Customer Reviews

You Only Live Twice

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"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.

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.

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.

Japan has a problem. A certain Dr. Guntram Shatterhand and his wife has moved into a old castle on a remote Japanese island. The renown Swiss horticulturist was welcomed at first until he started planted deadly plants throughout the castle grounds and stocking the man-made lake with deadly Piranhas. The island has become a "garden of death" for those seeking to commit suicide.

England has a problem. One of their top spies in the British Secret Service has become a serious liability. Despite his exemplary record, M is all set to fire James Bond, but instead 007 is sent to Japan to help solve their problem.

In an adventure like no other, James Bond is given a suicide mission: eliminate Dr. Shatterhand. Bond prepares for his mission in a lackadaisical manner until he learns that Dr. & Mrs. Shatterhand are none other than Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Irma Bunt! (Fleming is very clever dropping hints about the doctor's true identity, especially the references to his ugly wife!) Bond is now faced with a moral dilemma. Does he reveal his discovery to Tiger Tanaka of the Japan Secret Service or does he go after Blofeld himself to satisy his revenge? Bond chooses the latter and who can blame him? This is Blofeld! The supreme leader of SPECTRE who attempted to blackmail the world with stolen nuclear missiles. Blofeld. The evil genius who attempted to unleash biological warfare on England from his Swiss Resort high in the Alps. Blofeld. The man who killed Bond's wife....

Blofeld has gone into a twisted sadistic retirement. Hiding out in an ancient castle, playing the role of Emporer strolling about his kingdom wearing Japanese battle armor and silk kimonos. Bond is going to take him down one way or another.

The tension builds as Bond prepares to face his hated rival. The gardens are deadly, but so is 007! With the help of Kissy Suzuki, Bond penetrates the castle and faces Blofeld in what will be the ultimate showdown!

A very exciting book! (Especially the final few chapters) Very fitting that the setting was Japan. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE tells the story of a samurai who has lost his way, but in facing his fears and his enemy he regains his honor and suceeds where others would have failed.

5 STARS!

The Bond movies made a fatal flaw in two BIG ways. One was not putting the film version of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE after ON HER MAJESTIES SECRET SERVICE, and two was throwing away the superior novel's story. YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is probably one of Ian Flemings best and his last fully completed novel.

The novel opens with M talking to a doctor about Bond's well being, Bond, after suffering a tradgedy in his life in the previous book, (OHMSS) has his life coming apart. He has botched two assignments, drinking more and losing countless amounts of money at the casinos. M is tempted to fire Bond but the doctor laments that Bond be given an "impossible assignment" one that will wake Bond out of his depression and turn his life around. M calls Bond in and tells him that Bond is going to Japan for his impossible mission; to secure the rights to the "Magic 44" a special coding system of sharing secrets with the USA and Japan. To do this he must make negotiations with Tiger Tanaka, a Japanese official. Bond arrives in Japan and meets Tiger, and the negotiations are going well. Tiger will agree on one condition and he needs Bond's help. Tiger needs Bond to commit an assassinaiton on a man named Dr. Shatterhand. Shatterhand has recently arrived in Japan, took an older castle and turned it into a large "garden of death" full of countless poisonous plants and animals. Shatterhand is under protection by the botanical institute, even though countless Japanesse citizens use his garden to commit suicide (an honorable practice in Japan). Tiger however wants him dead, and Bond even more once he discovers what more is at stake, and who lives in the castle.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is a great read and out of all of the other Bond books, this one is without a doubt the most forboding and dark. Bonds trek into Shatterhand's castle is almost like going through Hell as Bond is surrounded by horrors and danger and inside he will confront a man of true evil, whereas earliar chapters are much lighter and more fun. The book even has some fun observaitons made by Bond and Tiger on the views of East and West civilizations. If there is any problem with the book it is that there is almost no physical action in the book until the last chapter or two ,but the rest of the book is atmospheric and rich with Ian Fleming's touch for details, and the ending has to be read to be believed, you don't see it coming at all. A very good book in short. A Bond fan must read it.

People either are wild about this book or think it's very weak. This is one of those Bond novels that are simply too moody and weird to be made into a popular film, and the movie of the same title shares next to nothing with the book.

There's an advantage in reading all of Fleming's Bond novels in chronological order, because the sum is greater than the parts. They form a loose story arc detailing Bond's growth and changing world it occurs in, from the cold, ruthless, humorless spy of "Casino Royale"--in an age when the British Empire still carried some of its old weight--to the witty, sardonic and damaged agent of YOLT, in an age when British intelligence has to work around(because it's otherwise at the mercy of) the American empire.

This book has been called a an allegory of rebirth and a version of the fertility myth, and considering how weird it gets by the end those remarks are probably true. Bond begins at the most depressed, hopeless stage of his life(Let's see 'em show that in the movies!) and ends as an almost total blank slate--devoid of memory, nationality, and(for a short time) sexual prowess. In between he burns away the grief and rage caused by his wife's death by finally confronting the evil,nearly satanic Ernst Stavro Blofeld. He passes out of this book as a new man, ready to be re-molded. All this would probably distress the fans of Bond who know him more by the movies: actually it would strike anyone as weird, for while YOLT still bears some of the cloak-and-dagger, cosmopolitan sheen one finds in other Bond stories, its final chapters seem as though they occured outside of the modern world altogether and rather in a primordial fog. This contrast between the ultra-sophisticated and the earthy, spartan ways of life is present in most of Fleming's Bond stories, but it takes precedence here.

