You Only Live Twice

James Bond (Original Series) #12

by Ian Fleming

In this sequel to the tragic "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", Bond is depressed and adrift. M decides to send him on an impossible mission to revive his spirits: he must go to Japan to acquire a new ciphering method from "Tiger" Tanaka, head of the Japanese Secret Service. Tanaka finally agrees, but asks in return that Bond assassinate an infamous recluse who owns a garden filled with deadly animals and poisonous plants, where people have been going to commit suicide - The Garden of Evil

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Adventure, Mystery, Classics, Audiobook

256 pages, Hardcover

First published March 26, 1964

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.
While working for Britain's Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, Fleming was involved in planning Operation Goldeneye and in the planning and oversight of two intelligence units: 30 Assault Unit and T-Force. He drew from his wartime service and his career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels.
Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952, at age 44. It was a success, and three print runs were commissioned to meet the demand. Eleven Bond novels and two collections of short stories followed between 1953 and 1966. The novels centre around James Bond, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. Bond is also known by his code number, 007, and was a commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The Bond stories rank among the best-selling series of fictional books of all time, having sold over 100 million copies worldwide. Fleming also wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction. In 2008, The Times ranked Fleming 14th on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
Fleming was married to Ann Fleming. She had divorced her husband, the 2nd Viscount Rothermere, because of her affair with the author. Fleming and Ann had a son, Caspar. Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56. Two of his James Bond books were published posthumously; other writers have since produced Bond novels. Fleming's creation has appeared in film twenty-seven times, portrayed by six actors in the official film series.

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 3 out of 5]

(B+) 77% | Good
Notes: James Bond, ninja tourist, prefers labor and vice simple and direct, but is sent to Japan: land of subtext and etiquette.

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am one of the first to admit that I would rather be reading than watching most television, movies, and other media other than a few of my favorite franchise series. One of those series is James Bond, and I have seen most films at least once. I have a favorite Bond actor and a favorite film for each Bond, which I am partial to and end up repeating more so than the other flicks. When classic bingo called for an action or adventure square, I used it as an excuse to read another of Ian Fleming's original Bond books. You Only Live Twice, which also checks off the Y for my A to Z book title challenge, was the last book that Fleming wrote in his lifetime, hence passing the franchise on to other less devoted writers. While not my favorite Bond by far, it still presented me a chance to spend time with 007 on an otherwise gloomy winter day.

James Bond is reeling, off of his game so to speak. It is the 1950s, the height of the cold war, and he has been a 00 agent since the end of World War II. He has botched his last two assignments as he is still grieving from the death of his wife Tracey at the hands of the sinister Ernst Stavo Blofield and his equally vile wife Irma Bent. Bond believes that he should tender his resignation, yet M, the head of British Secret Service MI,6 can not afford to lose his most capable spy. At a time when the threat of nuclear warfare has the entire world on edge, M entrusts Bond with top assignments more than ever. Yet, Bond would be happy to retire to Jamaica and live out his days in the sun and surf of the island. After buttering up and prodding by M, Bond agrees to a 'promotion' to the foreign service and heads to Japan on a classified diplomatic mission.

The one caveat of this assignment is that there are no guns or any other secret gadgets available to Bond from MI6. While in a Japan still in the American sphere of influence, Bond must learn to behave like a true member of Japanese society. Entrusted in the hands of top Japanese agent Tiger Tanaka, Bond spends the majority of the book immersed in Japanese culture. Although he pines for English gin, cigarettes, food, and women, Bond plays the game and becomes passable for one of the taller Japanese miners. Versed enough to write a rudimentary haiku and to laugh at the right places, Tanaka believes that Bond is ready for his assignment-- to infiltrate the Garden of Death located on the remote island of Kyushu off of the Asian Sea. While there, he will be under the care of Bond girl Kissy Suzuki, a pearl diver from the nearby island of Kuro who believes 007 to be Taro, a Japanese miner.

Behind the garden of death are none other than Blofield and Bent themselves. Creating this garden of deadly plants, fish, and volcanic geysers, the couple encourages Japanese suicide seekers to meet their death at their paradise. The couple appears just as sinister and vile in this book, as they do in current Bond films, most notably Spectre. Yet, Blofield is the only thing similar to the movies from this books. Rather than disabling a nuclear weapon that is a threat to western civilization leaving viewers on edge, here Bond desires revenge on Blofield and Bent and is forced to fight them without the aid of a gun. This scene makes for a true fight of strength and man power, and was actually more enjoyable to me than some of the sequences where Bond has multiple killing agents at his disposable. And, of course, because Blofield grows more evil by the page, I was silently cheering as 007 dueled his rival in true Japanese ninja style.

You Only Live Twice is one of the few instances where I may have enjoyed the movie version slightly more than the book. While I enjoyed seeing Bond in a different role as a foreign service officer and learning about a culture different than his own, I pined for the action of the big screen. I have previously read From Russia With Love and Casino Royale, and both books contained more action than this one. Perhaps Fleming suspected that his involvement with Bond was coming to a close, although he left numerous journals that would form the basis of his other stories. You Only Live Twice is not my top Bond story, but it was fun and even witty at parts. Besides, as longtime Bond viewers know from the screen, James Bond will be back, and hopefully my next Bond read will be better.

3.5 stars

[Mohsin Maqbool · Rating 4 out of 5]

I WAS reading a lot of espionage and western novels in the early 70s. In fact, I had started reading espionage in 1969 with “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” novels and Ian Fleming’s “Goldfinger” which was followed by “Thunderball” and finally “You Only Live Twice”, both of which I read in 1970.


Ian Lancaster Fleming writing his novels in the bedroom of his house in Jamaica.

Of the three James Bond novels, I think I had liked “You Only Live Twice” the best. Maybe because the location was Japan and I was totally bewitched by the rich Japanese culture. I had already known several Japanese words like kimono, origami, geisha, sayonara and kamikaze through reading books and watching films while I picked up some more like sumo, harakiri and sake -- a Japanese rice wine -- from Mr. Fleming’s tome.


The cover of the novel I read as a schoolboy in Calcutta.

The novel started off with sumo wrestlers wrestling in an arena. Just imagine giant babies in pampers butting their heads to start the match. I am sure a 148kg sumo would be easily able to lift me up with his little finger, then roll me like a dice in his palm and throw me at the jubilant front seaters. However, I wouldn’t mind landing on the lap of a beautiful buxom Japanese woman or even a white Spanish senorita. Oh! Please excuse me for being carried away.


Sumo wrestlers lunge towards each other on a clay dohyo (an elevated ring).

Getting back to the novel. I think Ian Fleming also mentioned Bond playing ‘Stone, Paper, Scissors’ while on his spying business in Japan. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Then there was this part about how some Japanese shrinked their testes through sheer practise and brain power so as not to get hurt if faced by some crazy rival. I was truly enthralled reading all this. I kept wondering as to how they did that.
Bond was skilled in judo and karate, so, naturally, the location being Japan, the novel had its fair share of that too. What would a bond novel be without fast and furious action!


Sean Connery poses for a publicity still.

A haiku from the novel became extremely popular when the book was first published and then again when the film was released in 1967. Nobody needs to be reminded that suave and sexy Sean Connery was its hero Bond, James Bond.
“You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.”
Bond composes the haiku in the novel, but it is actually by Basho, a Japanese poet.
I thorougly enjoyed the book and found it to be the best of the three Bond novels I had read so far.




Playboy magazine featured excerpts from Ian Fleming's "You Only Live Twice" in its May and June 1964 editions, having artwork by Daniel Schwartz.

