Rereading 007 - Live And Let Die
As always, SPOILER ALERTS. Don't read this if you've never read LALD and plan to. (It's not the same as the film.)
I don't think I've ever read these in the correct order before. What with the order I originally read them in and the order the films were made in, I realise I have been hopelessly confused all along. I certainly never realised LALD was only Bond's second adventure.
His enthusiastic greeting to Felix Leiter is therefore all the odder as he's only met him once before and was fairly ungracious to him in Casino Royale. This time, Felix is his new best friend and I love the buddy movie feel as they work together - Felix is far funnier and more upbeat than James and a great foil for him - before it all goes wrong. Second book in seems brutally early to get rid of Felix and we all know from The X Files what a mistake is to ditch your most appealing characters too early. Never mind, we know that Felix will return, or some of him anyway.
But I've started in the wrong place. LALD kicks off with a ludicrous plot introduction about gold coins. I can only assume that Fleming wanted to write about his beloved Jamaica and cast about wildly for a plot that would go with it - pirate's treasure probably seemed a good idea at one point. To make it relevant to the Secret Service, however, he was obliged to throw in a completely implausible link with SMERSH - Mr Big is an enigmatic creation, but whatever else I can believe of him, I simply don't buy that he would be interested in working with the Russians.
Never mind. M (who has grey eyes, we learn, like Bond - it's clearly Fleming's preferred eye colour for heroic men) delivers one of Fleming's trademark lectures, this time about gold coins, and we are off. It's notable that the 007 adventures are rarely whodunits - usually, for convenience, previous intelligence work has already brought Sinister Villain Z under suspicion and all Bond has to do is chase after him, look for evidence to confirm his villainy and try not to get dead.
Bond goes straight off to New York where he behaves like a complete fool in going to Harlem to take a look at the gangster villain and is deservedly captured and only has his life spared because apparently Mr Big is 'bored'. Despite the fact that he is going to be set free, Bond kills several of Mr Big's henchmen trying to escape. This is weak plotting by Fleming but luckily he has distracted us by introducing the beautiful and psychically gifted Solitaire into things.
I like Solitaire. She is an improvement on Vesper Lynd in that she has an interesting back-story and a sense of humour. Her point of view is conveyed sympathetically. The only thing that jars for me is her worldly-wise comments about the oldsters of St Petersburg. Solitaire's supposed to have been sheltered and hidden all her life. These remarks would come much better from Tiffany Case, not due for another few books. But I know the author's problem of having some ideas to get across and no suitable character available to express them.
At this point in the book, I was surprised to find that the dull old travel writer M recommends Bond read about voodoo is none other than Patrick Leigh Fermor, an author whose writing I now know well. Is it really so long since I last read LALD? I always felt it was unlikely that M would read travellers' books or recommend them to Bond and I think there's something else going here. Fermor and Fleming surely met - Fermor and Fleming's wife Anne were both very close friends of Debo Mitford, or the Duchess of Devonshire, as we surely ought to call her. Perhaps it's just a generous book plug.
Anyway, Bond's foolishness in New York is followed by his foolishness in running away with Solitaire on a slow train to nowhere and being spotted by the villains - a mistake that costs his brave cabin attendant his life. Bond and Solitaire meet up with Felix in St Petersburg and this time it is Felix's turn to be foolish, with tragic shark-related results.
And at last we head to Jamaica, where it is clear we were going all along. We meet the heroic Cayman Islander Quarrel (grey eyes again) and watch Bond train for days in two different locations - for those of us who don't know Jamaica well, one would have been enough, in fact I don't think I ever noticed before that he switches locations halfway through the training montage. There's some interesting stuff on shark attacks and finally the attack on the Isle of Surprise we all knew was coming.
I must in passing salute Fleming's knack with naming here. Whether it's names for girls (Solitaire and Vesper are both beautiful), villains, books or places, he's just brilliant at it. Both Beau Desert and the Isle of Surprise are both delightful.
There's a tremendous octopus fight in the island attack section - Fleming is second only to Willard Price in writing with sympathy and knowledge about undersea creatures, as far as I'm concerned - and then once again, it seems, 007 has been foolish. Mr Big is already expecting him, Mr Bond. And again, it's interesting to note the heavy hand of inevitability in Fleming's plotting - there is none of the who was it, what did they do confusion of Le Carre or indeed Agatha Christie. These books are more like boxing bouts - two champions in the field pre-destined to meet and slug it out and the only question is the outcome.
In this instance, as in so many of the books, Bond is hopelessly outgunned and if it wasn't for the limpet mine, he and Solitaire would be as dead as mutton. As it is, Mr Big comes to a suitably gory end courtesy of the sharks, Bond and Solitaire save each other and we have a lovely, peaceful end scene with them enjoying the quiet life (other than Quarrel's cooking) at Beau Desert. It's a huge improvement on the gloomy finish to Casino Royale - both Bond and Solitaire deserve some happiness and you just hope Bond doesn't hurry back for his next assignment.
**Film analysis
LALD scores highly on its cracking Wings theme tune, its elegant pacing (the three deaths before the credits add a bit of much-needed mystery and tension to the plot) and on having both sharks AND crocodiles. Jane Seymour makes a sensitive and beautiful Solitaire and the plot sticks reasonably closely to the book - although it wisely drops the pirate treasure for opium poppyfields. Overall, a hit.
