesting as a plot point, because it involved Bond having to figure out a way to steal a state possession and escape by train with it. When we know it’s just given to Tatiana, it really becomes an unspectacular event. Getting a chapter from the girl’s perspective when she retrieves the device wouldn’t have helped either, because although she tells Bond she had to steal it, we know that’s not really what happens. It puts Fleming in a tough spot, where he is using Tatiana to feed this dramatic story of theft to Bond, but he can’t show it to his readers because it’s all a big fable.
Bond and Kerim discuss things almost immediately and I was again shocked that Bond’s confrontation with Tatiana comes so quickly, where he tries to decipher if she’s a double agent. I find it more powerful in the film where the first sign he gets that things aren’t right is when Kerim is dead, and she becomes suspicious to him afterward, making him fired up. Bond’s solution to test if the Spektor is real is to ask Tatiana if it is genuine, which is stupid considering that she’d say yes no matter what. She does think the device is real, unaware of what is really going on, so her honesty reads as unsuspicious to Bond. SMERSH were clever in what they chose to hide from the girl, because her innocent view of the plan makes her seem honest when Bond asks her if she’s in danger, or if the decoder is real; she seems like she’s being truthful because, for all she knows, she is.
We get hints that show that both Bond and Tatiana have taken to each other, Bond through the act of seduction that’s drawn her close to him via lust, and Tatiana who feels safe with him. The girl appears ready to turn against the Russians she’s working for once she’s in London, assured that Bond will keep her safe. If only we could’ve gotten a better idea or context for why this turn has happened in her, beyond being put off by Klebb. A better time for her to commit to a defection would be after she sees how much she’s been lied to and made a pawn, realizing that what was sold to her as a state mission was really just a cruel frame job. The defection comes too early here, and lacks impact.
With three MGB men on the train that need elimination in non-murderous terms, our heroes are put into a rough position. If the men are killed the train will be stopped and Bond and Tatiana will be sitting ducks, so more subtle and non-lethal methods are needed. I predict a lot of ingenuity ahead, like Kerim’s ticket trick with the man in the lavatory.
Chapter 22- Out of Turkey
We find Bond fighting off the desire to sleep as he watches intently for enemy action. We feel his intense desire to be with Tatiana, but I wonder if he likes her beyond the physical draw he feels towards her. I guess that with Tiffany gone and his sexual energies left dormant, he is taking it anywhere he can get it and his drive to be with the girl is greater for how lonely and dried up he’d felt for so long in London.
A tradition of every Fleming Bond novel comes next where Bond ignores the red flags around him and decides to work according to his plan as if there’s nothing worth worrying about. This time he comes off as less of an idiot than usual, as he is waiting to see what game the MGB men are playing and, with two of the three gone at the end of the chapter, he feels that it’s safer and more sensible to stay where he is. Of course he’s completely ruling out the option of a greater scheme being at work, where yet another hidden operator beyond the three Russians he knows about could be lying in wait for him. The competitive side of him comes out when the thought of conspiracy finally reaches him, intent on playing out the game and doing in the mysterious invisible hands playing the strings to send a message. Oh, Bond.
Chapter 23- Out of Greece
The chapter begins with Tatiana experiencing the feeling of being a culture shock character, as she is mystified by Bond and Kerim’s western humor. While I think the movie did a better job at showing how western values were rubbing off on her Soviet roots, it was nice to see the idea played with at least a little bit by Fleming as she becomes a fish out of water in the hands of these men.
As Bond catches up on his sleep we get a moment where he wonders what his time with Tatiana will be like beyond the days on the train, where they are safer in some ways than elsewhere. He imagines the heavy interrogation of the girl, how she’ll be twisted and sapped of information and tricked by his government, how they’ll be separated and how their passions for each other could cool or be snuffed out entirely. I find it hard to believe that Bond is so taken by this woman, such that he considers himself slightly compromised to see the mission clearly in the eyes of his allies. He spends one night having sex with the girl and is taken wholly, but I don’t know if I believe that. His connection to her seems to be beyond the physical, but I don’t feel a personal attraction between them that radiates as it has for women of the past, even with just Tiffany of the last book. I think the film handles this better too, showing Bond liking the girl but not head over heels for her. He realizes the game being played and plays his part, sometimes coldly, and never acts foolish through his feelings. When Tatiana tells Bond she loves him in the film, he rolls his eyes and tries to get information from her, not falling at her knees. This Bond has lost focus on some of the mission, however, and that won’t serve him well.