Towards the fag end of 1969, the film was released at a cinema hall in Calcutta. My elder brother took me along with two cousins to watch the night show. I loved the opening titles with the silhouettes of girls dancing in the nude, the sumo wrestlers ramming their heads with all their might and the volcano set (which is in reality Blofeld’s secret hideout). That is nearly about all that I liked about the film. It was no patch on the book. Besides, I did not find the Japanese heroine, Mie Hama, to be attractive or sexy at all, especially after having watched beautiful Bond heroines like Ursula Andress (Dr. No), Daniela Bianchi (From Russia With Love), Claudine Auger (Thunderball) and Honor Blackman (who starred in Goldfinger and remains my favourite to this day).

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Instead of being fired, a depressed and out of sorts James Bond receives a next to impossible mission on a remote Japanese island. There's a lot that's unbelievable here. I'll just start with Bond successfully impersonating a Japanese man (ridiculous!) and a secret missile base hollowed out of a dormant volcano that no one else knows anything about. But it is James Bond and don't think too hard fun so I went with it.

Despite its flaws, I'm now somehow reading more James Bond. There's something about the picture of James Bond's character desperately trying to understand another culture (and thinking he has somehow passed) that's appealing. As little as he really knows about Japanese culture, for instance, he still attempts to figure out the psychology of the Japanese, in everything from rock-paper-scissors to high-stakes espionage. I guess it's just funny in a weird sort of way, but entertaining nonetheless!

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face”

Ian Fleming’s 12th Bond book is set in Japan and concludes his brilliant Blofeld trilogy.

While the films use Blofeld and Spectre to a greater degree, Fleming’s Blofeld shows up in three books – Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and here. First published in 1964, we see Fleming at the height of his considerable narrative powers, but tragically he only had a few months to live.

Months after Blofeld killed Bond’s wife Tracy, Bond is a mess and M sends him East on an “impossible” mission. But this is after all James Bond and our hero crashes headlong into more trouble than anyone expected. When Bond discovers that the Japanese nemesis is in fact Blofeld, the action turns personal, as ugly as a Sicilian vendetta and Fleming’s tight prose makes the most of the scenario.

One of the better Bond stories, there were passages of this that made me think that this was some of Fleming’s best writing.

[Carmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

You only live twice:
Once when you are born,
And once when you look death in the face.

This is the haiku James Bond composes in this book, but in reality it is by Bassho, a Japanese poet.

This is a very weird book. Actually, it's my personal opinion that the death of Gwen Stacy Tracy Bond marks the point this series jumped the shark. When that event happens at the very end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it marks the end of good Bond books, at least to my recollection.

This book starts out strong. Bond is not the man he used to be. He has lost his zest for life. He feels physically very bad. He is screwing up on missions. He has sex with dozens of women, but feels nothing for them (I know you think this is typical, but it isn't.)

M finally calls Bond into the office, and Bond knows he's going to be fired.

But M doesn't fire him. Instead he charges Bond with a near-impossible mission in Japan. This is Bond's third chance, and M is hoping that the high stakes and dangerous work will snap Bond out of his depression.
...

The beginning is the strongest part - Bond dealing with depression and the loss of his wife. I like the psychology of Bond and his relationships with women. It's my favorite aspect of the books. However, as soon as James saunters out of M's office to kiss Moneypenny, it all goes downhill from there.

JAPAN
It's always dangerous when Bond leaves England to deal with "foreigners." In this book we have Japan. I braced myself for the onslaught. But I was shocked and pleasantly surprised that Fleming seemed to be a bit of a Japanophile. Japanese culture is one of the few cultures he chooses to treat as worthy, interesting and valuable (unlike his treatment of African-American culture or Turkish culture, to use two examples).

The only really "stereotype" that was overhyped in this book is "Japanese women are happy submissive slaves/objects." But Japanese men, history, culture, government, and customs are treated very well considering this is Fleming.

Fleming has shown time and time again his real fascination and obsession for cultures in which he believes women are treated as slaves and objects. This makes him very excited and he's always sending Bond to these places - not to fall in love with any woman (it's hard for Bond to fall in love with what Bond describes as "an insipid slave" (as discussed in the short story Quantum of Solace)) but instead to carry out Fleming's own sexual fantasies on page. Whenever James makes trips to these cultures, he ends up being a hero and having women offered to him as sexual playthings as rewards by grateful natives. Japan is no exception. It's highly disturbing to this reader.

THE MISSION AND VILLAIN
This is one of the stupidest, weirdest, and most convoluted James Bond plots I have ever had the displeasure of reading. It's ludicrous. It seems like a man who calls himself "Dr. Shatterhand" has created a place in Japan known as "the Castle of Death." This is a castle with only poisonous plants growing on the grounds, lakes filled with piranha, woods filled with poisonous snakes, etc. etc.

Apparently hundreds of people a year go there to kill themselves. Dr. Shatterhand has chosen Japan because of it's high rate of suicide, and has created this evil sanctuary for people to come and kill themselves, delighting in every death.

Why? I HAVE NO IDEA. It doesn't make a lick of sense. Dr. Shatterhand, who is really Blofeld in disguise apparently is off his rocker for no discernible reason. I hate that. I don't care if the plot is a bit bizarre (it certainly was in the last book!) but it at least has to make some semblance of sense. Does he hate Japan? No. He says he'll move to another country and build suicide sanctuaries if he gets kicked out of Japan. Does he have some kind of issue or emotional deal with suicide? No. Does he have an evil plan to get certain individuals, maybe government officials or spies, to commit suicide when they otherwise wouldn't? No. There's nothing. There's no reasoning here. Fleming is just like: "Oh, he's mad." But it didn't make any sense to me. Blofeld has always been a little kooky but he's always had some kind of plan or reasoning behind his actions.

This was a huge disappointment and also was stupid.

Tanaka also somehow convinces Bond to go to the island with no gun. For some cockamamie bullshit reason that was beyond MY understanding. Frankly, this whole book was sloppy, in my opinion.

THE WOMEN
Besides all the women he sleeps with in order to heal from the-event-which-will-not-be-named, Bond is "gifted" with many geisha, massage girls, bath girls, etc. etc. in Japan. But none of these really make an impression on Bond, of course he wants a woman with intelligence and spark.

We get that woman in Kissy Suzuki, the daughter of a couple who Bond is living with temporarily. She is a woman who dives almost naked for shells. She is 23. She lived for a while in America making films and is very beautiful. But she hated Hollywood.

Her expression became fierce. "Never. I hated it. They were all disgusting to me in Hollywood. They thought that because I am Japanese I am some sort of an animal and that my body is for everyone."

She vows never to go back and instead is quite happy living out her impoverished, simple life in Japan. She immediately sets her sights on Bond. Bond, of course, lusts for her, enjoys having someone he can speak English with, and admires her spirit. However, it's obvious to this reader that she's not "long-term material" for Bond - one or two months at best.

However, after Bond strangles Blofeld to death, and falls from the cliff into the sea, he has amnesia and cannot remember his name or anything about himself. Kissy takes advantage of this and endeavors to "keep Bond for herself," rather as if he were a stray dog with no name. I find this behavior disgusting and despicable. But after months and months, when Bond finally starts to remember stuff - she lets him go. Where? Back to England? NO. TO RUSSIA. Are you frickin' kidding me? This woman is going to get Bond killed, not telling him that he's an Englishman and sending him, addled and confused, into enemy territory. I can't bring myself to like her. She's also pregnant by Bond, but doesn't tell him, and he leaves for Russia without ever knowing he's going to be a father. I didn't like Kissy. Men aren't dogs. I don't think she was acting right.


OBITUARY
This book famously ends with Bond's obituary as it appears in the The Times, and it is rather meta, as it references "a man writing stories about Bond" etc. etc. Of course, no one knows that Bond is alive, but living as a Japanese fisherman and suffering from amnesia.
...

Overall, this book was a disappointment for many reasons. Fleming's Bond books really take a dive after the-event-which-shall-not-be-named. I don't have high expectations for the last two, The Man With the Golden Gun and Octopussy & the Living Daylights. We'll see.

