Goldfinger (James Bond Novels) (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Colonel Smithers, Fort Knox, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The allure of James Bond was best described by Raymond Chandler, who insisted that 007 is "what every man would like to be and what every woman would like to have between her sheets." Who can argue with that? This month marks the 40th anniversary of the film release of Dr. No, which was the first Bond adventure to make the big screen, and two big coffee-table books are being published to honor the occasion (LJ 10/1/02, p. 96). Shockingly, Fleming's original novels have gone out of print, but Penguin here reproduces a trio of the British secret agent's early outings, released in 1952, 1958, and 1959, respectively, sporting stylish cover art. These stories were racy for the nifty Fifties but are quite tame by today's standards. Still, they can be fun.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Auric Goldfinger, the most phenomenal criminal Bond has ever faced, is an evil genius who likes his cash in gold bars. This powerful villain is planning the biggest and most daring heist in history-robbing all the gold in Fort Knox.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (August 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142002046
• ISBN-13: 978-0142002049
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #20,904 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 7 in The James Bond Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Class never goes out of style, August 29, 2002

By	Steve Pearl (uk London, UK) - See all my reviews

Goldfinger has an effortless grace that is simply beyond most thriller writers. And this is the point; Fleming could really write. Yes, Goldfinger is just a potboiler fantasy, but it is suffused with beautiful writing; elegant simple sentences that contain real wit and character. It was Fleming's longest book and yet compared to a Clancy or a Ludlum it is little more than a short story. But in contrast to the turgid, plot ridden lumps that so many writers today (and in fairness, for the last thirty years) seem compelled to churn out, Fleming's brevity and clarity, his development of character, the pace and humour he injects, all shine out.

Reading again the account of the game of Canasta or, especially, the round of golf, is to feel a sense of joy and appreciation of his sheer skill with words. (In contrast, can any one really read Tom Clancy and not, by about page 400, emit a despairing cry of "get on with it!".)

And Goldfinger is a great story. It's far fetched and unlikely, but it roars along with a logic that lasts as long as the book does.

And yes of course it's dated, and Fleming's views would not hold up to much scrutiny in 2002. But are today's readers such sensitive little flowers that they cannot accept that the ideas and views of another time are totally valid when expressed in the context of that time?

Goldfinger was written by a man who had an instinctive lightness of touch, who was writing when people did not mistake information for knowledge, and who above all wrote for the sheer enjoyment of it all.

And that's what Goldfinger is...sheer pleasure and sheer enjoyment.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A solid James Bond novel with a few quirks, December 7, 2006

By	Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

First of all, let me disclose that I really like all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and I particularly like and admire Fleming's lean, understated style of prose. Fleming is underrated as a writer, and James Bond is more than a comic book cutout character.

Goldfinger as a novel has some appealing attributes. The scene in which Bond plays a game of golf with Auric Goldfinger (with the stakes higher than they seem) is a masterpiece. Goldfinger the villain is an ingenious character. The reason I deprived this novel of two stars is first of all that the ending is tacked on almost as an afterthought. Sorry, it just didn't work, and it almost seemed like Fleming reached his page limit, and realized that he needed to wrap up the novel in the next twenty or so pages. Secondly, "Operation Grand Slam" involving a hodgpodge of criminals, seemed highly underdeveloped, and SMERSH would not have dared have a Soviet vessel upload the goal and hightail it to Russia. Nor would it have involved the sweepings of the US underworld in such a plan. It just did not work. Now mind, the idea of robbing Fort Knox is brilliant, and Fleming could have made it work. But here, in my opinion, it did not.

All these criticisms aside, I enjoyed "Goldfinger" the novel, and I recommend it, along with all of the other Bond novels, to anyone who enjoys good writing, a suspension of one's critical facilities for an afternoon, and, of course, James Bond.