In his last moments Kerim makes some very clear points to Bond about Russian chess games and how they are played, unconsciously predicting the course of what he and Bond are facing as a giant conspiracy. His metaphor about the billiard game is very true, as is his perception that Bond is too focused on winning the game to see the full picture of a dangerous affair. As he comments about not being raised “to be a sport,” he notes the desire in his friend to play a very English game with the Russians instead of doing the smart thing and changing the board.
And even after all this, Bond keeps telling himself that nothing will go wrong and things are a-okay. Until they aren’t, just minutes later. Kerim is proven right in death though ignored in life, and hopefully Bond can see that things aren’t as they seem. After all that happens to him in these books, and how many times he’s tricked or underestimates things, you’d really think he’d start learning.
Chapter 24- Out of Danger
In the aftermath of Kerim’s death we spot Tatiana’s reaction to it all and how she now fears that Bond will truly be done with her if she shares her connections to SMERSH. She also rightly begins to assume that Klebb and company told her some lies, keeping her isolated from the bigger part of the scheme she was to act as a pawn for.
Eventually Bond and the girl meet with a son of Kerim’s, who gives them a place to rest up before returning to the train. One thing the book did better than the film was in showing how a member of Kerim’s family reacted to his death. In the film we move on from Bond’s interaction with his kid so soon that nothing really sticks, but here we spend time with the son and see him trying to keep it together and do his job at the same time. Nothing major, but interesting.
I really loved the moment where Bond and M talk on the phone pretending to be a boss and employee for Universal Exports, relaying information on the mission disguised as sales speak. We know that Bond feels compelled to see the job through, but I feel he’s also being pressured by M peering over his shoulder, telling him to go deeper to find the secret conspiracy at play, if there is one.
Bond spends the rest of the chapter frustrating me with his poor logic. He considers blaming Tatiana for Kerim’s death when his own obliviousness is also to blame, if not more, as he didn’t listen when his friend suggested finding a new way to get the Spektor to London. In addition, Bond trusts Tatiana and perceives that she’s genuine only because he has faith in his instincts, and he somehow seems to think that the plot ended with Kerim’s death, which he thought looked staged, as in a film. I’m sorry, but this man shouldn’t be so trusting in his instincts, if the last books are any indication. This is the man that trusted Vesper and refused to suspect her of anything, who thought Mr. Big and his hoods weren’t worth troubling over, who thought Drax was nothing more than an egotistical billionaire national hero, and who thought that American gangs were laughably innocuous and nothing to worry about. How did his instincts work out for him in all those examples? Not well, and you would think that Bond would be self-aware enough to quit looking at the small picture. Open your eyes for once, man!
The chapter ends with Grant finally entering the game, and Bond predictably thinking that somehow M had sent a man to help him with the Spektor. Come on, Bond. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
Chapter 25- A Tie with a Windsor Knot
This chapter begins the game of chess between Bond and Grant, as the latter plays his part and tries not to attract too much attention to himself. Grant really does come off as a cartoon, and you can see Bond gradually getting annoyed with some of his unique proclivities and his constant use of “old man.” It’s hard to tell if these are nervous ticks of Grant’s, or if he’s playing a part. For how much history he seems to have with British culture and surroundings, including growing up in Ireland and serving in the military for the island, a lot must rub off on him.
