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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Class never goes out of style, August 29, 2002
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.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A solid James Bond novel with a few quirks, December 7, 2006
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
For once, the MOVIE was better!, March 30, 1999
This is one case in which the MOVIE was definitely better than the book that inspired it...not that the book isn't an entertaining read! The film's pre-credits sequence is referred to briefly in the beginning of the book, but death by electric shock in the tub is easily more inspired than death by karate-chop! In the film, Bond's manhood is threatened by a laser beam; in the book, it's a circular saw. In the film, Goldfinger puts Ft.Knox to sleep with poison gas; in the book, it's the town's tainted water supply. In the film, Goldfinger wants to blow up the fort; in the book, he actually wants to rob it. In the film, both Oddjob and Goldfinger die clever and inventive deaths; in the book, only Oddjob's demise is really unique. But read it anyway! If the description of the meal Bond eats in the Miami restaurant at the beginning doesn't make your mouth actually water, I don't know what will!
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