"fun, with a spice of danger"














From Russia With Love
By
Ian Fleming
Penguin Modern Classics, 2006

I'm picking up in the Bond series more or less where I left off (some years ago).

Fleming's pacing is singular. The early chapters build up what would nowadays be called 'the backstory' - and are pretty languid about it. We don't even meet Bond until nearly halfway through the novel, so perversely the 'backstory' here is more or less 'frontstory'. But Fleming doesn't need to pace conventionally when his ingredients are as memorable and interesting as the ones he's cooked up here. By the time Bond does arrive the reader is armed with facts and background that he himself is ignorant of - making for some tense plot movement (especially as he boards the Orient Express and happens upon someone we know to be the villain!).

Characterisation is good - the chess-playing KJB mastermind Kronsteen is fascinatingly cold-blooded, weighing up his vanity (nearly losing his chess game) and his loyalty to Russia. Rosa Klebb is extremely memorable, and even appears to kill Bond in a climactic fight (or does she??) - though her attempted seduction of Tatiana Romanova will have you reaching for the mind-bleach. Bond himself begins the story bored to tears with attending dull meetings and writing memos. (Who said Fleming can't write humans?)

My reason for turning again to the Bond books was a sort of reverse psychology reaction to a very tedious book which saw fit to criticise Fleming, his worldview, his class, his publishers, his writing, Bond, the female characters - and virtually everything else. I recognised some quotes from this novel, needless to say they hardly had the negative effect I'm apparently supposed to feel, reading this in the 21st century. 

I look forward to my next literary James Bond escapade!



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