I was amused that Bond found it important to check up on Nash’s medical record later in case he had to report him as one to watch, he was made so uneasy by the look in the man’s eyes that flashed on and off. Certain parts of Grant’s performance in front of Bond, like his awkward handling of their interactions in the carriage, make him a questionable figure that should set off flags. I must take it easy on Bond, however, as this behavior could be written off as a man facing anxiety, behavior which can come off just as awkward, aloof and strange as Grant’s does in the scene. It’s also in this moment that Grant passes a clipping describing an explosion of the Russian headquarters in Turkey, something I didn’t expect to read. I don’t know if it’s genuine or a fake out by SMERSH at this point, but the former may make sense because of how Kerim appears to have been murdered by the Russians in a scheme that would unsettle their somewhat peaceful agreement. To strike back at the Russians, his sons finally turned to the bomb. I think this could be a fake headline to trick Bond, however, as the Russians working with SMERSH wouldn’t put themselves in a position that could end up with their headquarters being blown up. Hard to say at this point what is true and what isn’t.
As Bond eats with Tatiana later on, she points out the very interesting etymology of “Nash” in her culture, which Bond only laughs at and writes off as Nash also being a common British name. It appears that in drafting up Grant’s papers SMERSH wanted to have a very dark sense of humor in naming him on the passport while masking his role as their executioner behind a very innocuous name in the British culture. As time winds down on the train we can see that Tatiana wants to use it to the best of her ability, either consciously or unconsciously seducing and entrapping Bond more and more.
The chapter ends with Tatiana falling ill and Bond writing it off as exhaustion, placing him and the girl right in Grant’s clutches and within striking distance.
Chapter 26- The Killing Bottle
Finally Bond gets his reckoning for not seeing the signs of conspiracy building around him. Perhaps the most gratifying thing about this chapter is that Bond openly admits how much of a blind idiot he’d been, and how he should’ve seen the trap before it was sprung on him. As I state all the time, however, why can’t he for once think that maybe things are more complicated than they appear and listen to common sense? He gets into so much distress because he underestimates an enemy or ignores a red flag, and he always ends up having to draw straws with lady luck as he faces death when he inevitably fails to learn his lesson. I just want one book in this series, just one, where Bond is faced with a red flag and says, “This could be a red herring, but my past experience tells me that it may be more.” Reading these books it’s like Bond never learns anything from his experiences, and I don’t enjoy seeing him make the same mistakes as the last time over and over again. He’s certainly a bold man to his own fault, but after a while it gets ridiculous. Part of this must also lie in Fleming’s uneven planning of the books, where he was in a pinch to move the plot along and makes Bond do stupid things to create more drama. The damage it does to the character’s credibility, however, is major.
One detail I liked at the start was how moonlight was beginning to cast in on the train compartment on Grant and Bond, and it was at that moment that Grant decided to make his move in accordance with the coming tunnel and his own bloodlust to kill.
At least Bond finally gets ingenuity and smarts while in the crosshairs, and really plays to Grant’s arrogance. He gets the man talking, and boy does he. In the event that Bond gets out of it alive he’s got the names and locations of Kronsteen and Klebb for his use, as well as all the complex points of the plan that snared him so that he can strike back if given a chance. Grant is a simple man and simple minded, motivated by killing and little else. His lack of loyalty to the state or SMERSH is really what is his downfall; a loyal man would pipe down about sharing such juicy secrets and every stage of the plan in case something goes wrong and word gets out, but his ego and hatred for the English is so great that he can’t resist really dishing out the pain of defeat to Bond with his every word.
One thing that lost me was how Kerim’s death was tied in with the plan. The book is very different from the movie here, and I didn’t understand how the events played out. If Benz did kill Kerim, and Kerim killed him in his last moments alive, that seems a very poor move on the former’s part. Once Benz killed Kerim there would be word of the man’s death all over the train, and one of the man’s many sons would hear about it and strike back in Istanbul. Of course the Russians couldn’t have known about the bomb under their headquarters, but even still why would you invite such retaliation on yourself after the Turks and Russians formed as close to a détente as you could hope to see? It appears very foolish to act in such a way.
While I previously said I didn’t like the idea of the Spektor being a dummy device, the revelation that it is meant to explode when tinkered with does make me forgive my earlier criticisms a tad. It adds a bit of tension to the plot, where if Bond can’t get out alive the secret explosive in the device will head to his home base and kill innocents in his service. Very nasty, but very interesting.
