Pun Salad

Personal anecdote: Caught up by the movies in the 1960s, I was buying and reading James Bond novels as a young teen. Well, my mom got hold of this one before I had a chance to read it, and she promptly forbade me from reading any more Bond books.

Well, sorry Mom, but I finally got around to reading it. And I kind of see your point. Even the book's Wikipedia entry says this is "the most sexually explicit" 007 novel.

It's otherwise unusual in that it's first-person narrated by Vivienne Michel, a young Canadian woman. As the book opens, she's working as receptionist in an upstate New York "motor court", just down the road from Lake George. It's the end of the tourist season, and the motel's managers are bugging out a little early, leaving Viv alone to close up for the winter.

Then she relates her biography, centered around two very unfortunate love affairs. That takes a while.

Her solitary evening is interrupted by two thugs demanding entrance, claiming they are scouting out the place for insurance purposes, on the orders of the motel's owner. That turns out to be sorta true, even though their plans also involve rape, murder, and arson.

But then Bond shows up (in an unbelievable coincidence) on page 118 of this 194-page edition. And, of course, thwarts the bad guys and saves Viv, thanks to his quick wits and gunplay. (That takes a while too, but there's time for makin' whoopee.)

So it's a very unusual Bond novel. According to that Wikipedia page, the critics were unkind. But Ian Fleming deserves some credit for breaking with formula, and writing with a woman's voice. Yes, the prose gets purplish, especially near the end, as Viv reflects on her Bond experience. Which made me recall the old Samuel Johnson quote: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Also from that Wikipedia page: Fleming sold the movie rights on the condition that only the title be used and none of the plot. A successful demand, except for one of the thugs having steel-capped teeth: that was translated into Richard Kiel's Jaws character.