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Binding: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: September 02, 2003
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
See James Bond through the eyes of his lover, Vivienne Michel, in the tenth of Fleming's Bond adventures. Vivienne is running, from her past and from the evil brothers Sol Horror and Sluggsy Morant, and when 007 arrives at the Dreamy Pines Motor Court, in the north of New York State, he is her only hope.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
An unusual Bond novel because written in the first person voice of a woman. Perhaps more than any other Bond novel this is nothing like the film of the same name. Bond only comes into the narrative in the final act to save the heroine from a nasty fate at the hands of two viscious gangsters holed up in a run down motel in the Adirondacks. The suspense builds well and it's quite a page turner. Hitchcock always wanted to make a Bond film and this would have been the one for him to do, with its American setting, creeping claustrophobia and damsel in distress. This Penguin series has a cool (though racy) set of retro covers that draw on elements of the story. My copy came from the local IGA store in Kingaroy, Qld, so you never know what little treasures you'll find among the supermarket novels.
Rating: -
Vivienne Michel is a pretty young woman whose tough life is about to get much worse. Caretaking a rundown hotel in the Adirondacks, she is set upon by two threatening goons. Just as they are about to brutalize her, there's a knock at the door. Who could it be?
Well, given that this is identified on the cover as "A James Bond Novel" and its already two-thirds over, it better not be the Maytag repairman.
Nineteen sixty-two was a landmark year for Bond. That was the year Sean Connery played 007 in the first film. Yet on the page, Ian Fleming seemed still trying to kick out the jams after "From Russia With Love" set a new standard for his secret-agent series five years before. His previous two books had been a collection of short stories and a novel taken from a co-written screenplay. Could his experiment here, putting us in the head of a female character and seeing Bond through her eyes, have been another sign of fatigue?
Yet "The Spy Who Loved Me" moves at a fast clip. The story itself is a strange one, half woman's romance novel, half Mickey Spillane-type yarn, but Fleming delivers a strong sense both of place and character. You latch on readily with Vivienne as she shakes off the ennui on a rainy autumn evening, enjoying her solitude with a tumbler of bourbon while the Ink Spots play on the radio. She thinks about a life of lost virtue and broken promises, and Fleming almost makes you forget any anticipation you have about things going boom. When the bad guys show up, it's a rude surprise, especially as they are low-rent for a Bond book. But they are a real threat, and thus a source of sincere suspense, even if they are more about stealing TVs than nuclear secrets.
"Okay, sweetheart," one of them says. "So you won't give, so I'll take for myself. I reckon you've earned yourself a rough night. Get me?"
That's the one called Horror. The other is called Sluggsy. For bad-guy names, they sound right out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. But you worry anyway, because Vivienne is very much alone and you have come to like her the way Fleming sets the story up. That's the good part. It's not what you expect from a Bond novel, but all the more credit for Fleming trying it and pulling it off.
Then Bond shows up. It's a funny thing to say a Bond novel starts to tail off when James Bond shows up, but that's what happens. He's not the same vivid, three-dimensional figure we come to expect. Instead, he's a stock knight in shining armor, and Vivienne loses much of her integrity as a solid character, playing instead the role of love-struck lady in distress.
"You're the most wonderful man I've met in my life!" she coos. Bond kisses her and tells her to stay out of sight while Daddy cleans up the mess.
Still there are good moments in the last third of the book. Bond has at Sluggsy and Horror in true pulp-fiction style. There's fire and a car crash, and some of the hottest sex Fleming ever put to page.
There's also oddball moments, like Vivienne's declaration: "All woman love semi-rape." Knowing Fleming, he probably had more trouble with the word "semi" than "love". "The Spy Who Loved Me" has a few gag-inducing items like that, but also some well-played moments that have nothing to do with the main battle, like Vivienne recalling a tryst in a cinema and Bond telling of his latest battle with SPECTRE (a running battle from the last novel which continues in the next).
All in all, a worthy experiment and, at times, a fine novel, although 007 fans may find it more revealing of Fleming than Bond. I wouldn't recommend it to a newbie, but Bond readers may find this change of pace to their liking. It is to mine.
Rating:  -
This may have been Fleming or his publisher's idea to sell more books to a female audience. If you are looking for the real Bond he is not here. This is the most sexually graphic of the Bond novels but from the female point of view. It is claimed that the first romance novel was written in 1972 but The Spy Who Loved Me preceeded it by 10 years. Instead of riding in on a white horse to save the damsel in distress he appears in a T Bird with a flat tire at a cheap motel in upstate NY. Did Fleming really write this?
Rating: -
This novel, told from a young woman's point of view, was an attempt to do something different with Bond. Surprisingly, it is most successful when Bond is not around, and when the heroine is simply telling us the story of her life, and her travels, and her unsuccessful love affairs. Once the bad guys show up, and the "real adventure" starts, it starts to seem corny. Once Bond shows up (more than half way in) it also begins to seem strangely incongruous. Nor can it be called a spy story -- it just becomes a damsel-in-distress tale that happens to feature Bond as the Knight.
In the end, Fleming tries to add a serious edge through the fatherly warnings of the Sheriff. But this is not convincing enough, and not adequately supported by the story, to have real bite. Bond is just too NICE. The only cruel or wrong thing he does is to love a girl he meant to leave -- which is cruel enough, I guess, except that our heroine seems oddly satisfied with this outcome.
Still, Fleming's careful attention to environment, atmosphere and detail make this more rewarding than it might have been.
Rating:  -
I have read all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and this novel was the least enjoyable. It almost seems as if Fleming was having sometime of life crisis or personal issue while writing this book.
The book is written in 3 parts, like 3 separate short stories. The main character is not James Bond, but a 20-something woman named Vivienne Michel. The first part of the book is about her past, the second part is about her present situation, and the third part is about her rescue.
You read through half the book before James Bond makes an appearance. What is unusual is that the book is mostly written from Vivienne Michel's point of view.
Usually I can read one of Fleming's Bond books in 3 to 4 nights because they hold my interest. This book was a struggle to get through. All the novels written before and after this book were far more superior. Not sure what happened to Fleming when he was writing this novel, but I am glad some resolution came before his next book.
If you want to get to the action, read the last chapter of the second part and the entire 3 part. If you are having trouble sleeping, start at the beginning (good luck and sweet dreams).
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