I don't think I've ever read these in the correct order before. What with the order I originally read them in and the order the films were made in, I realise I have been hopelessly confused all along. I certainly never realised LALD was only Bond's second adventure.
His enthusiastic greeting to Felix Leiter is therefore all the odder as he's only met him once before and was fairly ungracious to him in Casino Royale. This time, Felix is his new best friend and I love the buddy movie feel as they work together - Felix is far funnier and more upbeat than James and a great foil for him - before it all goes wrong. Second book in seems brutally early to get rid of Felix and we all know from The X Files what a mistake is to ditch your most appealing characters too early. Never mind, we know that Felix will return, or some of him anyway.
But I've started in the wrong place. LALD kicks off with a ludicrous plot introduction about gold coins. I can only assume that Fleming wanted to write about his beloved Jamaica and cast about wildly for a plot that would go with it - pirate's treasure probably seemed a good idea at one point. To make it relevant to the Secret Service, however, he was obliged to throw in a completely implausible link with SMERSH - Mr Big is an enigmatic creation, but whatever else I can believe of him, I simply don't buy that he would be interested in working with the Russians.
Never mind. M (who has grey eyes, we learn, like Bond - it's clearly Fleming's preferred eye colour for heroic men) delivers one of Fleming's trademark lectures, this time about gold coins, and we are off. It's notable that the 007 adventures are rarely whodunits - usually, for convenience, previous intelligence work has already brought Sinister Villain Z under suspicion and all Bond has to do is chase after him, look for evidence to confirm his villainy and try not to get dead.
Bond goes straight off to New York where he behaves like a complete fool in going to Harlem to take a look at the gangster villain and is deservedly captured and only has his life spared because apparently Mr Big is 'bored'. Despite the fact that he is going to be set free, Bond kills several of Mr Big's henchmen trying to escape. This is weak plotting by Fleming but luckily he has distracted us by introducing the beautiful and psychically gifted Solitaire into things.
I like Solitaire. She is an improvement on Vesper Lynd in that she has an interesting back-story and a sense of humour. Her point of view is conveyed sympathetically. The only thing that jars for me is her worldly-wise comments about the oldsters of St Petersburg. Solitaire's supposed to have been sheltered and hidden all her life. These remarks would come much better from Tiffany Case, not due for another few books. But I know the author's problem of having some ideas to get across and no suitable character available to express them.
At this point in the book, I was surprised to find that the dull old travel writer M recommends Bond read about voodoo is none other than Patrick Leigh Fermor, an author whose writing I now know well. Is it really so long since I last read LALD? I always felt it was unlikely that M would read travellers' books or recommend them to Bond and I think there's something else going here. Fermor and Fleming surely met - Fermor and Fleming's wife Anne were both very close friends of Debo Mitford, or the Duchess of Devonshire, as we surely ought to call her. Perhaps it's just a generous book plug.
Anyway, Bond's foolishness in New York is followed by his foolishness in running away with Solitaire on a slow train to nowhere and being spotted by the villains - a mistake that costs his brave cabin attendant his life. Bond and Solitaire meet up with Felix in St Petersburg and this time it is Felix's turn to be foolish, with tragic shark-related results.
And at last we head to Jamaica, where it is clear we were going all along. We meet the heroic Cayman Islander Quarrel (grey eyes again) and watch Bond train for days in two different locations - for those of us who don't know Jamaica well, one would have been enough, in fact I don't think I ever noticed before that he switches locations halfway through the training montage. There's some interesting stuff on shark attacks and finally the attack on the Isle of Surprise we all knew was coming.
I must in passing salute Fleming's knack with naming here. Whether it's names for girls (Solitaire and Vesper are both beautiful), villains, books or places, he's just brilliant at it. Both Beau Desert and the Isle of Surprise are both delightful.
There's a tremendous octopus fight in the island attack section - Fleming is second only to Willard Price in writing with sympathy and knowledge about undersea creatures, as far as I'm concerned - and then once again, it seems, 007 has been foolish. Mr Big is already expecting him, Mr Bond. And again, it's interesting to note the heavy hand of inevitability in Fleming's plotting - there is none of the who was it, what did they do confusion of Le Carre or indeed Agatha Christie. These books are more like boxing bouts - two champions in the field pre-destined to meet and slug it out and the only question is the outcome.
In this instance, as in so many of the books, Bond is hopelessly outgunned and if it wasn't for the limpet mine, he and Solitaire would be as dead as mutton. As it is, Mr Big comes to a suitably gory end courtesy of the sharks, Bond and Solitaire save each other and we have a lovely, peaceful end scene with them enjoying the quiet life (other than Quarrel's cooking) at Beau Desert. It's a huge improvement on the gloomy finish to Casino Royale - both Bond and Solitaire deserve some happiness and you just hope Bond doesn't hurry back for his next assignment.
**Film analysis
LALD scores highly on its cracking Wings theme tune, its elegant pacing (the three deaths before the credits add a bit of much-needed mystery and tension to the plot) and on having both sharks AND crocodiles. Jane Seymour makes a sensitive and beautiful Solitaire and the plot sticks reasonably closely to the book - although it wisely drops the pirate treasure for opium poppyfields. Overall, a hit.
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