[Richard Derus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5* of five

1967's film version of the book apparently kept nothing to speak of from the book's plot, little enough of the characters, and broke new ground in space science, if only physics would agree to operate by Bondiverse rules. So that raises the question:

What the actual fuck. Undetectable space launches from a densely packed island nation famous then as now for being xenophobic? Volcanos hollowed out and repurposed because they're extinct and then *KERPOW* they blow up on cue? The sorriest ninjas on record being trained in what appears to be a suburban garden?

Yeesh. No wonder Sean Connery was ready to leave the role after this turkey.

You might have noticed that Connery is, by Western standards, a large man. Tall. Muscular. Imposing. And he's now going to pretend to be Japanese. Forty-five years ago, there were very few Japanese men over 6ft tall. To the best of my knowledge, there are to this good moment a vanishingly small number of Japanese men with Scottish accents and furry chests. So when Bond is presented as a native husband for a local girl WITH HER OWN HOME AND BOAT, I rolled my eyes so hard I'm pretty sure I saw my brain. Like every damn single man on that island wouldn't be all up in Bond's business from second one, seeing as how he nabbed the most eligible woman in Japan!

So it sounds like 3.5 stars is ridiculously generous, doesn't it? There are reasons: 1) Bond's death scene at the beginning of the movie. So cool I get frostbite from watching it. 2) Blofeld's big blond henchrat. Scenic. 3) The Toyota 2000GT that Bond's first gal-pal drives:


Über cool car. And, trivia for the five of you still reading this, Toyota delivered the car to the filmmakers a couple weeks before shooting. Connery did not fit in the vehicle. At all. Toyota's staff said, "oh no, so sorry, we'll fix it" and they DID. I am constantly amazed that this level of customer service ever existed on the surface of the earth.

The house I live in presently was built in 1938. It's got golden oak floors, painted baseboards, dentilated crown moldings...very NOT 1960s decor. The films have reminded me of the ocean of blond wood, teak, copper, and faux stone that permeated the built environment of the day. Glass tables, horrible things they were too. An amazing number of ceramic lamps with cylindrical paper shades. As familiar to me as my beard, but not today's design vernacular by any stretch. I wonder, is it off-putting or old-fashioned looking to kids of the 1980s? (Kids HA most of y'all got kids of your own now.)

So at least one star added for taking me right back into a world I liked a lot, because it was the first one I ever knew. It had its charms. I prefer today, but that doesn't lessen the draw of a familiar past. That's a big part of the fun I get from rewatching these films.

ETA The song! I forgot to mention Nancy Sinatra's rendition of "You Only Live Twice", a syrupy ballad with a screechy violin hook that embeds itself in the brain extremely deeply. The hook is played over a lot of lovely scenery shots, so repetition does its ugly work. Still, it's nowhere near as horrible as the Tom Jones rendition of "Thunderball." That is just heinous.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the death of his wife, at the hands of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, James Bond understandably has little interest in his work or life. M, head of the Secret Service, sends 007 on a seemingly impossible mission that will make or break him.
Ian Fleming's penultimate Bond novel is populated with some of the author's best creations, especially Tiger Tanaka (Head of the Japanese Secret Service) & the foul mouthed & incredibly amusing Dikko Henderson. Bond's arch enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld is perhaps a little too crazy for my liking this time around. The only real issue I have is when Ian Fleming mentions that James Bond features in "a series of popular books" which seems absurd considering his job!!
That aside, this 1964 novel is still a great read & was good enough for screenwriters Neal Pervis & Robert Wade to use parts of it in the 2021 James Bond film No Time To Die.

[BrokenTune · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

"The Superintendent went to the bottom of his file and extracted what looked like a blown-up copy of Doctor Guntram Shatterhand’s passport photograph and handed it over. Bond took it nonchalantly. Then his whole body stiffened. He said to himself, God Almighty! God Almighty! Yes. There was no doubt, no doubt at all!"

You Only Live Twice or, as I really want to call it, On Her Majesty's Secret Service - Part Deux, because I can't help seeing parallels to the second Hot Shots! movie, deals with a James Bond that has been broken after the events of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Bond has lost his interest in his job, is depressed, puts missions and lives at risk, chases pleasures aimlessly, and is on the verge of being fired. The only reason he is not is that M is persuaded to set Bond an improbable task that has no other aim than to make Bond realise that he needs to step up his game.

What M does not know, is that the investigation into the strange goings on on a Japanese island will play right into Bond's troubles.

"Bond held the pictures, not looking at them, thinking. Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Irma Bunt. So this was where they had come to hide!"

You would think that this set up of Bond being sent to investigate something far away from his usual life would provide some opportunity for Bond to reflect or try to deal with his own losses, you know, to make Bond grow as a character. But no. Instead, Fleming decided to use this book as an opportunity to showcase his own interest in all things Japanese and use Bond as a tool for comparing Fleming's understanding of British and Japanese cultures.
This part of the book is fun. It might, with good reason, make you doubt Fleming's research. There are at least two eye-roll inducing assertions in Fleming's portrayal of Japan - and one of which, about sumo wrestlers, seems to have become a myth that has transcended the Bond franchise.

Never mind, eh?

As this Bond buddy read comes to a close (only 2 books left, one of which is a re-read of a short story collection), I have come to really ask myself why I stuck with the series and had not abandoned Bond's exploits after From Russia With Love, which was one of the very worst books I have ever read. Ever.
Well, I have to admit that Fleming's attempts at dazzling his readers with bullshit are one of the reasons this series has been fun. I don't mean Fleming's xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, snobbishness, ... I really mean the times when Fleming tries to persuade the reader of facts that are ... wrong. The series is riddled with mistakes about biology, history, physics, chemistry ... anything that can be researched. Yet, Fleming talks about this stuff with so much conviction that reading a Fleming novel inevitably makes you question your own knowledge. It is fun to discover the errors or to learn something you didn't know by looking at topics that Fleming discusses with enthusiasm which just don't sound true. (Even more so if you have a patient reading buddy who doesn't mind sounding out some of the ideas with you.)

On the flip side, what I haven't enjoyed so much are the plots of the Bond novels. There are exceptions of course: Casino Royale, or Dr. No come to mind here, but overall the plots - reading in today, that is - were quite simplistic and often boring.
In You Only Live Twice, I would even go as far as to say that there is no real plot. Or at least, there is nothing that makes the plot interesting: There is not even an evil master plan to overthrow. We meet Blofeld and Bunt again, but they are mere mad shadows of their characters from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Where is the fun in this?

So, overall, this is an interesting novel for getting to know a little bit more about Fleming and his estimation for Japan, but it is an utterly boring Bond adventure, that ends with a weird variation on Madama Butterfly.

Such an odd novel.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

AKA "I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so"

And so I finish the last of Fleming's full length Bond novels, and while it wasn't as cringeworthy as I'd feared vis-à-vis its treatment of the "Exotic East" it did really let me down in the plot department which took a decided turn for the soap operatic in the final chapters.


Bro you're not fooling anyone. Just...stop.

As always Simon Vance does yeoman's work with the source material to elevate it, "Bondo-san's" conversations with the dogged head of the Japanese Secret Service "Tiger" Tanaka in particular were fun, particularly when Fleming makes the Japanese spy the mouthpiece for what one suspects were his own political views re: the decline of British world influence and mores. It must have been a very strange experience growing older as one of the author's generation and class, born into a world where, right or wrong, the sun never set on the British Empire only for it to more or less evaporate completely over the course of two world wars in order to be completely eclipsed by two new very ideologically minded Superpowers. It definitely feels like the frequently flailing adventures of Cmdr. Bond, RN, reflect a quixotic attempt to keep up the British End in spite of overwhelming evidence that its day had passed.


It is a deadly habit, they say...