It isn't a perfect book--much of the center is taken up with a long travelogue of Japan, which is fun but a bit of a sidetrack, and results in the book being broken-backed.(It's based on Fleming's own tour of Japan, and the characters of Dikko Henderson and Tiger Tanaka are based upon the two friends who showed him around) But ultimately it's one of the most impressive Bond novels--deeply symbolic, unsettling and weird in the way Fleming's best work always is. His skill as a journalist-turned-writer is evident. The Bond novels, as opposed to most of the movies, are not simply simple entertainment--what they have to say about affluence, class, lifestyles, and the age they occured in will be of much interest as the years progress, and there's a lot to be discussed. Provided that we realize that Fleming had his predjudices and unsavory sides, the books remain rich and compelling. Unfortunately, Fleming fumbled upon finishing the story of Bond's recreation in the novel he wrote afterwards, "The Man with The Golden Gun," an unfinished, shoddy work that simply reinstates the status quo. This novel however is a testament toward all he worked for, and it seems clear to me that the ending, rather than being jarring and flaccid, is obviously what the entire book works toward, and the final chapters are among the best stuff Fleming wrote.

The end was such a letdown. Yet after reading this book twice, I knew Fleming was going to write Bond out of his helpless state. The part about killing Blofled was superb, yet Kissy keeping him on Kuro was such a bad writing move.

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 names. Certainly this is the case in "You only Live Twice." Both the film and the book are set in Japan but beyond that they part ways quickly.

In the book James Bond is nearly finished. 8 months after the murder of his wife Tracy at the end of "On Her Majesties Secret Service" he has gone from M's best man to the dregs of the service. M, considering his dismissal is prevailed upon to give Bond one last chance.

Bond is promoted out of his beloved 00 section and transferred to the diplomatic branch with the code number 7777, and given a near impossible mission. He is go to Japan and convince the head of the Japanese Secret Service to share with Great Britain their decrypts of top secret Soviet messages. The problem is that post WW2 the United States views Japan as its private preserve and does not like poachers.

The rather more serious problem is that Bond does not have much to bargain with and when it is quickly revealed that the Japanese are not interested in his one bargaining chip he is left with very little to go on.What he has is his own life and skills, and in return for these magic decrypts, Japan requires Bond to kill a Swiss botanist named Dr. Shatterhand, a man of evil intent and deed who, for political reasons the Japanese police cannot move against but a gaijan whose arrest if he fails cannot be tied to the government? This is acceptable.

This is actually one of Fleming's weaker outings for Bond. Although he is in full force in his pacing and plotting and character development, part of what is missing is the setting. During the Second World War, Fleming was deeply involved in the planning and control of British and American espionage units and his writing carries the flavor of how things really work, a far cry form the gadgets and gizmos of the films,

However part of the charm of the books is his descriptions of the places where Bond's missions take him. Fleming knew France, Jamaica and the United States well and this carries over in his descriptions of the places. The reader truly gets a feel of the casinos, the beaches, the hotels and the streets. But Fleming did not know Japan and this is reflected in his writing, details that are common in other books are lacking here.

If this is the first Bond book you've read, it is highly enjoyable but if you are well familiar with the books by Fleming, this will be a little disappointing. James bond is still in effect with all his prowess but the world he is moving in, compared with earlier books, is empty and unfulfilling.

Vance is fast becoming the voice of James Bond on audio books and does a masterful job of working his way through Fleming's rich cast of charatcers.

I refer to YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE as the "first final 007 novel" because this was the last novel Ian Fleming finished, polished and shipped off to his publisher before his death (I don't think he lived to see it in print). The second final novel was THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN and from what I understand, Fleming finished a draft but did not rewrite or polish it before he died of a heart attack.

As his health was fading, Fleming had traveled to Japan and it looks like a lot of that trip wound up in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. It was interesting to me that he chose to research a culture that had such a different outlook on death even as if he own body was fading. The exchanges between James Bond and Tiger Tanaka about the mindset of WWII kamikaze pilot and the honor of hari kari suicides become more interesting when you realize where Fleming was in his life--and where he knew he was soon going.

Fleming had become disenchanted with Bond, having already tried to kill him off at the end of FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE and vowing with each new book to finally destroy his world-famous spy. I only wish that Fleming had spent more time in Bond's head since it read as if all of his inner turmoil was left to M and others to discuss--instead of letting the novel show.

Sent on an "impossible mission" to Japan, 007 meets Dikko Henderson, a big, loud Austrailian, and Tiger Tanaka, the enigmatic head of the Japanese Secret Service. But it's when Tanaka asks Bond as a favor to kill the mysterious "Dr. Shatterhand" in his Castle of Death that the novel gets back some of Fleming's wild flair of dark fun and surrealism. An elusive European has created and hid himself inside a deadly garden of natural poisons and venoms. Deadly snakes and pirhanas infest a forest of poisonous trees and plants--and the Japanese can't get enough of throwing themselves into it to kill themselves! Even Dr. Shatterhand himself is a little perplexed that he has so many visitors regularly killing themselves on his property. Now that's vintage Fleming!

But the end comes somewhat swiftly and neatly. Since I've been rereading all of the James Bond novels in order, I can see where Fleming could relate to 007 as he kept churning out mission after mission: Fleming could use the formula to get Bond out of a jam...but Fleming couldn't get himself out of the formula.

His heart weakening and his life fading, Fleming's writing did shift from the heroic close-calls with doom in the earlier novels to looking Death right in the face in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. You could see the darkness closing in from chapter to chapter and, while James Bond may make another thrilling escape, Ian Fleming could not.

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.