Live and Let Die

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Thomas, Rebecca (19 November 1999). "The many faces of Bond". BBC. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015 . Retrieved 28 March 2015. Kroon, Richard W. (2014). A/V A to Z: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Media, Entertainment and Other Audiovisual Terms. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-5740-3. Anyway, these books really still are high-octane action thrillers, with tons of thrills and chills, and intensely graphic scenes, though brief, of torture and abuse. We Americans luv ‘em!

I hoped I would one day kiss a man like that,’ she said. ‘And when I first saw you, I knew it would be you.’ Wow. Forty years really makes a lot of difference in how things look. I never liked Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...as Bond. From the get-go, I found him too TV for the role of the big screen's biggest baddest spy. What was charming and roguish in other performances was slippery and oleaginous in Moore's performances. But I had no memory of how revoltingly racist this film was. I shudder to say it, but I was probably blind to it because it was...ulp...the way I saw the lily-white privileged Republican world I lived in. Live and Let Die also gave Fleming a chance to outline his views on what he saw as the increasing American colonisation of Jamaica—a subject that concerned both him and his neighbour Noël Coward. While the American Mr Big was unusual in appropriating an entire island, the rising number of American tourists to the islands was seen by Fleming as a threat to Jamaica; he wrote in the novel that Bond was "glad to be on his way to the soft green flanks of Jamaica and to leave behind the great hard continent of Eldollarado." [53]Simpson, Paul (2002). The Rough Guide to James Bond. Rough Guides. ISBN 978-1-84353-142-5. Archived from the original on 23 March 2023 . Retrieved 26 October 2020. a b Boucher, Anthony (10 April 1955). "Criminals at Large". The New York Times. New York, NY. p.BR17. Around p118 Fleming starts slagging off American diners, American scrambled eggs, and then moves on to slagging off old people. It just all feels a bit negative and unnecessary. Quarrel and Felix Leiter are actual characters in the book. Quarrel and Bond spend a week together in which Quarrel teaches Bond all about the ocean and its wildlife. Bond gets into much better shape under Quarrel's care and tutelage. Quarrel has only a handful of lines in the film and no character. It's also very interesting to notice the difference in Bond's treatment of Solitaire vs. his treatment of Vesper in the previous book. Unlike Vesper, who Bond described as "cold; arrogant; private", Solitaire makes it crystal clear from the instant she sees James Bond that she is sexually available to him and will go to bed with him at any time. She's described as obedient, trusting and Bond reacts to her very differently than Vesper. Whereas he was constantly fantasizing about raping Vesper, bringing her down a notch, forcing her to cry, forcing her to "want him," blah blah blah submit, he treats Solitaire as "poor female" who needs to be protected and directed and cared for. It's obvious why he never fantasizes about getting Solitaire to submit - she's obviously ready to submit to anything he might desire - and is therefore, in Bond's eyes: unrapeable.

Solitaire called for him. The room smelled of Balmain's "Vent Vert". She was leaning on her elbow and looking down at him from the upper berth. I’ll say again, so much of these books is just detailing exactly what Bond has to eat and drink. Makes me very hungry. Besides the cringe-worthy quantities of racial slur, this is the book where Bond expresses his views of the female lead character - Solitaire - as his "prize" and that this is the only way that he is able to see her. Hmmm.Among parcels of American men's fashions and books on voodoo that arrive for 007, a time bomb is also sent to him as a warning. Bond, Leiter and an NYPD captain named Dexter go on a field trip to Harlem. Leiter confides that he likes the negroes and they seem to know it somehow, perhaps due to some pieces on Dixieland jazz he wrote for the Amsterdam News. After visits to both Sugar Ray's and the Savoy Ballroom for some local history, Bond and Leiter drop in on a nightclub called the Boneyard where Mr. Big is rumored to be appearing. Not surprisingly, Bond and Leiter are ambushed and 007 is taken to meet the Big Man. In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two visit some of Mr Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but are captured. Bond is interrogated by Mr Big, who uses his fortune-telling employee, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr Big, supporting Bond's cover story. Mr Big decides to release Bond and Leiter, and has one of Bond's fingers broken. On leaving, Bond kills several of Mr Big's men; Leiter is released with minimal physical harm by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz. It's the 1973 first outing by Simon Templar...I mean Roger Moore!...that I review here. The book is twenty years older and even more racist. When a few years ago I was told that my work was sending me to New Orleans, my immediate need was to find a copy of Live and Let Die, because, well, a part of the film is set there and the surrounding swamps of Louisiana - and I like a Bond story. I have to say I really enjoyed reading about Bond and Felix Leiter enjoying the nightlife in Harlem. And I don’t think I detected any racism at all from the characters themselves during these scenes. It was all just the terms that Fleming was using in places.