On to some 007 short stories soon, also narrated by Vance, to finish the my survey.

[Razvan Banciu · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ask me, the first chapters of the book are THE BEST EVER written by Mr. Fleming, as they are worthy of any anthology about Japan and its inhabitants.
There are no fights, no killings, only a tasty and very interesting description: Kobe steaks, Fugu fish, sake and Geisha, elements of history and geopolitics, many of them valid even today. In addition, Tiger Tanaka and Dikko Henderson are the most colourful secondary characters I've ever met in the Bond series. Unfortunately, in the second part the level decreases to the usual below average, so you may choose whether to go further or be pleased with the first part...

[F.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

“(Britain has) not only lost a great Empire, you have seemed almost anxious to throw it away with both hands... You apparently sought to arrest this slide into impotence at Suez, (but) succeeded only in stage-managing one of the most pitiful bungles in the history of the world, if not the worst. Further, your governments have shown themselves successively incapable of ruling and have handed over effective control of the country to the trade unions, who appear to be dedicated to the principle of doing less and less work for more money. This feather-bedding, this shirking of an honest day’s work, is sapping at ever-increasing speed the moral fibre of the British.”

The reason that international terrorist organisation SPECTRE replaced Russian Spy body SMERSH as James Bond’s main villain was, that as the Fifties progressed, it became increasingly ludicrous to suggest that Britain was at the forefront of the anti-Soviet fight. Philby and his cohorts (who are referred to obliquely in this volume) had proved that British agents were more likely to be hand in hand with the Russians. In addition, the fact that Britain had lost the Empire and the whole country seemed tired and grey – not to mention still bombed out – meant that Britain’s prestige had greatly faded. This then is James Bond, super agent of a failed cause, a man still fighting the fight but unsure anymore what he’s fighting for.

To be fair, the piece of dialogue quoted above is dismissed by Bond when said to him, and yet the sentiment of it echoes throughout ‘You Only Live Twice’. There are numerous references to how Britain needs to buck up her ideas because fings ain’t what they used to be. Newly widowed, Bond is jaded and tired, which undoubtedly suits the downbeat and failing country he represents. And yet, this novel wasn’t published in the Fifties, but in 1964, just when Britain was starting to swing again. Okay, the book was no doubt written the year before, but even then there should have been a sense that all was changing and Britain wasn’t as threadbare as previously supposed. And yet, in the more reactionary and conservative world of James Bond (and Ian Fleming, in the year of his death), Britain was definitely past its prime and destined to be a miserable black and white failure for even more.

(Side note: the Bond film in 1964 was Goldfinger. Isn’t it a jarring moment when Connery suggests that the best way to listen to The Beatles is while wearing earmuffs? That’s one Swinging Sixties icon taking a swing at another, but it does sound like the more 1950’s Bond of the book. He’d have thought the moptops were nothing but tuneless scruffs.)

Divorced from its historical context, this is a fairly dull and uneventful book. Bond goes to Japan on a nebulous mission, then hangs around for a bit waiting for a plot to develop. In the main this is a travelogue, Ian Fleming’s ‘What I Did On My Summer Holiday” essay. It takes a long while for the action to get going, and even then it’s fairly anticlimactic. To be fair the ending is refreshingly atypical, although the suggestion that all these books are real and written by one of Bond’s friends, feels clumsy and self reverential.

In short this is a novel in which Bond is a lot like the country he represents (or Fleming’s perception of it anyway). He was once virile and powerful, but those days have passed.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Bond's twelfth adventure takes him to Japan, but this is not really a novel involving the usual gunplay & gambling. Fleming creates an excellent picture of a culture far removed from our own & we are introduced to some of his greatest characters. Tiger Tanaka, head of the Japanese Secret Service & Dikko Henderson are two of my favourites. Despite the story revolving considerably around death there is a surprising amount of humour for a Fleming novel. Having read the story quite a few times before I can also recommend two excellent audio versions, an abridged one read by Richard E Grant & an unabridged one read by Martin Jarvis.

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I’ve found that one must try and teach people that there’s no top limit to disaster – that, so long as breath remains in your body, you’ve got to accept the miseries of life. They will often seem infinite, insupportable. They are part of the human condition."
- Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice



Ian Fleming took James Bond off the interstate of his more traditional espionage novels with the last couple books. You Only Live Twice is Fleming putting James back into the "game". The settting for most of this novel is Japan. Bond is hunting (for the Japanese) Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, who turns out to be Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. It is interesting enough, but seems a bit dated with the NINJA scenes and Yellow Face.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Fleming often teased readers in earlier James Bond novels by including scenes where James Bond fantasizes what his life would be like if he retired from the Secret Service. Bond often discusses quitting with his friends in almost every book in the series, too. The ending of ‘You Only Live Twice’, number twelve in the series, leaves readers wondering if Bond has really come to the end of his career! The tone of this book is elegiac, and the story seems more of a funeral plot (pun intended) for the series as well as for many of the characters.

Bond is coming to work at his London desk late and leaving early. He is drinking a great deal, including at lunch. He is doing no paperwork, rarely responding to work-related questions. He totally screwed up his last two field assignments. Bond wonders whether he should resign before he gets fired. Finally, M summons him to his office. Bond is certain he is finished.

Instead, M ‘promotes’ Bond to the Diplomatic Section, giving him a new higher salary and a number: 7777. Is it the old scam of promoting a failing employee by bumping him up in title and salary? Maybe. M has been consulting the Service’s psychiatrist, Sir James Molony, who has recommended an extended vacation at minimum in the past for Bond. This time, though, Molony has recommended giving Bond a hopeless assignment without any dangers, something to ignite Bond’s patriotism and ingenuity. So, M tells Bond he is getting an undercover assignment without any gunplay. M wants Bond to somehow encourage Japan’s secret service department head, Tiger Tanaka, to give over its intelligence reports on the Soviets. England no longer has levers of influence, or even offices, in Japan. The CIA has taken over the region. Bond’s cover will be as the Australian’s embassy number two under Richard “Dikko” Lovelace Henderson of Her Majesty’s Australian Diplomatic Corps.

Dikko introduces Bond to Tiger. Tiger and Bond spend much time together, sizing each other up. Bond learns a lot about Japanese customs, does a lot of traveling around Japan. Finally, Tiger says he will give Bond important secrets the Japanese have gotten from spying on Soviet communications IF he does a favor for them. It seems there is a rich European in Japan the Japanese authorities would like to kill...



Japan is sometimes called “The Land of the Rising Sun”. From Wikipedia:

"The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon (にっぽん) and Nihon (にほん).They are both written in Japanese using the kanji 日本. Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates, and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with the Chinese Sui Dynasty and refers to Japan's eastern position relative to China."


However, after World War II, many Japanese were not feeling it. A book, ‘The Setting Sun’, was written (from Wikipedia):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_S...

“The symbolism of the book: "The Setting Sun refers to how Japan, the "Land of the Rising Sun" was in a period of decline after World War II. In her last letter to Mr. Uehara, Kazuko says that Japan is struggling against the old morality, "like the sun"."


Fleming died shortly after ‘You Only Live Twice’ was published. The book takes several feints towards the death of Bond, or of his career, and especially at Bond’s purpose in life, highlighting Bond’s death wish. The setting in another country destroyed by World War II, with a plot about an insane Edenic garden of deadly plants for Japanese people intending suicide, created by Bond’s old foe Blofeld, a Polish-German madman, adds up to a literary scream of despair. I believe Fleming set the final (?) book about Bond in Japan (the novel is a travelogue about Japan for 2/3rds of the book) because Japan was another country which was seemingly in its sunset years of influence, power and wealth in the world.

