Fleming, Ian (Lancaster) 1908–1964: Critical Essay by Gene Smith

I do not care for Mr. Bond. I do not care for him at all. In this I am at variance with Mr. Amis, who in The James Bond Dossier convicts me and all like me of being perishing little snivelers [see excerpt below], nearsighted 20th-century weaklings whose sexual inadequacies lead us, twisted little devils that we are, to condemn a fully committed man who does things his way and only his way. Priggish Puritan prude snipes at never-bend stout English oak. Red glare gleams in eye—Mr. Amis points out that all Bond-villains have a red glare in their eyes—as cheapmake Everyman says bad things about keen hero.

With the lines drawn, and with only a wistful thought about the jokes that could be made concerning Mr. Amis' first name, let us look at The Man With The Golden Gun, the last book to come from Mr. Fleming's typewriter before his death a year ago. The book begins where You Only Live Twice has left off. In that opus, it will be recalled, Bond's memory has been driven away by a conk on the head. He has forgotten who he is and what he is…. [He] has forgotten that you can recognize a Jew by his ear lobes (Casino Royale) and that you can't hurt a Negro by hitting him in the head (Live and Let Die)…. With the opening of The Man With the Golden Gun, we learn that Bond has somehow gone off to Russia, where he's been brainwashed. Now he is back in London giving his Chief, old M, a glazed-eye look along with some Russian propaganda…. But he is dragged away, re-brainwashed, and shipped off to give the business to The Man With The Golden Gun, the hottest killer in the world. From there the book goes downhill. Felix Leiter, the old CIA man—who, like most likable Yanks, comes from Texas (Casino Royale)—turns up, and there is a bang-up train ride and international crooks and dancing girls and what-not. Not a great work.

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