A reissue of the James Bond novel, with an introduction by Anthony Burgess. When Ernst Stavro Blofeld murders Bond's wife the British agent goes to pieces. Before he goes under completely, M is persuaded to give him one last chance and sends him to Japan.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
A sensational imagination Sunday Times Instructive and entertaining Cyril Connolly
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
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About the Author
Born in 1908 and educated at Eton and Sandhurst, Fleming joined Reuters News Agency in 1931. During WW2 he was Personal Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty, rising from the rank of Lieutenant to Commander. He built his house, Goldeneye (where he wrote his first Bond novel), in Jamaica when he became Foreign Manager of Kemsley Newspapers. By the time of his death in 1964, he had sold over forty million books, and the cult of Bond was internationally established.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"You Only Live Twice" (1964) was published the year of Ian Fleming's death, and, as with its predecessor, the superb "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," it is suffused with doom and death. It is unlike any of the other Bond books, with a pervasive gloominess that was as much the result of Fleming's rapidly declining health and unhappiness with the world around him as it was the result of Bond's clinical depression after the tragedy that finished the last book.
Bond, recovering from the death of his wife, is falling to pieces. Taking the advice of a friend, M sends him on a vital mission to Japan, which he hopes will restore Bond's spirits. What seems at first to be a rather placid visit soons turns dangerous as Bond agrees to accept secrets about the Russians in exchange for carrying out a delicate mission for the Japanese government. What he encounters is the culmination of the previous two Bond novels, and the last half of the novel is virtually unputdownable.
This is the best writing of Fleming's career, and his descriptions of Bond's disintegration are surprisingly moving. The final hundred pages or so are horrifying and gripping; never before had Fleming demonstrated such mastery of his craft or technical skill at setting up a denouement. The tension becomes almost unbearable.
"You Only Live Twice" is not an uplifting book, but it is a vital book in the Bond series, and much better than its successor, the pale and posthumously published "Man With the Golden Gun." Those expecting slam-bang action will have to wait until the middle and final chapters, but the rewards are worth the patience. This is a fine novel, but I wouldn't start here if I were just discovering Fleming's Bond novels.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Taking place nine months after the tragic ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice was the last of Ian Fleming's truly completed Bond books. (The Man With The Golden Gun, released after Fleming's untimely death, is considered by many to be only a first draft.) It also served as the conclusion to the trilogy, beginning in Thunderball and continuing through OHMSS, that detailed James Bond's epic battle against Ernest Stavro Blofeld, founder of SPECTRE and essentially the anti-Bond. (Blofeld, we are reminded, refrains from almost all excessive behavior -- even being described as a virgin in Thunderball though he later somehow contracted syphillis in the later books. Of course, while he doesn't smoke or drink, he does seem to spend a lot of time thinking up ways to blow up the world.) While Fleming's prose is better than ever in this novel (showing his uncanny ability to mix sophisticated urbanity with hardboiled cynicism), its still somewhat of a disappointing end to the trilogy.
The plot does start out quite promisingly. Nine months following the death of his wife, James Bond has sunk into an alcoholic wave of depression. M, rather cold hearted in this book after being humanized in OHMSS, comes close to terminating his service but instead, gives Bond a mission designed to respark his love of espionage. Bond is sent to Japan to try to convince the head of the Japanese secret service -- Tiger Tanaka -- to ally himself with the English. These sections of the book are very strong. Bond's mission is believable, the plot (which is quite cynical while detailing how even allies like America and England are actually rivals when it comes to espionage) is compelling, and Tiger Tanaka is one of Fleming's strongest connections. The scenes in which Bond learns about Japanese culture (while containing the well-meaning condascension that of which Fleming -- like most writers of that era regardless of genre or nationality -- was often guilty) are well-written and actually quite interesting. Quite late in the book, Tanaka recruits Bond to investigate the Suicide Gardens of the mysterious Dr. Shatterhand (again, a very promising premise -- Shatterhand basically has constructed a garden of poisonous plants designed to encourage visitors to commit suicide). This investigation leads to Bond's final battle with Blofeld and it is here that the book, unfortunately, disappoints. Blofeld feels like a tacked-on addition and, unlike the previous books, his plot makes absolutely no sense. (Fleming even admits this when Bond concludes that Blofeld's gone insane -- however, his scheme is so ludicrous that it actually detracts from his status as a worthy antagonist to Bond.) Whereas the previous books made Blofeld as fascinating a character as Bond, in this book both of them feel a little bit bland and as a result, their final battle doesn't carry the emotional wallop one might have hoped for.