I think Ian Fleming was emotionally done in for real when he wrote 'You Only Live Twice'. The novel has many references to the diminution of England - financially, and in its political influence on the World. There is a thread of sadness and a sense of loss over the overall decline of manners and customs and class throughout the story. Although two more James Bond books by Fleming were published after his death from draft manuscripts and notes, I think if it wasn’t for the Hollywood deals, Fleming was ready to stop writing about James Bond. Fleming seems awfully embittered? angry? in the books through the cartoon character he made to represent England’s tired masculinity - a spy suffering from a lot of PTSD. (Hollywood turned Bond into a wise-cracking psychopath.) I believe Fleming was truly soul-sick. I do not have the sympathy for him that maybe some do, since I think his despair was mostly from the blurring and degrading of male class-structures and mores after WWII. He equated nobility and patriotism as weft and warp of upper-class values, so the ongoing growing disrespect of the upper-classes around the world meant the concurrent degradation of country and social life to him, I think, thus his resulting angst and depression. As an underclass woman who grew up a little later in the twentieth century, my sympathy for the death of toxic masculinity, whether upper class or no, must remain rather with the hopeful blooms in a feminist poison garden.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1964, Ian Fleming wrote Bond #12, You Only Live Twice. Three years later, someone must have decided they hated the book and made a movie about something completely different. Essentially. The two certainly do not have a lot in common.

For good measure, the original trailer.

One word about the movie that makes it more awesome than the book: The screenplay was written by my beloved Roald Dahl. The truly Dahl-esque moment (which is shown in the above trailer) is when a helicopter carries a car full of bad guys with a giant magnet and drops them into a body of water. Watch that part wasn't even Dahl's idea. We'll pretend it was.

This was the last book that was published during Fleming's lifetime. I'm not sure what to say about that, other than it's sort of interesting that Bond "dies" in both the book and the movie, though at different parts in their stories and under different circumstances. Anyway, the deaths sort of seem profound now that I know Fleming died a few months after the publication of the book.

Seriously, it was like they threw out the book entirely and just let Dahl go bug-nuts crazy with his own story. At least the movie included piranhas as they were in the book. I mean, really. You can't get rid of the piranhas. Or Blofeld, the villain. He's in both the book and the movie, and it's sort of hard to ignore that fact. Blofeld is what makes the Bond world go 'round. At least for three stories or so, and this is his last hurrah. See? Lots of last hurrahs with this one.

But in the movie there's this whole space-sequence thing that involves a weird metallic tampon-like thing, and somehow that wasn't even in the book. The movie did, however, remove all the blatant racist comments that were included in the book. They just let Connery do his typical smarmy sort of thing which oozes racism as well as sexism. In the book, though... it's cringe-worthy. Comments about the Japanese having large teeth, except for the lovely Kissy whose mouth is apparently just right, and... y'know, I'm not even going to repeat some of the things Bond said about the Japanese. It's undignified.

I give this a full three stars, mostly because of the movie - I like Roald Dahl and I also like Nancy Sinatra. Screw you, I do. Perfectly cheesy for another perfectly cheesy Bond flick. So my enjoyment of this book actually has very little to do with the book. Because the book was especially racist.

Next up: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (aka that one movie with that one George Lazenby guy who could only hang for one Bond movie).

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written during the winter of 1963, at Ian Fleming's Goldeneye retreat in Oracabessa, on the north shore of Jamaica, "You Only Live Twice" was the author's 11th James Bond novel, not counting the short story collection "For Your Eyes Only." Ultimately released in March '64, just five months before the author's untimely demise, it was the last Bond novel to be completed. (The posthumous 007 novel "The Man With the Golden Gun" is an essentially unfinished first draft, lacking the rich detail that Fleming usually spent months adding after he got his story down on paper.) The concluding book in what has become known as The Blofeld Trilogy (started in 1961's "Thunderball," in which Bond and archvillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld never meet, and picked up in 1963's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"), it seems to have divided fans and critics alike, primarily due to the travelogue nature of the novel's initial 2/3, and the fact that the main "action" is largely confined to the final 40 pages. Many fans, however--including this reader--find it to be one of the best of the bunch; a beautifully written book, more symbolic and nightmarish than the others, with its central theme of rebirth (Bond is essentially a new man by the book's end) a compelling one.

The novel picks up a short eight months after the tragic finale of "OHMSS," in which 007's bride of a single day, Tracy, is killed by Blofeld and his mate, the loathsome Irma Bunt. Now a broken man, in lousy health and having bungled several missions, Bond is given one last chance to make good by his chief, M. His "impossible" assignment, which it is hoped will shake him out of his malaise, is to convince Tiger Tanaka, the head of the Japanese Secret Service, to share with Britain their decoding machine only known as Magic 44. Bond travels to the Orient, gets to know Tiger for a month, and is given an assignment in exchange for the device: travel to Fukuoka, on the southern island of Kyushu, and slay Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, a botanist whose 500-acre garden, stocked with poisonous flora and fauna, has become a mecca for the suicidal. After preparing for his mission on the tiny island of Kuro, and living with Ama diving girl Kissy Suzuki, Bond infiltrates Shatterhand's compound, only to learn that the botanist, in actuality, is...well, I don't want to spoil anything, as this great novel approaches its 50th anniversary, but I DID say that this was Part 3 of the Blofeld trilogy, right?

"You Only Live Twice," of course, was the first Bond novel to be completely recast when it was released as a film in 1967. Rather than dealing with Shatterhand's suicide garden, the film has as its central concern S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s bid to begin WW3 by hijacking manned space satellites; indeed, the only commonalities between the book and the film are the Tiger, (Australian agent) Henderson and Kissy characters (and they are completely changed and different in the film), as well as the subway office of Tanaka, the bathhouse scene in which 007's looks are altered, the ninja training school, the inclusion of piranhas and a pivoting trap floor...but everything is in a wholly different context. Don't get me wrong...I happen to love the film, and find it one of the most exciting and visually spectacular of the entire Bond series (a series that currently extends to 23 official films, as I write this), flubs and all, but always wonder how great it might have been if the producers had cleaved a lot more closely to Fleming's original conception. Bond's nighttime investigation of Shatterhand's compound is a truly nightmarish, borderline surreal set piece, and the suicide deaths that he witnesses are surely not for the squeamish; indeed, offhand, I cannot think of a more grisly sequence in Bondom, with the possible exceptions of the genital bashing that 007 undergoes in the initial novel, 1953's "Casino Royale," and perhaps the chapter entitled "The Long Scream" in 1958's "Dr. No." And speaking of that earlier torture: When Bond here learns of the sumo wrestlers' trick of tucking their genitals "up the inguinal canal" for protection, and Tiger declares "these organs...are most susceptible to torture for the extraction of information," the reader cannot help but recall that first 007 outing. "Don't I know it," Bond replies, and understandably so! Another line that made this old Bond fan (this is my third reading of "YOLT," I might add here, in a 46-year period) smile is when Kissy reveals that her pet cormorant's name is David, named after David Niven, the only man who was decent to her in Hollywood. Niven, of course, was a friend of Fleming's, and strangely enough, would go on to play Bond himself, in the 1967 spoof "Casino Royale." But all joking aside, "YOLT" is a fairly serious book, a sort of crucible for Bond that sees him emerging wholly changed. The travelogue sections are fascinating, the characters likeable (Henderson's role is MUCH larger than in the film), the "Bond girl" an appealing one, and the final confrontation between Bond and his nemesis as exciting as can be ("Die, Blofeld! Die!"). And who could ever forget the scene in which Bond is forced to sit atop an active volcanic mud geyser, as the clock ticks toward its eruption, or the three pages of details that Fleming provides dealing with Shatterhand's toxic flora, or the revealing obit that M writes in Bond's memory, or the book's wonderful final chapter, written in a style unlike anything else in Bondom, that finds the amnesiac 007 living with Kissy and desperately trying to recover his memory? The novel's last two pages aptly set up the action in the final, unfinished Bond novel, and I cannot imagine any reader not needing to know more. Abundantly showcasing what has become known as "the Fleming sweep" (the author's knack of sweeping the reader along and engendering a suspension of disbelief by the use of copious and convincing detail), the novel truly is one of the best of the Bonds. To the author, wherever he might be, goes this old fan's heartiest "domo origato"!

