My adventures of reading through the James Bond novels is going slowly, but that’s not Live and Let Die‘s fault. I think I honestly enjoyed this one more than Casino Royale (as a book). There’s more action, more destinations, and a villain that casts a much bigger shadow both metaphorically and literally. I’ll go over some of what I enjoyed about the book and bring up some shortcomings as well, so continue reading for my full review…
Take that Title Literally
While I haven’t seen the movie for Live and Let Die, I can comfortably say that the title is a great fit for the book. The threat of death is constant in this book, with the scrapes being closer and far more frequent than they were in the first novel. I mentioned in my review for the first novel (when I was trying to blog through Facebook’s discontinued notes feature), there are some key differences between the book Bond and the movie Bond, but here’s a quick section on it.
Book Bond and Movie Bond are Different
The majority of James Bond movies will try to convince you the MI6 00 agent is invincible, or at least superhuman. The books are quite the opposite. Bond occasionally survives scrapes with death on accident, and the hits he takes are often crippling, forcing him to work around broken fingers, bullet wounds, and more instead of grimacing for a moment and then jumping heroically back into battle in the next scene.
Emotionally, James Bond is more vulnerable than any of the movie versions, at least before Daniel Craig’s movies premiered. The narrator gives insights into his fears, his affections, his insecurities, and other emotions. Craig’s Bond shows emotions more than previous iterations, but I still think Fleming’s Bond is the most human, and by a fair margin.
Book Bond is black-haired, with a “comma” of it usually swooping down over his forehead, making Brosnan, Connery, Moore, and Dalton’s portrayals more accurate visually than Craig’s. Otherwise, descriptions are at a minimum. His genetic heritage isn’t even revealed until later books, meaning a non-white Bond could be accurate. While I’m on the topic…
Live and Let Die uses Slurs… Lots of Them
Don’t read this book if you don’t want to read racial slurs. Think of the book as having that content warning slapped right on the front of it. The book was published in 1954, so some terms that are unacceptable today were in common use back then. That doesn’t mean the use was okay back then, I’m just trying to warn people that if you wouldn’t read Huckleberry Finn because you don’t want to read racial slurs, don’t read this book either.
Is the book racist? I’ll leave that for you to decide. To make that judgement for yourself, know the following: the villain is a black man, and many of his cronies are as well. Not all black people are depicted as villains in the book, however. Some characters seem to be implied as black and work hospitality jobs. The book is set in 1950’s, with the first portion of the book taking place in Harlem. The action takes Bond to Louisiana, Florida, and ultimately Jamaica, places where the villain is running a gold coin smuggling operation.
Is Live and Let Die Worth Reading?
The action brings a better sense of pace and a more traditional 3-act or 5-act kind of structure to the book than Casino Royale‘s plot derailment about 3/4 of the way through. It feels more like a traditional thriller book, and even includes some shark attacks, complete with gore for good measure.
If reading racial slurs in a book where such are historically common (instead of deliberately insulting) isn’t an issue for you, give Live and Let Die a try. It’s not my favorite novel by any means, and it doesn’t have a whole lot of depth, but it feels like Fleming is really finding out what he wants Bond to be with this book. You don’t need to read Casino first either.
I give Live and Let Die a 6 out of 10. That may sound low, but the plot is a little formulaic and the characters don’t grow and change much, outside of Solitaire. Leiter is more interesting than he was in Casino Royale, but not by a lot. There’s a lot of descriptions of food for some reason, and I don’t know why. Bond orders breakfast a lot. The villain’s choices do make me wish he had more “on-screen” time, especially because his final appearance is incredibly well-written. The book is brief with chapters averaging 15-20 minutes. I marched through it quick enough on my phone’s Kindle app.
Want to Read My Book?
Like Ian Fleming, I wrote a book. Unlike Ian Fleming, mine is a fantasy story about an angel who has forgotten his past life, and must forge his own destiny in a world torn apart by a generations-long magical war.
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