Overall, it’s hard to say with contemporary eyes how effective SMERSH’s trap and manufactured scandal would be. Of course sex matters were more hush-hush and prudishly provocative in Fleming’s day compared to now where there’s soap operas and reality television that make a profit off sensationalism, so the sexual content of the scheme doesn’t feel as impactful as it would in another day and age. The key part of the plan, of how foolish the Brits would look for taking the gamble and how nobody would trust them with secrets because of how stupid and slimy it makes Bond and his service look could have an effect on its reputation. But history has shown the intelligence services of the world doing horrible things, including the CIA’s mind control experiments with drugs that occurred not long after the date of this book, so you wonder what the end effect really would be on the agency’s future? A sensational story, I guess, enriched by some interesting conspiracy to spice it up. But would the story have the legs Grant and SMERSH feel it would? And would MI6 really be done for, when there’s worse things agencies have done and been forgiven or forgotten for doing? Who is to say.
In fair play to Bond, we end the chapter with quite an ingenious move on his part, using his cigarette case as a makeshift bullet sponge to survive Grant’s shot to the heart. This moment and how Bond overcomes it actually feels far more reasonable than in the film to be honest, because you’d think that the minute Bond pulled out his case Grant would be anxious about a counterattack coming. But in the novel Bond simply pulls out his case and that’s it, a simple and seemingly innocuous gesture. Just lucky for him the compartment was dark enough that Grant couldn’t see that he was slipping the case inside his book, otherwise he’d have been a dead man for sure.
Chapter 27- Ten Pints of Blood
As Bond prepares to strike back against a vulnerable Grant, I loved that he put serious thought into how his body would lay on the floor, not only to appear dead, but to give him the best position from which to strike.
When the fight with Grant comes, I have the same impression as I did when I read how Fleming wrote the invasion of Bulgars at the gypsy camp in an early chapter. Basically, that I wanted more. The action ends so soon between these two men, a fight that the book really has led up to. We’re fed Grant’s hatred of the English, of his own bloodlust and pleasure in killing, but here it’s over so quick that Fleming never explores those elements or gives payoff to them in any great way. Seeing the fight between the men in the film, and how the film successfully builds to the moment doesn’t help, as anything in comparison would seem weak. I just feel like the moment is very minimized in impact, and doesn’t grow into what I wished it did which the movie does.
I guess this section of the book was really the story for everything after Part One, where the action is painfully rushed and given lessened impact because of it.
Chapter 28- La Tricoteuse
This book definitely didn’t end how I imagined, with Bond heading alone to meet with Klebb in a scene very different from the film in a lot of ways.
I must say, the image of Klebb knitting in a chair like a tricoteuse is a bit too on the nose, taking Kronsteen’s earlier metaphor for the woman to a bizarre level. It’s as if the woman read his mind and put on the “outfit” of a French lady to serve the legend. Of course the cruel woman puts a nasty spin on the image of a knitting elder, adding poison to the tips of her needles.
I must say, I found the skirmish between Bond and Klebb to be quite riveting, from the hidden telephone gun to the sharp knitting needles Bond must dodge and the ensuing struggle he manages with a chair holding the woman to a wall. It was far more interesting and well crafted than the one with Grant, unfortunately, when the novel didn’t even build to this moment at all.
The book ends on a surprisingly dark note that sets it apart from all the others, in that we end with Bond’s life in danger. We’ve seen the books end with him in pain, but never fatally so. It’s hard to tell if Fleming meant to pull an Arthur Conan Doyle and kill his hero for real, but it’s nice that he also pulled an Arthur Conan Doyle and brought his hero back again from “death.” The final image of Bond we get, slowly succumbing to the poison while an unaware Mathis jokes to him, is very black and bleak, as if the imagine of him crashing into the floor with finality. And of course his last words are about the girl, because how couldn’t they be?
Two words: Profumo Affair.
Interestingly, although the book predates it, the film would have come out while the scandal was still very fresh in the public memory...
The skyline of Istanbul is a series of mosques with great big domes--so it's very easy to think about breasts!
Bond surmises she would likely be relocated to Canada. Perhaps he looked her up when he went to Montreal in TSWLM?