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going to use this same review for all the James Bond books I read several years ago. Why did I keep reading them if I hated them so much? Because I kept hoping for ONE good book with ONE woman valued for more than just her body. And anyone out there can tell me it was a reflection of the times, but I throw that argument out. I've heard it used a lot for slavery, for example, but that fails too because there were always abolitionists, just like there have always been feminists, even if that word didn't necessarily exist back then.

Amazon was practically giving away these Ian Fleming books, so I'd bought them all. And ultimately, I hated myself for it. They are such sexist filth. Sure, I like the "good guys" winning as much as the next, but in every one of them, it felt like it was at the expense of some woman (the "Bond girl's") identity where she's reduced to nothing but an objectified and glorified sexual being whose sole purpose is to make James Bond look good. Ew. I would've known better (I hope) had the cover been one of the more semi-pornographic ones that seem to be more common, but the Kindle series I'd bought had very unrevealing cover art. UGH. And remarkably, I hadn't watched any of the older Bond movies - only started with Daniel Craig versions which I thought was just dumb sexist typical Hollywood. In retrospect, I should've known better!

[Ellie Spencer (catching up from hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was desperate to sink my teeth into this book after the ending of ‘on her majesty’s secret service’. I love Japanese culture, so the setting for this book was a dream for me. However, some of the racist remarks left me feeling a little uncomfortable.
This is installment seemed to lack the action and tension of previous books, and I didn’t care much for the love interest between Bond and Kissy. However, I felt like I was transported to Japan and loved the unusual villainous plot that the book focused on. I also didn’t expect the ending, and loved how different it was to all the previous endings.

[Alex Cantone · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘…it is unwise to underestimate saké. We have a saying, “It is the man who drinks the first flask of saké; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the saké that drinks the man.”’

Released in 1997, three years after the death of author Ian Fleming, the movie version of “You Only Live Twice”, filmed in Japan, starred Sean Connery in the main role (married to Australian Diane Cilento at that stage): going head-to-head with accomplished Japanese co-star Tetsuro Tanba, as the Oxford-educated head of Japanese security, Tiger Tanaka. Two other actors were notably British: Donald Pleasance played the villain Ernst Bloefeld with an uncharacteristic chill, and the urbane Charles Grey as the diplomat Henderson – Bond’s entrée into the complex world of Japanese honour, traditions and culture.

In the book Henderson is a loud-mouthed Australian, drunkard and womaniser, and Fleming took great pains to get the dialogue just right. After a night of inebriation Henderson replies to a Bond comment; ‘You’ve got something there, sport. I’ve got myself a proper futsukayoi – honourable hangover. Mouth like a vulture’s crotch.’ Back in the sixties lines like that would never get past the censor, and hence a gentleman actor as substitute.

This one was a slow-burner, with a lot on culture, saving face, a taboo on swearing, and ‘ON’ – obligation – as to how Japanese society works. Forget the vodka martinis – the tipple here is sake and Suntory whisky; and leave the Walther PPK at home. As a service / “obligation” to Tanaka, Bond is to take on a pesky westerner (Bloefeld) who has acquired a semi-ruined fortress on the southern island of Kyūshū, guarded by the outlawed Black Dragon society, the grounds filled with toxic plants sourced from around the world and a lake filled with piranha.

Bond is taken through a ninja training camp where the only weapons allowed are a 2-inch blade, a length of thin chain and fists, feet and everywhere in between, his appearance altered to that of a deaf-and-dumb coal miner from Kyūshū. The love interest is a local Ama diver, Kissy Suzuki, a one-time Hollywood starlet who has returned home to her family.

About 80% in, the action starts. A Ninja-d up Bond penetrates the impenetrable fortress to best his arch-foe, calls upon thermal energy, and makes a dramatic exit (and in the movie: Connery’s swan song in the role).

Not to everyone’s taste but this reader enjoyed learning about the cultural side of Japan, and with so few characters involved, less “clutter” of unnecessary voices. Very Japanese.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought there was definitely an element of "I am so sick of writing these books" in this one. For example, "You want me to begin with Bond winning some sort of gambling game like in most of the other books? Fine! I'll narrate a high-stakes round of ROCK PAPER SCISSORS! Fuck you!" and "You want a death trap? Okay, how about having Bond's testicles dangle over a LIVE ACTIVE VOLCANIC GEYSER! Go to hell!" and "You want the scene where Bond instantly masters some skill that other people take years to? Okay - watch him LEARN TO WRITE HAIKU! Eat me!"

And then I looked at Wikipedia and it said that this was the second to last Bond novel Fleming wrote.

(I'm now reading the last one)

[Fadilah · Rating 3 out of 5]

mildly inappropriate

[Mohammad Anas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐️

[David Sarkies · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bond in Japan
16 Apr 2022 - Wodonga

If you are expecting a novel about some super villain stealing space ships then you are going to be sorely disappointed. This is one of those James Bond novels that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie, or I should probably say that the movie has nothing to do with the novel. No, rather most of the novel seems to deal with Japanese culture, and it is only in the last quarter of the novel that Bond confronts his nemesis Ernst Stavrov Blofeld.

The story basically begins after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service where Blofeld murders Bond’s wife hours after they get married. Bond then descends into a spiral of depression and his superiors, namely M, are deciding whether to simply dismiss him or to put him in a diplomatic post. They decide on the latter, and he ends up in Japan, looking for some mysterious concoction known as MAGIC 44, however, while he is there, he discovers that his arch-nemesis is there also and that the Japanese want Bond to kill him in return for the formula. Not surprisingly Bond accepts.

Mind you, there are a couple of things that annoyed me in this book. Fleming makes a comment about how the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was foolish. Well, honestly, it was, because it basically awakened the American beast, and even if they won at Midway, it is highly unlikely that the Japanese would have won the war. The Americans would still have developed the bomb, and they still would have nuked the home islands.

However, to put it into context, one of the main reasons that Pearl Harbour was attacked was because the Japanese wanted to neutralise the American navy so that they could take the Philippines. The thing that many people seem to forget was that at the time, the Philippines was still an American protectorate and any attack on the Philippines would have been an attack on the United States. However, I suspect that if the Japanese had attacked the Philippines, and left Pearl Harbour alone, Rosevelt would have had a lot more difficult time convincing the American people (and congress) to go to war.

The second thing was that the dismantling of the British Empire. One thing that seems to be ignored is that one of the conditions of the American involvement in the war was that the allies’ empires be dismantled. Okay, France didn’t end up doing that and had to be forcefully removed from Algeria, in the same way, that Britain was forcefully removed from India, but it seems that the thing with the war was that it was the end of the era of the empires.

Anyway, I can’t say that this was a particularly enthralling book. Pretty much most of it involved discussions between Tanaka and Bond about British and Japanese culture. One of the things that comes up is this idea that suicide in Japan is considered a good thing. Well, I won’t say a good thing, but more of an honourable thing, and there is an interesting discussion between Bond and Tanaka about this whole idea. In a sense, it has a lot to do with family, and if one fails, then it brings shame upon the family, and to undo that, one needs to do something that basically removes that shame – namely kill oneself.

I remember people speaking of a shame and a guilt-based culture, and I sort of wonder what the actual difference is, but it seems that it is the difference between an individual-based culture, and a communal culture. In the Western World, if you stuff up, it is entirely upon you, and nobody else, however in other cultures, if you stuff up, then it isn’t just upon you, but upon your entire family, This is why you end up with parents killing children because they switch religion – it all comes down to honour, and the honour is attached to the family, not the individual.