However, in Fleming's defense, it should be noted that he was quite ill when he wrote this book and it is a testament to his often maligned talents that, even while ailing, he still managed to create a book that -- while uneven as a whole -- still contained some fantastically strong early scenes and a character as vivid as Tiger Tanaka. No, this book is not perfect or even one of the best Bond novels but it will still be enoyed by fans of the original Fleming novels.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is Ian Fleming's most mysterious and enigmatic James Bond novel. This is a direct follow up to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." It starts out as a direct secret service story even though Bond is reassigned to the diplomatic section. As it progresses it becomes almost surrealistic as James Bond tracks down his arch nemesis on the island of Kyushu. This is a very well written and researched novel. The Japanese idioms and depictions of locale are exquisite. When the novel moves to Kuro Island and is on the threshold of Dr. Shaterhand's castle lair, Fleming approaches mythical horizons. I found this absorbing, haunting and prophetic novel very difficult to put down once I started reading it. You get addicted early on to such charismatic characters as Tiger Tanaka and the all too brief Dikko Henderson but it is the narrative of this epic tale that beckons the reader. The new retro-paperback cover is alluring.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
One of the best of the series
This novel hits on all cylinders...great travelogue of Japan as well as its culture and people; Bond shows that he has the maturity to do a mission with revenge on the plate and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by JON WATSON
You Only Live Twice Dies a Slow Death
First, I am a big fan of the Bond series and believe that Fleming does not receive proper credit as a writer. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Political Pen
Fleming's Most Disappointing
Reading through the Bond novels again in order, You Only Live Twice is easily the worst so far. In fact, it's the only one I'd call "bad," and the only one I had difficulty... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Kevin Kochanski
Kindle Edition
The book, of course is all i remember, but Amazon or the publisher needs to fix the typos in the Kindle edition. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Mrs. E
Seriously?
I love the Bond books, the Fleming ones anyway, but seriously - how many times over have they made their money on these books? Do they NEED to price them at $9.99? Read more
Published 15 months ago by W. K. Gray
Well Writte and Exciting
This review is about the novel, not the movie.
"You Only Live Twice" is the concluding novel of the "Blofeld Trilogy" ("Thunderball", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"... Read more
"You Only Live Twice" is the concluding novel of the "Blofeld Trilogy" ("Thunderball", "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"... Read more
Published on January 28, 2010 by Man of La Book
A Good Story Well-Told
First off, I must say that my experience w/ Blackstone audio books has been VERY positive. I've purchased most of the audio books in the Bond series, & so far I've only had... Read more
Published on January 17, 2010 by "Eric the Well-Read"
Dark, surreal, and mystical
You Only Live Twice is possibly Fleming's best Bond novel, if only because it's so radically different from its predecessors. Read more
Published on October 14, 2009 by abettertomorrow
Death In The Face
The movie version of "You Only Live Twice" is a long desultory set-up leading to a gripping blow-out of a finale. The novel works in reverse. Read more
Published on September 19, 2009 by Bill Slocum
Bond in Japan
Most people are familiar with the films of James bond, agent 007, licensed to kill, but the novels written by Ian Fleming can be very different from the books that provide their... Read more
Published on May 28, 2009 by Graves
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
The geisha called 'Trembling Leaf', on her knees beside James Bond, leant forward from the waist and kissed him chastely on the right cheek. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
ninja suit, toxic principle, more sake Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
James Bond, Tiger Tanaka, Dikko Henderson, Mister Bond, Black Dragon, Irma Bunt, Kissy Suzuki, Sir James Molony, Castle of Death, Doctor Shatterhand, Commander Bond, Question Room, Blue Route, Ministry of Health, Prime Minister, Six Guardians, Trembling Leaf, Doctor Guntram Shatterhand, Mary Goodnight, Miss Moneypenny, Inland Sea, Ministry of Agriculture, Superintendent Ando New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
The geisha called 'Trembling Leaf', on her knees beside James Bond, leant forward from the waist and kissed him chastely on the right cheek. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
ninja suit, toxic principle, more sake Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
James Bond, Tiger Tanaka, Dikko Henderson, Mister Bond, Black Dragon, Irma Bunt, Kissy Suzuki, Sir James Molony, Castle of Death, Doctor Shatterhand, Commander Bond, Question Room, Blue Route, Ministry of Health, Prime Minister, Six Guardians, Trembling Leaf, Doctor Guntram Shatterhand, Mary Goodnight, Miss Moneypenny, Inland Sea, Ministry of Agriculture, Superintendent Ando New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
67
books
cite this book:
See all 67 books citing this book
- The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels to the Big Screen by Jeremy M. Black on 16 pages
- James Bond and Philosophy: Questions Are Forever (Popular Culture and Philosophy) by James B. South on 6 pages
- Goldfinger (Bloomsbury Movie Guides, No. 2) by Adrian Turner on 6 pages
- The Japanese Through American Eyes by Sheila Johnson on 5 pages
- James Bond Movie Posters: The Official 007 Collection by Tony Nourmand on 4 pages
See all 67 books citing this book
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