Live and Let Die

Very much of its time, and the racial stereotyping can grate, but its nice to see Bond as he was meant to be: a cynical, mean, cold blooded killer!

This was my second Bond novel, following on from reading of Casino Royale. I'm not going to run through the plot in this review rather I'll touch on a few points which occurred to me as I made my way through the text.

Firstly, I rated Live and Let Die more highly than Casino Royale: it had more action, was more compelling, contained more escapist adventure and was for me, much more exciting. It also contained Bonds first encounter with sharks which I love from the movies (sadly they never had lazers or bombs strapped to them, oh well!)

The book, especially the first half, suffers from the time period in which was written, i.e. before the civil rights movement had made any significant progress and before feminism became prevalent. So, be prepared for its very racist, demeaning and misogynistic attitude, for example: Fleming (as opposed to Bond) frequently refers to African-American characters as ‘negroes' and he also uses the terms ‘nigger,' and ‘jap'. So it often made me wince as I vocalised this unacceptable prejudicial language in my mind but if you manage to get past this then you'll find that in this tale Bond (and to a certain extent Felix Leiter) becomes a much more rounded character: his irritations, doubts and worries make him seem more human. Also, I guess that after I had finished it made me glad that as a society we have come a long way since the 1950s. Wikipedia makes a couple of relevant points here:

... academic Jeremy Black has pointed out that “the frequency of his references and his willingness to offer racial stereotypes [was] typical of many writers of his age”. [1] Writer Louise Welsh also observed that “Live and Let Die taps into the paranoia that some sectors of white society were feeling” as the civil rights movements challenged prejudice and inequality. [2]

It was also interesting to see Quarrel being introduced as a character, I recall he was in the movie Dr No. The introduction of Quarrel made me realised that the movies were actually filmed in an alternative sequence to the published novels. Live and Let Die also made me aware that these novels are more violent than most of the earlier movies. Additionally, the plot of Live and Let Die seems to have been used in three Bond movies: Live and Let Die (obviously), For Your Eyes Only (keelhauling) and Licence to Kill (Felix Leiter being turned into shark bait and the warehouse shoot out).

Live and Let Die also seemed to set the “Bond Blueprint” which was absent in Casino Royale; this is:

M briefs Bond about a mission > Bond visits exotic locations > a beautiful woman falls for Bond > romance ensues and then she gets into trouble after which Bond has to rescues her > lots of action ensues with Bond killing /fighting dastardly villains and henchmen > the story finally reaches a climax with the chief villain meeting a sticky end.

So, in summary a pacey tightly written period spy thriller which really is a great page-turner despite the undesirable elements which I've mentioned earlier.

Next up: Moonraker!

[1] Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: from Fleming's Novel to the Big Screen.University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9

[2] Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd.ISBN 978-1-85283-233-9

Excellent listen and very typical James Bond book, is very dated now but that doesn't take away from what is an excellent spy novel at the time and also a great book for any James Bond fan.