Yeah, reading this was somewhat interesting, and Fleming does explore some interesting things here, however, in the end, I can’t say that this is one of the greatest of books.

[Jason Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part three of my 2023 James Bond movie/book project. Continued from Thunderball in February.

You Only Live Twice theme song sung by Nancy Sinatra.

Bonus track: Capsule in Space, part of which is heard in other Bond movies.



The ending to this was fantastic, five stars all the way, but laws, it's a long, slow slog to get to it, and since the ending alone can't carry the whole book, I can't go higher than three stars. This one is also completely different from the movie. Both take place in Japan, Tiger's in it, and so is Blofeld. Kissy Suzuki is the main Bond girl, and there's a volcano, but that's pretty much where all major similarities end. As for minor details, there are piranha, and Bond falls through a trap door in the floor at one point... I think that's it. Oh, wait. Bond also turns Japanese in both, but he does it a lot better in the book since Blofeld doesn't even recognize him after he's captured (though Irma Bunt does). As for the movie transition...



Give me a break. This is Sean Connery with a bad haircut and eyebrow extensions. You can't even see the spray-on tan, or whatever it is, he's supposed to have! And that brings us to the racism which we might as well get out of the way. By today's standards, I think this book is probably racist. At least everyone else says so. I didn't notice it much, but there is a lot of hissing and bowing going on, and I guess that's offensive? I'm not sure. I'm told I'm insensitive, so I don't always know when something is offensive, and I'm usually confused once it's pointed out to me.

The movie concerns SPECTRE trying to start a nuclear World War III between the USA and the USSR so China (presumably) can pick up the spoils afterward. The book involves Blofeld getting in touch with his inner Dr. Kevorkian, though for his own shits and giggles... eventually. The first 2/3 of the book is about Bond getting over his last case which went badly and learning all there is to learn about Japanese ways. He's given an impossible mission because M realizes that's where he thrives best, and Bond is often able to do the impossible. (M did this intentionally to get Bond out of his funk, though he would've been well within his rights to fire him instead. I thought this was pretty cool.) A lot of people think this was Fleming's worst Bond outing. Even his good friend Roald Dahl who was given the task of making this book into a workable screenplay said it was "tired, bad, Ian's worst book with no plot in it which would even make a movie." (I agree with the "not a good movie" sentiment.) So, he took some hot topics of the day, borrowed some of the structure from Dr. No, took a couple of characters and the setting of Japan from the book, and used a few requirements from the producers. E.G. a friend who gets killed pretty early on; three bond girls, (two who die halfway through and one of those a baddie, the last who doesn't get laid by Bond until the end); and the formula set in Goldfinger where there are lots of gadgets, chases, explosions, etc. He crammed it all together against a hard deadline (six weeks), and turned in "the biggest load of bullshit I've ever put my hand to." Regardless of what he thought about it, it turned out to be a hit movie.

I'm reading these in movie order which grates on me on principle, and if it weren't for my movie project, I would read these in book order. I suggest anyone else do it that way unless you're doing the same movie project I am. The books can be read as standalones, but events from previous books are mentioned, and they're complete spoilers. You Only Live Twice was the penultimate Bond novel Fleming penned, but one of the early films so I read it before other books, and the climax of On Her Majesty's Secret Service was ruined for me. I also know of something that happens to Felix Leiter in Live and Let Die because I read Diamonds Are Forever first. This doesn't completely ruin my day, or anything, but I'm going on record as saying it would be better to read these in order if you plan to read the entire series. Plus, the ending to this one was left open, though not quite a cliffhanger, but I have to go through a couple of older books before I get to the sequel to this one, The Man with the Golden Gun, to find out what happens to Bond in book world.

Interesting tidbit: Part of the crew including the producers, director, production designer, and director of photography (pretty much the movers and shakers who make the movie happen) were supposed to take a plane from Japan back to the UK after scouting locations. They were invited to watch some ninja demonstrations, so they opted for a later flight. The flight they were supposed to take crashed after takeoff, killing everybody on board. So, I guess you could say Bond was saved by ninjas just like he was in the movie. I like to think that that incident influenced that part of the film.

Continued with April's entry: Diamonds Are Forever

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read a few James Bond books...not a lot, just a few. Usually I only pick them up when working on a reading challenge. They seem to land between 3 and 4 stars for me.

In this book, I liked the last half infinitely better than the first half. It started off super slow, it was close to the halfway point before the story actually started...then at the ending, it felt like it needed more enlightenment.

I liked the humor in this one too. That's when I see the movie version of James Bond in these books. The books and the movies are very different, but they both can be appreciated for what they are.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My friend recently praised the audiobook narrations of Simon Vance. Unfortunately, my library's inventory is small and Overdrive Media only allows me to download MP3s to my Nexus, further limiting my options to only two James Bond novels narrated by Vance. Since I have been wanting to read Bond books, I figured why not.

Shortly into the reading, my friend asked me what I thought of Vance's performance. I informed her that there was no Simon Vance. There was only James Bond and Tiger Tanaka. Vance has definitely earned a place on my list of favourite audiobook narrators.

This is the twelfth Bond book, taking place shortly after the violent death of Bond's wife of only a few hours. Bond physically survived the explosion at the hands of Dr. Blofeld, but the emotional effects are obvious. M is uncertain of what to do with his formerly best agent, until one doctor determines that what Bond needs is an impossible mission. This leads Bond to Japan and a friendship with Tiger Tanaka.

This is the last Bond book published by Ian Fleming in his life time, and it differs significantly from the film. There are no spacejackings and nuclear weapons in the book, but there are ninjas.

The story takes place not long after Japan's defeat in WWII. The west is encroaching on the east, and not everyone is happy with subjugation. The samurai sense of honour remains.

I enjoyed the insight into the Japanese culture, which was not as pretentious or derisive as it was in Michael Crichton's Rising Sun. The back-and-forth between Tanaka and Bond is amiable and respectful, even when they are being negative or insulting to each other's countries.

Bond's mission changes significantly when Tanaka asks him to deal with the "Castle of Death" that has been built on a Japanese island. A lot of their discussions deal with their differing views on suicide and honour. Although Bond does not get heavily into his emotions over Tracy's death, there is a sense that the discussions about suicide and other aspects of Japan are definitely on Bond's mind. Or, perhaps I was just projecting, because I wanted a little more of Bond's internal struggle to come out. It does rear its head in the end, with good reason, but I wanted to see a bit more of his pain than Fleming allowed.

As this is a Bond book, there has to be a Bond Girl. In this case, it is Kissy Suziki, a clam diver on the small island that becomes Bond's base of operations. Throughout the book, he has numerous encounters with women and the book comments on his lascivious thoughts, but I found it interesting that the woman who is clearly intended to be a love interest, is treated with the utmost respect by Bond. Several moments in Kissy's appearances were dedicated to Bond's utter appreciation of her as a woman. The descriptions spoke as much about her body as they did about her abilities and demeanor.

There is not a lot of action in this book. In fact, M informs Bond at the beginning, that the mission requires his wits, more than anything. When the mission changes, Tanaka denies Bond's requests for the simplicity of guns, instead introducing him to ninjutsu and the art of stealth. I was a bit skeptical about this part, though I appreciated that Bond didn't simply learn how to ninja over night. Or at all, really.

My only other complaint comes from two particular moments when mission information is provided to Bond. I expected the information to be summarized, but instead it was listed off in great detail that caused me to tune out a bit. That said, I do now have a long list of poisonous flora and their resulting effects.