Oh, I really like that. I rather want to write it...
That's a possibility. I'll consider that while reading Spy.
I must say, after reading the book I have to hand it to the film crew even more for their perfect casting. I couldn't picture anyone but the cast of villains in those roles, especially Lenya and Shaw, because they were just so perfect. I tried to picture Garbo for Tatiana, but always came back to Bianchi as well, simply because she is that character to me with her playfulness and innocence. I really like that, in casting the character, Young and co. selected a woman who had those "Hollywood" looks and a real history in ballet dancing like Tatiana.
And of course I never pictured anyone else as Kerim, never even tried. Pedro really got a handle on feeling like a man who was made of the sun, who was full of life, and that wide bright smile is all I thought about. To think that he was debilitated by cancer at the tim of filming is shocking, because he never shows it.
The night before has a pretty sweet double bill too—A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and PHANTASM—but I can't make that one either.
Doctor No marks a shift in the Bond novels from the subdued, smaller-scale books that preceded it. From Russia With Love, was a realistic, Eric Ambler-style cold war espionage thriller; Doctor No is a larger-than-life adventure story that harks back to the Fu Manchu novels Fleming read in childhood. From here on the Bond novels grew more grandiose and outlandish. The next book, Goldfinger, was on an even larger scale, almost a self-parody, and determined the tone of the James Bond films.
Doctor No is a hinge in the Bond saga, situated between the sober early books and the wild later ones. It’s been called a modern-day “fertility myth,” thanks to its lush island setting and its mythic overtone of a modern-day St. George trekking through the jungle and fighting a “dragon.” Two dragons actually–-the fake tank and Dr. No himself, though the latter looks more like a worm. He just might be Fleming’s greatest villain, and I love all the crazy details Fleming gives him, like the heart on the wrong side of his body, just as I love his great supervillain speeches, some of the greatest lines ever spoken by a Bond villain. “Yes Mr. Bond, I am a maniac. All the greatest men are maniacs." Why hasn't anyone said that in the movies? I read DN after seeing the film, and was initially disappointed that No was crushed by a mountain of bird guano instead of drowning in a radioactive pool. Now I appreciate the craziness and ignominy of his original death. It should also be in a movie.
The film of Dr. No is certainly disappointing when it comes to the torture sequence, the longest, most excruciating description of physical pain in any Bond novel. You can see Fleming’s sadomasochism at work in his minute description of Bond’s physical sensations, how alert he is to the state of Bond’s body and its growing exhaustion. The torture course is what got Fleming in trouble with the literary tastemakers, and Amis claimed this reaction caused Fleming to forgo using torture in his later novels, which seems accurate. In any case, discussion of the scene is incomplete without its capper–-Bond fighting the giant squid. The scene could have easily proved ridiculous, but Fleming makes it not only plausible but terrifying. Ironically, it's also very cinematic: read this excerpt and try visualizing it onscreen:
What an "oh sh*t" moment that would be!
Yet another book-is-better scene: Quarrel is given a fine send-off, and his death is far more affecting than in the film (which makes him literally carry Bond’s shoes). However, the book's treatment of “Chigroes” is more racist–-Bond and No treat them as subhuman and call them “apes.” They are looked down on by both Blacks and the Chinese, and one feels sympathy for this “tough, forgotten race,” even if Bond doesn’t.
Honey is one of Bond’s best heroines–-she is self-sufficient and the opposite of a damsel in distress. Her oneness with nature also adds to the book’s mythic feel. Her coming-on to Bond in Dr. No’s mink-lined prison is overdone, but I do like the low comedy of her naked introduction. Even better is her domineering command at the end of the novel: “Do as you’re told.” That would be a great closing line for a Bond film.
Doctor No also features a characteristically Flemingian feature pointed out by Kingsley Amis–-a scene of Bond wined and dined by the villain. Amis said Crab Key was one of the most exciting settings in modern fiction, and he praised the book’s “unrelaxed tension, its terrifying house of evil, and the savage beauty of its main setting on a Caribbean island, a locale which Fleming made part of himself and which always excited his pen to produce some of his best writing.” DN's influence is strongly evident in Colonel Sun, which features Bond journeying to a remote island and getting tortured by a sadistic Chinese supervillain.