Bond has a nightmare and ‘whimpered and sweated in his sleep.’ No, I’m sorry, Bond does not whimper. As in all Bond books, the best part is the villain's speech(es). When Bond is captured (usually once, but in this book it's twice) the villain always ties Bond up and then gives a long speech about how he's so great, Bond will never defeat him, there will be no rescue, blah blah blah. These are always epic, very entertaining speeches, with Bond occasionally breaking in to make a smartass comment or two. They are very cinematic and fun. Best part(s) of the book BY FAR. Pearson, John (1967). The Life of Ian Fleming: Creator of James Bond. London: Pan Books. OCLC 60318176. Quarrel, on the other hand, is James Bond's friend. Well, I don't know if I, PERSONALLY, would use "friend" to describe this relationship because it's obvious that Bond is above Quarrel in status. They are pretty close to equal, especially considering the times - and Bond's mentality - and Bond TRIES to say that they ARE equal, but I don't buy it. 1.) Quarrel calls Bond "Cap'n" which is described as "the highest title he knew" since he's from "the most famous race of seamen in the world" (Caymen Islanders). Bond, in turn, just calls Quarrel by his name. 2.) When Bond is injured - which is often in this book, Quarrel tends to his wounds in what seems to me a very servile way. For instance, when Solitaire (the love interest) is injured, Bond (who is also VERY INJURED) strips her naked, bathes her, and tends to her wounds. Then he puts her, naked, into his bed. Then, he "allows" Quarrel to strip him, bathe him and tend to his (much more serious wounds) before driving him to a hospital. The fact that he doesn't allow Quarrel to tend to Solitaire (a white woman), but then expects Quarrel to do the sh*tload of work taking care of Bond's battered body when Bond was, apparently, not wounded enough to stop him from giving Solitaire the full treatment lets me know that Bond and Quarrel are definitely not equals like he wants me to believe.Bond finds himself in America for the majority of this book, and early on Fleming seems to get in a fair few anti-American digs. Just little digs about the food, and the fashion, and the colloquial words etc. Okay, I'd known that Ian Fleming is on record as having been a racist and sexist bastard, but somehow I had managed to not really notice that much the first time I'd taken a spin through the Bond novels. And there were a couple of bits I took issue with in my recent re-read of Casino Royale, sure, though they were few and far between. In the sequel, Bond is coming to the Americas. He passes through customs with a British diplomatic passport and is greeted by the Justice Department, who drive him into Manhattan, where he's been booked in to the St. Regis Hotel. Waiting for Bond is his friend Felix Leiter, the CIA-FBI liaison who 007 worked with on the Casino Royale job. Bond recalls how the head of his department, M, met with him in London to put him on his new case. Someone is spreading gold coins--believed to be the long lost Jamaican treasure of 17th century pirate Bloody Morgan--throughout the States. One of the coins was found in the possession of a FBI double agent working for Moscow. James Bond fans will love this book....it has some great underwater action scenes, a really baddd bad guy and some great daring-do. But I do caution readers to be aware that there is some questionable content. It really put a damper on my enjoyment of this book. I found it interesting that were was a footnote on p8 referencing the previous novel, Casino Royale. I’d only really seen footnotes like that used in comics before. Never really in novels.

Exciting parts: Bond fighting octopi, barracuda and sharks underwater with a harpoon gun. The octopus battle is extremely fun. At the end, Big decides to kill Bond and Solitaire by tying them together, face to face, butt-naked and dragging them behind the boat through a coral reef so that they get all bloody and sharks and barracuda eat them. In the movies, we all saw what happened when Bond allowed his emotions to get in the way of his mission. He becomes someone else. Not quite Bond as we know it. Philip Day of The Sunday Times noted "How wincingly well Mr Fleming writes"; [59] the reviewer for The Times thought that "[t]his is an ingenious affair, full of recondite knowledge and horrific spills and thrills—of slightly sadistic excitements also—though without the simple and bold design of its predecessor". [70] Elizabeth L Sturch, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, observed that Fleming was "without doubt the most interesting recent recruit among thriller-writers" [71] and that Live and Let Die "fully maintains the promise of... Casino Royale." [71] Tempering her praise of the book, Sturch thought that "Mr Fleming works often on the edge of flippancy, rather in the spirit of a highbrow", [71] although overall she felt that the novel "contains passages which for sheer excitement have not been surpassed by any modern writer of this kind". [71] The reviewer for The Daily Telegraph felt that "the book is continually exciting, whether it takes us into the heart of Harlem or describes an underwater swim in shark-infested waters; and it is more entertaining because Mr Fleming does not take it all too seriously himself". [72] George Malcolm Thompson, writing in The Evening Standard, believed Live and Let Die to be "tense; ice-cold, sophisticated; Peter Cheyney for the carriage trade". [23] Edit: December 19, 2018 This novel is really two and a half stars, not three, but Goodreads doesn't let me give half stars.There are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service. From the moment the BOAC Stratocruiser taxied up to the International Air Terminal at Idlewild, James Bond was treated like royalty. p13 –‘The desireable Miss Moneypenny, M’s all powerful private secretary’. I’ve noticed this about Fleming. He’s certainly not above sexualising women, and sometimes making them damsels to be rescued by Bond. But he’s also capable of showing women of power too in different ways. He describes Moneypenny here as ‘all powerful’ and in the first three Bond books he has two female spy characters. In Moonraker which I’m reading right now, he describes Gala Brand as being able to break Bond’s arm if she so desired. I’m sure the pendulum swings more into the misogyny side of things, but I’m interested to see how Fleming handles women in all the rest of the novels. Adrian] Sinclair, an award-winning documentary-maker, said: “That became part of that collection of stories that George and Paul would tell over the years, and nobody ever corrected it.” When Solitaire kisses Bond forcefully, actually daring to run her hands through his hair - she's described as "kissing like a man...as if Bond were the woman." o.O