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Live and Let Die (Penguin Viking Lit Fiction) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ian Fleming
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 14725
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0141028327
EAN: 9780141028323
ASIN: 0141028327
Publication Date: October 26, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW! DISPATCHED WTHIN 24 HOURS VIA 1ST CLASS!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 A Period Classic December 22, 2008
C. Green (Faringdon, Oxon, UK)
As with Bond's debut, Casino Royale, Live and Let Die can only be reviewed through the prism of the time it was written. Judging it based on contemporary views and mores is pointless and unfair. It is as much a piece of period fiction as any work by Dickens, Elliot or Austen is. Yes, to contemporary ears the references to Negros, etc and the descriptions of 60's African American and black Carribean culture do sound at best incredibly old fashioned and at worst derogatory (although I do not believe they were intended to be), but all were considered perfectly acceptable at the time the book was written. Dismissing the entire book because it includes such old fashioned language and imagery when none of it is intended to be derogatory (and in terms of the descriptions of Harlem and Jamaica at that time may well be accurate) would be unfair and would mean ignoring the positives the book has to offer.
And there are many of the latter. As with Casino Royale, Live and Let Die is another first class thriller. Again Fleming's spare journalistic style gives the book a hard-boiled stripped down feel that perfectly complements a plot that is fast paced and never lets up. There is also more action than in Casino Royale, with Bond repeatedly involved in scrapes and lucky escapes as he takes on SMERSH agent 'Mr Big'. Add in some wonderful supporting characters such as the enigmatic Solitaire and returning CIA Agent Felix Leiter, the usual smattering of factual information that Fleming peppers his books with and a dollop of sex and you have a top class Bond novel.
It also manages to go a long way to eradicating memories of the Bond movie of the same name, with its veneer of 'Blaxspoitation' cool and obsession with voodoo imagery. Although voodoo does play a part in the novel this is a far superior effort compared to the movie. There are no hook handed henchmen or comedy American sheriffs on display here, and Solitaire is far from Jane Seymour's permanent damsel in distress.
In fact three of the best scenes in the book appear not in the film version but in the later movies 'For Your Eyes Only' and 'License to Kill'. Why the film makers chose to omit them first time around who knows, but they missed a trick by doing so.
So ignore the outdated imagery that especially impacts the first third of the book, accept that you're reading a period novel not a contemporary thriller and push all thoughts of Roger Moore in flares hunting down Heroin smugglers in Seventies New York out of your mind. That done you can settle back and enjoy a fantastic thriller on its own terms.
 Middling novel ..and yes it is racist November 21, 2008
Lieutenant Bookman (Surrey, England)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the second Bond novel. As such it falls short of the heights later attained by Dr No or On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Most chapters end on a cliffhanger, so we can see signs of Fleming working towards a tighter narrative structure than in the first novel, Casino Royale.
Is this novel racist - yes it is. I suspect Fleming was trying, in his own clunky way, to be 'liberal' by showing that as black people were 'improving themselves' they would throw up good as well as bad characters. But he is hamstrung by some sweeping generalisations. Not all black people believe in voodoo, and the idea that the entire black population of the US can be terrified by it is simply nonsensical. The statement that '(h)ardly anywhere in the world will you find a negress driving a car' was nonsensical even then. And the bit where Bond fears for Felix's safety in the hands of 'those clumsy black apes'....what the hell was Fleming thinking? Quite frankly I'm surprised that particular line got published even in the 1950s.
A reviewer on this site has said that Mr Big is respected for his criminal intellect, as is Quarrel for his local knowledge. Yes but no. Both are referred to as having European blood - the subtext being that any black man who distinguishes himself must not be 100% black. On the whole, the racism in this book is significantly worse than the standard '50s level of racism, sexism and homophobia which runs through the entire Bond canon.
If you want to read all the Bond novels, then by all means read this. But there's not much here for continuity purposes, except that you learn how Felix came by his disability.
Relaxing and Enjoyable Read July 18, 2008
Mrs. A. L. Maddocks
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This deserves better reviews than what it has been given.
Whilst this book might come across to some readers as racist to people reading in this day and age, lets remind ourselves of the times in which this book was written.
I thought this gave a good insight of the how the negro population lived, despite the American civil war being nearly a hundred years previously.
The books certainly show a vulnrable side to James Bond whereas in the films he is portrayed as invincible with an answer to everything and escape route to any given situation.
I gave this book a four star rating because of its easy read and its ability to keep the reader wanting to know what happens at the end.
Another super title July 15, 2008
S. Thompson (Devizes, Wiltshire, UK)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Having just read this book in two days I had to respond to the reviewer who called it racist and gave it one star.
Yes, the attitude of Fleming to black people is undoubtedly outdated by today's standards. However it certainly isn't racist in any supremacist sense. After all the villain, Mr Big, is arguably more intelligent than Bond and it portrayed in a convincing and extremely fair-handed way. Bond's helper in Jamaica is also black and is given much respect by Bond because of his local knowledge and attitude. Of its time - yes. Racist? Claptrap. These politically-correct attitudes applied to historical literature are to be ignored for the nonsense they are.
That dealt with, I can only recommend this book to all Bond fans, indeed anyone who likes a darn good well-written and pacy yarn. Infinitely more engaging than the film with Moore in the starring role.
Buy it, enjoy it.
Worth a read, but beware.... July 14, 2008
Craig Kilmurray (UK)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The world in which Ian Flemming grew up in doesn't exist anymore, and nothing shows this up more than his attitude to the people of Jamaica and Harlem. Flemming has achieved a strange mix in his observations, for me at least - from cringing to down right embarrassing.
Dated racial attitudes aside, the story is a typical original Bond novel, yes "even better than the film". Solitaire seems more believable, Mr Big is genuinely menacing, and the diving sequence has some real thrills.
Take it as a period piece, and you'll enjoy Bond develop in his second story.
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