The most shocking part of the novel has nothing to do with Dr. No or his torture course-–it's Bond humiliation at the hands of M. If Dr. No is a hinge between the earlier and later Bond books, this marks a permanent change, a deterioration in the relationship between spy and spymaster. The wise and humane Sir James Molony had recommended giving Bond a more comfortable assignment, but M does this with such coldness and ill-concealed disapproval that Bond–-for the first time in his life–-gets angry with his boss.
Worse, M strips Bond of his trusty old gun and insists he use a new one. Freud would say this represents a symbolic castration of the son by his father. But the scene is uncomfortable enough without such a subtext. Bond is ordered to stand up so the armorer can inspect his build. After the armorer feels up his biceps and forearms, Bond is ordered to hand over his Beretta, which is mocked by Major Boothroyd: "‘I think we can do better than this. sir.’ It was the sort of voice Bond’s first expensive tailor used.”
Bond would have first met an expensive tailor during his teenaged, public school years--Boothroyd’s comment therefore strips Bond of his adulthood. (I wonder if Bond’s irritation was shared by Fleming, who made Boothroyd a rather unattractive character.) Bond’s old Beretta might not be phallic, but it’s practically his spouse :
M is unmoved–-“there was no sympathy in his voice.” But there is belittlement: he tells Bond “The sunshine’ll do you good and you can practice your new guns on the turtles or whatever they have down there.” And then M demands Bond leave behind his Beretta. Now their relationship is truly marred:
Shocking! In all the earlier books M and Bond had a near-perfect relationship–-Bond was happy to take orders from a man he loved and regarded as being a Churchillian God, a perfect father. The reader was encouraged to feel the same way Bond dif about M. But now Fleming mocks him: “M’s occasional bursts of rage were so splendid.”
After concluding his Jamaica mission, Bond sends a snarky telegram to M about his new guns proving ineffective against No’s dragon. Bond has second thoughts about this “cheap” gibe, but “he just wanted M to know that it hadn’t quite been a holiday in the sun.” I doubt if M noticed or cared. In the following books he stays rude, belligerent, and nasty, to a degree that convinced Kingsley Amis M was really evil.
It’s certainly true that Bond and M never regained the idyllic relationship they enjoyed before Doctor No. In Goldfinger Bond laughs in M’s face, in “For Your Eyes Only” a morally compromised M uses Bond as a personal hitman, in OHMSS M drives Bond to the point of resignation and is stupidly belligerent when Bond devises a plan to snare Blofeld. In YOLT M shouts at Bond and almost fires him. In TMWTGG–-well, the relationship hit bottom. Even M’s employees start calling him a bastard.
That said, M is not the sort of evil, duplicitous spymaster found in a Le Carre novel. But it is fascinating how the unambiguously good M of the first books transforms into the crusty old fart of the later ones. As with Bond, Fleming made the character more human as the years went by. But in M’s case, this meant poking fun at the old admiral. You can’t say he didn’t enjoy it.
An interesting reading of the scene and one I think has much merit. Your point about the deterioration of Bond's relationship with M over the course of the novels is one I had never noticed in the past and hopefully will now that I am reading them in order and closer together. This comes in stark contrast to Bond's previous attitude toward M and those "grey eyes" he obeyed and respected.
Honey, I'm finding, is a fantastic character. She is so far Fleming's best realized female character, exceeding even Tiffany Case. The sheer volume of pages Fleming devotes to characterizing her and filling in her background is astounding. With FRWL, Tania got off to a wonderful start, then simply faded right out of the story. It's almost as if Fleming realized the unfulfilled potential and went above and beyond with Honey.
Despite a less than completely gripping start, Dr. No charges full steam ahead, Fleming firing on all cylinders, in the novel's second half. The adventure, the sadism, the dialogue, the wicked humor—all anchored by the spectacular setting of Crab Key and two of Fleming's most fascinating and best realized creations: Honey Ryder and Dr. Julius No.