See more reviews at
The BiblioSanctum

[Zoeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You Only Live Twice"(or, as it should be better known, the book in which Ian Fleming came close to the territory John Le Carre and Graham Greene), is perhaps the strangest of the James Bond novels that I have read. When I call it the strangest, I mean it as a compliment. It has none of the usual sleek swagger that we associate with Bond, which occasionally borders on smugness, and it has no wonderfully protracted scenes of playing cards with tough-headed villains, beautiful ladies, not even much of spectacular standoffs or even gritty action, though both come in full brute force in that rather thrilling but too literally metaphorical climax - about a vengeful knight entering the nemesis' castle and killing him then and there. Apologies for spoiling it all for you.

Rather, this is an almost anguished, downbeat tale, a spy story without spies, an action thriller without much thrills or action for a major part of its length and, most crucially, a Bond novel without the James Bond we know, at least from most of the films and even the books. Instead of being the smart-mouthed, sly-witted, suave secret agent, he is here world-weary and worn-out, broken and battered in body and spirit and merely driven to his latest mission with a nihilistic thirst for revenge.

And this downbeat tenor is evident from the early part of the novel, as Bond lands in Japan and while Fleming always had the gift of mesmerising his readers with exotic scenery and the heady whiff of local texture and flavour, they are all here packed in to heighten the sense of the story's gritty realism instead of a decorative trope. We see Bond maneuver his way around the minute intricacies of Japanese food and rituals and even engage in a strange scissors-paper-rock game with his hard-witted ally "Tiger" Tanaka but through it all, there is little excitement; instead, there is only a wry, weary cynicism.

It is, surprisingly for a Bond novel, when oo7 and Tanaka, an Englishman and a Japanese, start talking about themselves, about their respective empires already past their heyday and then about this pickle that Tanaka finds himself in, that we realise that we are witnessing a different side to Fleming - intelligent, sober, prescient, politically astute, objective and even erudite, something that we got to see in flashes in his short stories. For once, we realise the futility of these men's allegiances to their respective nations and this is where the Le Carre and Greene flavour seeps in - broken men of the world of cloaks and daggers sharing confidences and doubts about their chosen profession.

Hardened James Bond fans can, however, rest easy as Fleming skillfully lets the tension simmer in slow-burn fashion - we are told of a Doctor Shatterhand and his Garden of Death, a sort of Eden for the bruised pride and destroyed honour of Japanese society where many flock to find their redemption in...the most exotic, dangerous, sinister forms of death. So much that the Garden Of Death has become almost a nihilistic theme park for the populace and Tanaka is apprehensive about the whole thing. So is Bond when he starts to sense something familiar in this Doctor Shatterhand...

But while you would expect Bond to take a dramatic leap and jump right into the fray of action, Fleming, instead soft-pedals and lets the suspense build up step by step, leading to the inevitable conclusion in the end, which in hindsight, is, despite its preposterous fantasy, one of the more convincingly rendered scenes of stealth and brutal action to be found in any Bond novel, even embellished by baroque touches.

Fleming's trademark wit, roving eye for almost voyeuristic detail and flair at dialogue are all in place; on top of that, imagine a wonderful serving of Greene-like gift for realistic characterisation and psychological darkness and Le Carre-style deconstruction of heroism and you get a James Bond novel unlike any other. It is not quite as perfectly structured, entertaining, romantic and thrilling as "Dr. No" but it is certainly close to its perfection in its own unique way.

[Steve Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Bond travels to Japan to get information; but the man he meets agrees to give the information only if Bond will kill someone first. Which leads to a very big coincidence!

Fleming was clearly running out of steam by this time, this is the eleventh novel of twelve – and is possibly the weakest. There really is a heck of a lot of talk in this book; but the irony is, much of this (between Bond and his Tokyo aid, Tiger Tanaka) is the best part. Their verbal sparring, East versus West (in particular tired old Britain), is the only joy in the novel. I get the feeling that some of Tiger’s criticisms of Britain reflect Fleming’s (and many others) own view. Tiger’s following speech to Bond about Britain (which would have been written in 1963) made me laugh:-

“…your governments have shown themselves successively incapable of ruling and have handed over effective control to the trade unions, who appear to be dedicated to the principle of doing less and less work for more money. This feather-bedding, this shirking of an honest day’s work, is sapping at ever-increasing speed the moral fibre of the British, a quality the world once so much admired. In its place we now see a vacuous, aimless horde of seekers-after-pleasure – gambling at the pools and bingo, whining at the weather and the declining fortunes of the country, and wallowing nostalgically in gossip about the doings of the Royal Family and of your so-called aristocracy in the pages of the most debased newspapers in the world.”

Unfortunately, when the book finally gets to the physical part of the story – where Bond moves to an island from where he will base his attack - it all becomes turgid, and even worse, very silly. Fleming has disintegrated to the level of making Blofeld a pantomime villain. He’s become the worst type of parody, not far removed from Austin Powers. He’s literally wandering around his so called “Castle of Death,” which is lit by ‘smouldering braziers,” wearing chain armour and a winged helmet of steel. As he brandishes a sword, he spouts clichéd villain tripe such as, “I have one of the greatest brains in the world, Mister Bond. Have you anything to reply?” And Fleming goes a cliché even further, by telling us Wagner’s 'Ride Of The Valkyries' is playing in the background.

Dear, oh dear…

And the silliness doesn’t stop there. In James Bond’s obituary (this is obviously not a spoiler!) it states that a writer wrote about Bond’s exploits in a series of books. Oh, really! Then he’s hardly going to be much of a spy in the secret service!

Absurd. And I’ve not even got around to mentioning the five page list of poisonous plants.

A tired book, with only the entertaining relationship between Bond and Tanaka - displaying some of Fleming’s best dialogue – preventing a two star marking.

[Emperador Spock · Rating 1 out of 5]

The last of Fleming's books published in his lifetime, and what a dishonourable way to go! Shimata!

80% of the book have no action (not in the genital sense) whatsoever, and little, almost none of, spy or detective work. The book could have just as well been an essay on how Bond spent his Japanese holidays and entitled 'You Only Live Twice: Shagging Chicks & Getting Pissed': the whole jolly trip from Tokyo to Kuro is a dull sequence of sightseeing, whores and sake flasks, nothing more. Well, apart from some of the stupidest dialogue in between some of these activities.

This Book's Villain is our good acquaintance Ernst Blofeld. Remember how he tried to steal nukes, blackmail the whole world and cover his operation up with a treasure hunt (Thunderball)? Excellent plot and a great cover. Remember how he tried to destroy Britain's agriculture with biologigal weapons and cover it with a quack allergy clinic in the Alps (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)? Well, the cover is stupid this time, but the plot still is intriguing.

Now, what would he do to propagate his evility in Japan? What a silly question, of course he'd tell everyone he's a botanist, buy an estate in a remote province, plant poisonous plants all over it and 'accidentally' leave a few holes in the fence, so that the honourable-suicide-obsessed Japanians would come and die there at their will.

Devious! Doctor Blovorkian threats the Universe once again!

I'm not going to uncover the reason why he does it. It is utterly moronic and implausible and senseless. It's not even impressive, there is nothing clandestine going on, no secret laboratories designing a poison that would destroy life in the Pacific, or something. It's all trivial and brainless.

I should also remark the author's attitude towards Irma Bunt, who on her first appearance, in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', was an unpleasant and nosy lackey of Blofeld's, and who in this novel became Blofeld's quasi-wife (which breaks the character for Blofeld, since in Thunderball he is said to be celibate) as well as a target for streams of bile aimed at her for no apparent reason ('She is too ugly to live', says a character that doesn't even know who she is. This is going too far) Thank goodness, they're both finally dead.

If I hadn't read the last 10 pages of the book, I would have given it two stars, since what I have written above is the impression I'd got by that point.

The last star is taken away by Bond's cliffhangerish amnesia in the end. How more cliche could it be? What's next? A life-threatening pregnancy from a secret lover?

This novel is too ugly to live. 1 star. Don't read it.