21 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Goldfinger: The best film, but FAR from the best novel, April 21, 2005

By	Michael K. Beusch (San Mateo, California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Very rarely does a film improve upon the source novel. I wrote a review of one, King's Ransom, which was made into a vastly superior film by Akira Kurosawa called High and Low. Goldfinger, the film, is one of the classic Bonds -- my favorite, to be sure. The novel, in contrast, is too long, is illogical in some parts, offensive in others and makes the reader realize what a superb job screenwriter Richard Maibaum did in adapting it for the film. These weaknesses stand out in particular:

First, the behavior of villain Auric Goldfinger is completely illogical during the torture scene. You might remember the terrific laser beam scene in the film where Goldfinger, played by Gert Frobe, threatens to slice James Bond, played by the great Sean Connery, in half. In the film, Bond gets out of the mess by bluffing, making Goldfinger believe that he knows all about Operation Grand Slam, Goldfinger's plan to blow up Fort Knox. Goldfinger reasons that he can keep the CIA and the British Secret Service at bay by keeping Bond alive and making them think that Bond is his guest, not his prisoner.

The novel, in contrast, has Goldfinger threaten Bond with a saw. Bond doesn't mention Operation Grand Slam and has been a constant thorn in Goldfinger's side. Goldfinger has Bond dead to rights and, unlike in the laser beam scene in the film, has no logical reason to spare his life. However, just before Bond is about to be sawed in half, Goldfinger inexplicably spares him and forces Bond to pose as his secretary. There's a running joke that Bond villains seal their own fate by devising elaborate ways to kill him that allow Bond to escape. However, Goldfinger's action in this scene in the novel completely defy logic and cripple the story's credibility. Bond novels are an escape from reality -- an adult comic book -- but this plot development makes absolutely no sense.

In the novel, Goldfinger's plan is to rob Fort Knox of its gold supply. Fleming, unlike Richard Maibaum, apparently never realized how logistically impossible this is. Connery rightfully points out in the film that to rob Fort Knox would require a whole fleet of trucks and several days to complete. Maibaum's plan, while still fantastic, makes more sense -- detonating a nuclear weapon in Fort Knox to irradiate the U.S. gold supply and drive the value of his own supply up ten times over.

In the novel, Pussy Galore begins as a hardened lesbian who has no interest in Bond whatsoever. Of course, by the end of the novel, Bond has "heterosexualized" and overwhelmed her with his masculine charms. It's a very 1950's view of homosexualtiy -- that is, that a homosexual could be "cured" of his/her sexual desires like it was a disease. The attitude seems very backward and ignorant by today's standards.

The film strongly suggests Pussy's lesbianism, but it also shows Pussy, played by Honor Blackman, flirting suggestively with Bond. Blackman's Pussy may have lesbian tendencies, but she clearly also has a strong attraction to the opposite sex. When she falls for Bond, it makes sense, unlike in the novel. Bond still converts her, but the conversion stressed is more along the lines of Pussy joining the good guys rather than going from staunch lesbianism to being a Bond girl.

The film has a lot of Asian villains. Harold Sakata is terrific as Goldfinger's superpowered Korean henchman Oddjob, Burt Kwouk (Kato in the Pink Panther films) is Mr. Ling, a Chinese nuclear scientist who supplies Goldfinger with the bomb and most of Goldfinger's henchmen are Korean. However, the film, for the most part, avoids extreme racial stereotyping. Many of the villains are Asian, but there's no suggestion that simply being Asian is a source of evil. Asians would later play a prominent heroic role in You Only Live Twice.

The novel, in contrast, is vicously racist in nature. The nadir of this being Bond's statement that Koreans "are lower than apes." It's hard to believe that even in the pre-civil rights era of the 1950's, this statement could slip by without triggering a major protest from an Asian rights group. Today, it seems so ugly and hateful that I immediately lost a lot of respect for Ian Fleming. This is his hero who believes these vile things, so clearly what Bond believes, Fleming believes -- there's no way to separate the two. One wonders which other racial groups Fleming was bigoted against. It's a disgraceful moment in the Bond saga and a shameful comment on Fleming's view of the world.

Novels like Casino Royale, From Russia With Love, Dr. No, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice are classics and rank among my favorite novels. Goldfinger, however, falls way short of that standard. When I finished Goldfinger, I was left wishing that I had not read it and instead had left my impression of the story to the vastly superior film. The novel not only disappointed me, it made me think much less of Ian Fleming as a person.