The sheer number of pages devoted strictly to realizing Honey as a character, without compromising the forward momentum of the story, is kind of stunning. Honey's self-consciousness over her battered nose and Bond's insistence that she's still beautiful and doesn't need it changed (and especially the story over how her nose got that way) endear her all the more. Fleming endears Bond as well, with Bond's resolution to see Honey gets the money she needs to have her operation in America if she really wants it once this is all over.
Bond's reaction to the black widow story is much better in the book than in the film. In the film, he reacts with visible disgust before conceding "It wouldn't do to make a habit of it." In the book, Bond's initial reaction is one of reverence before he "mildly" adds, as if he supposes it's the responsible thing to say, "It's not a thing to make a habit of...but I can't say I blame you the way it was. So what happened then?" A world of a difference between the two reactions. I agree with book Bond's response.
Bond, who must be 40-41 at this point, is roughly double the age of Honey, punching holes through any argument of actor-actress age differences in any of the films outside perhaps AVTAK. Fleming addresses the matter briefly in a couple of sentences, but overall appears more interested in writing of the wildness, the animality, the complete abandon in Honey's relationship with Bond.
Indeed she's a fascinating creation—and one of the most bizarre and most humorous scenes in an undeniably bizarre novel arrives when she's delightedly bathing and taunting Bond over his refusal to immediately make love to her. "He's a coward. He's frightened of a simple girl. I wonder why he's frightened. Of course if I wrestled with him I'd win easily. Perhaps he's frightened of that." And on and on, here on the brink of discovering Dr. No's madness, here in the clutches of the enemy, in this "Mink-Lined Prison."
Speaking of which (and speaking of bizarre), the reception by Sisters Rose and Lily fussing over the rooms and showering Bond and Honey with hospitality, after the horrors of the marshes and the incineration of Quarrel, is one of Fleming's greatest literary magic tricks and a delightful turn of atmosphere. (Also—Bryce? Was that not the name Bond used with Solitaire in LALD? Another echo?)
Scrambled eggs for breakfast, thank God. (And drugged pineapple juice.)
Dr. No's introduction at the conclusion of that chapter is pretty much perfection: him stalking into the rooms where his guests are sleeping and observing their naked bodies with the lamp affixed to his chest. And though he spends a great deal of time looking over Bond, studying his fate line and whatnot, there is nothing remotely erotic about the passage. There is nothing remotely sexual about Dr. No whatsoever. He barely registers as human in fact with Fleming describing him as a great venomous-worm whose heart is even in the wrong place in his body as you might expect of an insect. And then there is that great alien-like head, almost like a praying mantis's and the insectile mechanical pincers for hands. The man is a towering insect in a shimmering silver kimono. He is quite possibly Fleming's absolute creepiest villain of all (though Bond takes some of the wind out of his sails with his remarks about the man's cheap parlor tricks).
The extended dinner conversation is rife with barbed dialogue and Bond seeking opportunities to slash No's jugular with the dinnerware. No's scheme is a fascinating one, even more interesting than what made it to film. Still, the one drawback of the book's climax, by comparison with say Moonraker, is that there is no immediacy to stopping No's scheme. No countdown to destruction. Not even the ticking bomb on the boat in LALD. Fleming compensates marvelously by distracting the reader with sadism and calamari. (And admittedly, giving Bond the internal countdown of having to rescue Honey from the run of the crabs.)
I recall, upon my first read, thinking Dr. No's "obstacle course" would take place out in the jungle, presenting a sort of "Most Dangerous Game" scenario for Bond. Which really got my blood pumping. Bond's journey through the metal shaft, therefore, came as a disappointment up against my wild expectations. Knowing what to expect, however, I appreciate how positively brutal Bond's torment is here. The reader's too, for that matter. The part where Bond lances the tarantulas into a bloody pulp then climbs over their mass of hairy, mostly dead legs is quite possibly the singularly most revolting thing found in all of Fleming. In my opinion. But then, I don't really do spiders in general.
The squid...
