Goldfinger

The seventh Bond novel, written in the mid-50's, is an efficient, ruthless page turner with a large dose of racism, sexism and misogyny thrown in for good measure. Vintage Bond then!

Responding to criticism of his super-spy creation, Fleming here open the story with a world-weary Bond, drinking heavily and questioning his lifestyle as a secret killing machine. But within a chapter that's all forgotten as Fleming introduces one of his most memorable villains in the rotund figure of Auric Goldfinger. Bond, by a series of coincidences, finds himself on the tail of SMERSH financier and gold fetishist Goldfinger and his man-mountain Korean bodyguard, Odd-Job.

We are treated to probably the best ever description of a round of high-stakes golf, a long car chase through the French countryside and a bonkers plot to steal a vast amount of gold bullion.

It's an easy read, undemanding, action-packed and utterly humourless. What grates to the modern eye is the glib racism (Koreans described as apes) and the sexism (all that Lesbian gal needs is a REAL man to set her straight...). Oh dear.

The film adaptation is regarded as one of the best Bond films because they ironed out the kinks in the plot. Even so, with this book, Fleming started a run of great novels which culminated in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice, along the way giving Bond a bit of depth and humanity.

So, a deeply flawed thriller, but worth a read. Now, where's my Vodka Martini.....?

Goldfinger - Ian Fleming

My project to read all the original Fleming Bonds continues!

Published in 1959 Goldfinger is the seventh book in the original James Bond series. Yet again (as with Live and Let Die and Dr. No) we see Bond having to sort out an American problem; plus he offends most readers along the way, for example:

* Bond bemoans “giving the votes to women”
* Bond is such a man that lesbian Pussy Galore falls for him (the “cause” of lesbianism being child abuse or woman winning the right to vote)
* Koreans are sub-humans
* Avoid all homosexuals and Mexicans, and
* People who suffer with cleft palates are generally unintelligible

There are lots more examples of sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and racist passages, these are just the highlights (or lowlights). But like I've said in previous reviews that these books should be set into context of the time in which Fleming wrote them. I tended to mentally skip over them allowing me to enjoy Goldfinger as a thrilling and enjoyable adventure.

The book is almost like three short stories which Fleming glued together. The first “Happenstance”, concerns Goldfinger cheating at cards, next we have “Coincidence”, containing the extended golf match (more of which below) and finally “Enemy Action”, the raid on Fort Knox. While there are common threads running through the whole narrative it is at times a little wordy and sprawling. Towards the end of the book the suspense starts to dip and the story struggles a little as Bond seems to be more of an observer as opposed to an instigator or driver of the action.

The novel opens with Bond musing over life, death and how he fits into the world. The literary Bond is much more philosophical than the cinema version and unlike From Russia With Love the focus of Goldfinger is on Bond himself. This allows the reader to gain insights into the self-doubts which plague Bond showing him to be a fallible human and not at all a superhero.

In Goldfinger we also see more humour than normal, especially the scene where Bond believes that he's dead and worries about how all his girlfriends are going to react when he's with them all in heaven.

Also at the start of the book, somewhat unusually, Bond shows mercy on a man who has become embroiled in a drug ring. He believes that he's a good person who got caught up with the criminal underworld. He also takes pity on Jill Masterton too as he tries to help her escape from Goldfinger and gives her $10,000 to help her start afresh. These displays of humanity are uncharacteristic and it helps to flesh Bond out as a character.

Speaking of characters, I felt that Auric Goldfinger could have could have been developed a little more. Sure he gives good villain speeches but why is he giving gold to the Russians, after all he was trying to flee from them earlier in his life? Strange? Also, apart from Bond comparing Oddjob to a variety of animals we know almost nothing about his henchmans backstory. And finally, Pussy Galore is the most underdeveloped woman in the entire novel. We scarcely get to know her at all.

There was a heck of a lot of cards in previous books, such as Casino Royale and in Goldfinger this is swapped with golf. And believe me there are a lot of pages about golf. While Fleming tries to keep it interesting it's still golf. So if you like the sport then you'll likely love this part, if you don't then make sure you drink a couple of espressos to prevent you from nodding off.

It's interesting to see how much the 1965 film of the same name mirrors the book. In fact there are a lot of similarities: the cheating at cards, the round of golf and the laser /circular saw threat, Pussy Galore and her flying lesbians, Oddjob and his lethal hat and the raid on Fort Knox. Also what I've also noticed by this point in the original series is that while Bond likes to bed ladies, he's not as prolific as he is in the movies. He typically sleeps with one or two women in the books whereas in the films it's there is no limit.

So, in summary Goldfinger is a worthy addition to the Bond series and helps to develop Bond further putting him in real danger against one of the all-time classic scoundrels.

Despite having seen many of the films, this was my first exposure to one of Ian Fleming's Bond novels. The plot, basically, involves Bond having to stop the dastardly Auric Goldfinger from stealing all of the bullion in Fort Knox and using the money to finance anti-American spy interests. [return]The book is an amazing document of its time - in addition to the Red Menace of Communist influence over Western politics, there are also discussions of the inherent genetic cruelty of Korean people, and how lesbianism is an unfortunate but predictable outcome of allowing women to vote. In these regards it's so ludicrous you almost can't get offended (I mean, seriously, how does one come out against SUFFRAGE?!?), but I'm sure some would be prevented from enjoying the book on those grounds. Overall, though, it's a fairly interesting but straightforward spy story. Fleming's Bond is an interest character, because he shows absolutely no hesitation when required to kill, but at the same time, he feels guilty about it afterwards. That's an interesting quirk that you don't see in enough modern action heroes, and it was nice to find it in what was otherwise a constant stream of stiff-upper-lippism.