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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Somewhat Flawed Bond Novel Experiment, June 16, 2005
This review is from: The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond Novels) (Paperback)
Ian Fleming's tenth James Bond number is a departure from the usual mold of a Bond story:the entire tale is told from a female viewpoint. The first third of the novel details two past love affairs of Vivienne Michel's (the main character) life. Twice she is burned by men, and she eventually decides to go to America to start a new life. There she finds employment at a cheap motel where she works as a desk clerk. This first part of the novel is probably the best part, it is a very interesting in-depth character study. Although Fleming's efforts to understand female psychology are to be commended, it just doesn't work well in a Secret Service story. The second part of the story is definitely the worst. It introduces the "vilians", actually small-time thugs. They characters may seem scary to Vivienne but a Bond reader expects more. Some readers appreciate the change from the usual super-villain, and this is welcome, but the thugs could have been much better drawn out to be made into more menacing characters. In the final third of the story, Bond arrives. It seems almost pointless to include him in the story at all. BOnd has no character in this novel, he is simply a "night in shining armour". He is as two-dimensional as cardboard. All the fleshing out of his character throughout the books since CASINO ROYALE seems to dissappear here, as if it never happened. Althoug this part of the book is the most thrilling, it does not measure up to Vivienne's flashbacks. Some readers criticize the gunfight at the novel's end as "just the usual, nothing special", etc. This is not true. The battle is cleverly thought out. For the first time since perhaps the fight against The Robber in Mr. Big's warehouse in LIVE AND LET DIE, Bond must plan his strategy carefully. Certain routes are covered by enemy gunfire, and Horror and Sluggsy's efficient tactics even get the reader thinking, "How is James going to get out of this one?" It simulates an actually battlefield experience. The scene with Sluggsy attempting to assassinate Bond and Vivienne at the end is quite horrifying as well. I won't lie: I couldn't put this book down. It's pretty good. But not as a James Bond story. His inclusion seems unnecessary, and contrived. It takes away from what could have been a genuinly great suspense tale about a girl trying to survive on her own against two vicious thugs. As it stands, it's just an action/romance tale on a very small scale.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Unconventional 007 Story, March 18, 2007
This review is from: The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond Novels) (Paperback)
Having recently read Andrew Lycett's excellent biography of 007 creator Ian Fleming, I found rereading "The Spy Who Loved Me," his tenth James Bond novel, a very unconventional story.
James Bond doesn't appear until page 100. The novel is told from the perspective of Vivienne Michel, a Canadian woman traveling across the USA after two devastating relationships. "Viv" is an strong, sympathetic character--considering that her creator was generally the type of cad who broke her heart! She remembers her deflowering (Fleming had lost his virginity the same way) and her career before fleeing to America (like Fleming, she worked for a newspaper).
But she's a tough, resilient woman, just the type of female who would appeal to a secret agent like 007. Drawn into an insurance scam at a remote New England motel and menaced by two repellent thugs, Viv is threatened with rape and murder until a mysterious Englishman gets a flat tire on a nearby road.
"The Spy Who Loved Me" was an interesting experiment in Fleming's writing that didn't pay off for him. He discouraged any reprints and considered destroying all unsold copies. Who knows what other directions and what risks Fleming might have made if "Spy" had succeeded. In fact, when the producers of the Bond films were looking for their next entry in the series, the Fleming estate allowed them to use only the title of this one.
Reading the novel now in 2007, it appealed to me because Viv's painful past relationships and her determination not to be bitter reflect many women I know now--or wish I knew.
It was also fascinating that the unfeeling men in her past resembled the author more than the main characters. Viv was the strong, beautiful woman he wished he had. And James Bond, as usual, was the dashing super stud he wished he was. Just like the rest of us.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Failed Experiment -- With Good Points, November 25, 2008
This review is from: The Spy Who Loved Me (James Bond Novels) (Paperback)
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.
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