Again, upon my initial read, this was for me a real jumping the shark point in Fleming's chronology. And anyone would have to admit the scene pardons a lot of the more outlandish things that have cropped up in the films. It's pure Jules Verne. That said, it is stunning writing and Fleming immerses you fully in the horrific reality of the scene. It's fantasy, it's nonsense, it's not of our world, but Fleming makes it oh so real and the pages fly by until Bond is covered in stinking black ink with the kraken and its blazing red eyes descending back into the sea. Now that CGI animals have been introduced into the last two films and with CGI improving with every passing year, I really think this scene—playing fully toward realism—needs to crop up in a film at some point. It could be one of the greatest, most stunning sequences in the whole series.
The squid conquered, we're on to the climax—and Fleming simply does not relent. It's an exhilarating, go-for-broke, one against many finale with Bond commandeering construction equipment (Casino Royale, Skyfall) to bury his freakish nemesis in bird poop. Dr. No himself is such a bizarre creation it's almost impossible to visual this tall, slim alien figure out there amongst the island vegetation, drowning in guano. It's wonderfully ridiculous.
A View to a Kill springs readily to mind with the blonde Honey showing up in oversized workman's clothes tied about her figure and their journey down the tunnel and into the dragon, Bond shooting up what were likely the opening chapter's Three Blind Mice along the way.
Bond's tussle with Honey brings a bit of, still grounded, amusement to the proceedings and it's actually a nice surprise to learn that Honey knew all along that the crabs wouldn't possibly hurt her and that she had fainted over the thought of what would be done to Bond.
As things wrap up in the final chapter, Fleming takes a few jabs at bureaucracy, even letting Bond lay into M a little (though he immediately regrets having done so), leaving Pleydell-Smith the sole representative of bureaucratic sanity and of the sort of man Bond/Fleming approves of in the world.
Continuing with the LALD echoes, Fleming concludes with his second "traditional film ending," allowing the story to close with Bond and Honey on the brink of lovemaking in her zoo/animal paradise, now emptied of its usual inhabitants. I do wonder, however, if the lobsters had anything to say to Honey before she cooked them for dinner.
Total scrambled eggs count: 1
An unexpectedly thoroughly enjoyable experience, Dr. No. I hope all my previously disappointing Bonds are met with such positive reappraisals. My hopes, unfortunately, aren't quite so high for Goldfinger however. Though I am eager to dive in.
Puke. Me neither.
As I said, Ray cannot comment on the later novels, since he died before Goldfinger was published, but he did review Diamonds Are Forever for The Sunday Times on March 25 1956. I realize we've moved on from that book, but I figure you'd be interested in what Ray thought:
Yes, which makes sense considering that Chandler's books certainly depend far more on mood and setting than plot. Chandler also admired Fleming's pacing--yet another Chandlerian quality. It's also interesting that Chandler had recurring qualms about the level of violence in Fleming--not just in the obvious case of DN but also in DAF. We do know that in a letter Chandler called Fleming "a bit of a sadist."
As a lagniappe, here's an interview with Chandler that the Daily Express conducted to promote its Bond comic strip.
Yes, allowed to live like no other before. One of Fleming's best realized characters.
I have left the remarkable thing about this book to the last. And that is that it is written by an Englishman, The scene is almost entirely American, and it rings true to an American. I am unaware of any other writer who has accomplished this.
Yup, Fleming really knows how to transport the reader and bring an environment to life.
Also: Moonraker, merely a spasm? I'm tempted to say Raymond Chandler has terrible taste in literature based on that comment alone.
Second Norwegian edition from 1966
What I love about Goldfinger is that, just as in Moonraker we got an extensive look into everyday life in the MI6 building, in this book we get a thorough glimpse into the inner life of James Bond himself, for the first time in the series.
As for Bond's inner dialogue, there is indeed a lot of great stuff in his mulling over the killing of the Mexican and various other things. Bond's disgust over his elaborate meal with Mr. Du Pont—a taste of the soft life to the extreme—particularly jumped out.
Also, it came to my attention this morning that today happens to be the feast day of St. Augustine, whom Fleming quotes (and I'm paraphrasing, hoping for accuracy): "God grant me chastity—just not yet!"