Customer Reviews

Thrilling Cities

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"Thrilling Cities," published almost 40 years ago, is the description of Ian Fleming's itinerary to some of the world's most exotic places. The keen senses which were employed to write gripping thrillers are evident; a detailed, descriptive work is the result. Fleming was given generous finances for his trip, and spares little in eating at the best restaurants, sleeping at posh hotels, and mingling with city officials. An ironic twist occurs towards the end of the book, in Naples. Ian Fleming, the suave, cunning man-about-town, the father of popular culture's most "cultured" personality, spends over two pages describing the activities of a dung beetle and his "wife." Hilarious.

This is an excellent travel-diary written by one of the main entertainers of the 20th. century. Fleming was more than an author of novels, he was also a bright, accurate and detail-lover reporter who liked to travel and knew what to look and where to search. Taking us to faraway exotic places, picturing each location making the reader feel he's actually there with Fleming, this opus is a faithful yet ingenious and nearly poetic account of every city's food, costumes, people and very soul. It also includes the brief but mood interesting "007 Adventure In New York" for Bond fans and casual readers. A must for every person who wants to know this huge world a little better. No wonder one wants to travel and explore more after reading this book.

If you love Ian Fleming's James Bond novels for more than being the launching pads of the movies, you may well feel as I do that Fleming was a decent spinner of yarns and a sensational describer of settings. "Thrilling Cities," published in the United States in 1963, is a collection of Sunday newspaper articles in which Fleming wrote about various cities he visited, cities that might well have been settings for Bond adventures.

In this book, in fact, one is. "007 In New York" is a brief story included in this book's New York chapter that features Bond paying a visit to Central Park, but it is not clear whether Fleming wrote it to be canon or a lark. It's easily the lamest Bond story by Fleming, worse even than "Property Of A Lady," and serves only as an alternate means for describing New York.

"007 In New York" is also the weakest part of what is otherwise a very sturdy collection of travel writing. Yes, Fleming made these trips over 45 years ago. Those prices he quotes probably are missing a few zeroes at the end, and most of the establishments he names were shuttered long ago. But Fleming's ability to transport you not only remains in ample evidence, it is now even more impressive as he moves you through space AND time, his appreciation for sensual delight balanced and buttressed by an ever-caustic wit.

Viewing Hong Kong: "The streets of Hong Kong are evidence that neon lighting need not be hideous, and the crowded Chinese ideograms in pale violet and pink and green with a plentiful use of white are entrancing not only for their colors but also because one does not know what drab messages or exhortations they spell out."

Sunbathers in Honolulu: "...these elderly ghouls looked even worse without their muumuus - huge, blue-veined, dimpled thighs, scrawny necks and sagging bosoms garlanded with leis, their broken-down, spavined spouses trailing behind carrying the coconut mats, the sun-tan oil, the bathrobes, and the Wall Street Journal."

Italian drivers: "The amount of noise he can make with his vehicle, particularly via the exhaust pipe, has come in some obscure way to represent a virility symbol, and for the police to pray silence is as vain as to tell Italians not to lend grandeur and emphasis with their hands to the simplest of conversations."

To say that Fleming had a jaundiced, borderline bigot's attitude about the people of the world is not to deny him his engaging tone or his occasional bulls-eyes. In Bond books, one sees this character peeking out in slow moments, like when Bond walks through a hotel lobby or goes fishing as a cover for his real work, discoursing on the uniqueness of wherever in the world Bond is. For many Fleming aficionados, this is what makes Bond books special, even more than the silly names of the heroines or the bizarre plots Bond must foil.

Here, for the only real time, Fleming foregoes the plots and just bathes us in atmosphere, perhaps not a 100% accurate representation of the world as it is now or was then, but the world we imagine ourselves in when reading a Fleming Bond. It's a potent martini of a trip, neither shaken nor stirred, exactly, but very, very neat.

You should read this for great insight into the thinking of Ian Fleming. It will clearly show you the underlying point of view in all his James Bond books. Far from a dry travelogue, you will laugh often at his quips about people and the world we live in.
It's as interesting to read as a James Bond novel. I wasn't expecting that, but it was a pleasure anyway!

You're not going to find Ian Fleming's "Thrilling Cities" at your local Border's, and aren't much more likely to come across a copy at a used bookstore, either--even a good one. It is exactly the sort of book that I look for on Amazon. For something like $15.00 (I forget now the exact price) I got a clean hardback copy, in good condition (the bookcover was not wholly intact--but hey, it's unusual to get a 45 year old book that maintains a shred of its cover). I was completely happy with the transaction. (The book itself is of interest to those really interested in Fleming, and offers an interesting perspective on late 1950s travel and mores, but I wouldn't recommend it widely.)

Delightfully piquant, unsentimental yet surprisingly warm, wry to the point of hilarity, and very sharply seen, the collected articles of Fleming's round-the-world whirl courtesy of the Sunday Times is a treasure as well as a time capsule, of a world long gone and a writer whose sumptuous prose is itself an anthropology of unrepentant post-modern snobbery. A full-out reissue with commentary, perhaps on each chapter (Michael Palin and Christopher Hitchens come blazing to mind) is long overdue; we should all celebrate the reissue in this Centenary Year of Fleming's birth. (And, spare us cries of antiquity - Graham Greene's Journey W/O Maps and Lawrence's Sea & Sardinia are hopelessly out of date as well, but remain excellent reads not to mention documents of their vanished time and place.)

This book offers a fun look at Mr. Fleming's trips to various exotic (and not-so-exotic) locations, in addition to a short James Bond story, all written in Fleming's usual style.

The material is of course dated, but because you can't take a trip around the world as it was in the 1950's, the book's age makes it all the more worth your while. Besides, after reading this book, you can plan your own trip around the world, and see how the places Fleming described have changed.

Ian Fleming knows what he writes about. The author of so many James Bond thrillers has filled this book with his own real-life travels. Each chapter is devoted to a different city, including such ports-of-call as Macao, Las Vegas, Hong Kong and Geneva. Exotic women, foreign locales, gambling, drinking, danger, and still more women. All can be found in Thrilling Cities. It's a shame this book is out of print. If you can find a copy, do yourself a favor and pick it up.

I haven't read any Fleming novel although I have seen many 007 movies. Judging from the movies, of course, I have a rather dry impression of Mr. Fleming as a writer. I know it is unfair to say that from someone who haven't read any of his books and when I came across this title from our old library downstairs I was impressed. Mr. Fleming is a gifted writer with an eye for detail. His lively prose renders the page combusting with excitement and energy although, at times, given the short time he has to spend in any given city, he tends to write in a ledger-like manner towards the end of some chapters. I had the chance to live in Hong Kong for almost ten years and it is a much changed city now. It has become a banal clone of the cities of Europe and has lost much of its Oriental charm but most of Mr. Fleminmg's observations still hold true. I still have to finish the book but judging from my first impressions I might grab one of those 007 titles to atone for my initial harsh judgment of Mr. Fleming's talent. He deserves his fame. He is a very engaging writer.