📖 The Spy Who Loved Me Book Review (Visualized) | Is it Fleming's Worst?

The Spy Who Loved Me marks the last of the original reading 007 episodes that I remade into this new re-visualized format. From here on in, all episodes are going to feature in this new style. You could really help out tremendously by liking and subscribing to get this series more noticed. Enjoy this re-visualized episode. So, this was, if you've been following the series, my first time reading Ian Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me. Now, beforehand, there were only three things I knew about this book. [music] I knew that Fleming wasn't proud of it and therefore only lends the title to Eon Productions initially for the movie, but not the story. I knew that most Bond fans think this is Fleming's absolute worst. And I knew that Fleming wrote this from the perspective of a woman. >> [music] >> But I tried to cast all of these expectations aside and went into this with an open mind, not concerned that every Bond fan seems to think that this is Fleming's absolute worst. And just started to see what would I think of it. So, let's delve into this one. Before the deep dive into the review, though, those that watched my previous reading 007 episodes may know that I like to read these books while also listening to the audiobook. I always listen to the ones read by Robert Whitfield or his alias Simon Vance. [music] But since The Spy Who Loved Me is written from the perspective of a woman, I wanted an audiobook experience read by a female voice. I was aware that former Bond girl Rosamund Pike did a reading of this book, but going through the internet trying [music] to find it, it seemed unavailable and at least for me proved to be a difficult task to come about these days. So, I asked around through my audience and shout-out to my viewer Mark Mulcaster for sending me the audiobook I was looking for. The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming, read by Rosamund Pike. Rosamund Pike has the perfect voice starring as the main character Vivienne Michel, even throwing in some of the characters' Canadian accents here and [music] there. And I was delighted to find out she also did a little afterword after I finished the book. I hadn't read The Spy Who Loved Me, and of course it's very, very different from the film. In fact, the story bears almost no resemblance to the film at all, except for perhaps the villain Horror's metal-capped teeth from inspired Jaws. Of course, it's an interesting book because it's the only one that's narrated by a woman. And you think, well, why did Ian Fleming after writing all these Bond books decide to explore the subjective point of view of a woman? And he does it pretty successfully, I'd say, on the most part. I mean, Bond doesn't actually come in until about page 90. Uh and the first part of the book is taken up almost entirely with this girl's recollections of two very different types of love affairs in England. I mean, they serve as counterpoint for Bond's masculinity when he comes in. It's a kind of female view of masculinity, I suppose, the whole book in a way. If you never read the book, I highly recommend trying to get the Rosamund Pike audiobook to level up your reading experience of this dramatically. So, as mentioned a couple of times already, this is the unique book in the Bond Fleming library in the sense that this is the only one written from the first-person perspective of a female lead. The book is divided into three sections: me, them, and him. In the me section, we get a look in the life of Vivienne Michel, or Viv for short, a journalist with Canadian roots, first starting her life off in London. I couldn't help but picture Rosamund Pike now that I was listening to her throughout. The book mainly focuses on her love life, or in particular, the dreadful guys she's dating before meeting Bond about two-thirds into the book. Her first boyfriend was Derek, kind of an who just seemed out to get laid and went through all kinds of lengths to achieve this, including trying to get with her in a cinema box where the couple gets caught and thrown out. And after that experience, he immediately tries to do it again somewhere in the bushes where Vivienne unglamorously loses her virginity. Of course, Derek just leaves her after that. Classic Derek move. Later on, Vivienne starts working for some German paper and gets involved with her boss, Kurt, who seems to be a particularly robotic German with a very practical approach to love. Lovemaking is for the Tuesdays and the Fridays in the same precise manner or or something like that. Vivienne never really falls for the guy, but she enjoys that Kurt is very caring and precise. That's not until he accidentally impregnates her and turns out to be an even bigger than her first boyfriend and sends her off to get an abortion in Switzerland in the most unpersonal and business-like fashion you ever read about. Fleming really excels in writing people who are very easy for you to hate. So, Vivienne returns to her native Canada and starts a journey through North America. She stops in the Adirondack Mountains to work at some motel across the road, the Dreamy Pines. This is when we get to the thems section of the book. At the end of the vacation season, the family entrusts Viv with looking after the motel for the night before the owner, Mr. Sanguinetti, can arrive to take the inventory and close it up for the winter. When two mobsters by the names of Sluggsy and Horror arrive, and they start harassing Viv, making crude passages, constantly calling her bimbo, and with intentions to rape her. Of course, the book all builds to the him section, where two-thirds into the book, James Bond shows up, who happens to be passing by the road, coming off a mission in Canada, still on the hunt for Blofeld coming after the previous book, and ultimately saves the captive Viv from the gangsters. As you can imagine, in a life where you pretty much came across nobody but Bond kind of turns out to be her knight on the white horse. She falls in love with him, viewing him as the spy who loved me. So, let's start with Vivienne, as she's the main character this time around. For the most part, I really like Fleming's attempt at writing from the perspective of a woman. And we know from [music] previous books that he likes to write about damaged women. And Vivienne is a prime example of a deep dive into this. The focus is clearly mostly on her love life and horrible experiences with men in general, which [music] you as the reader can already feel are all building towards her eventual run-in with Bond, who's going to be her only positive image of a man. But for the most part, I found myself enjoying this different take and reading something so different and watch this character grow. There is a controversial line in the book where Vivienne claims all women like semi-rape, which is a typical sign of both Fleming's perception of women and a different time this was written in. It is definitely hit and miss and obviously not something that would age well through modern eyes. It might be a bit uneasy for some readers, but I always try to put things into the perspective of the times this was written in. And also, it is the sort of stuff that is typically Fleming in the most unglamorous way, but you also somewhat got to look at the context this line appeared in. It was said by Vivienne after the lovemaking of Bond, and she claimed Bond to be sort of the hero that rescued her from the metaphorical dragon, and she felt she was a reward to Bond, and she loved the feeling of letting her hero take her as a prize, so to speak. I'm not saying Fleming chose the best ways to describe this, but I'm saying it's definitely very Fleming. Speaking of, I wonder if Vivienne is sort of a female metaphor of Fleming's own life. I mean, a journalist escaping London, eventually finding solace in the arms of Bond. It is sort of about him when you think about it. What I also like is that Bond is uniquely portrayed this time around through the eyes of a woman. No internal monologue. We don't know any of what he is thinking. Yet, because of all the previous books, you do recognize him. And I found it so interesting to see how in control he seemed from the outside. Truly making you feel like hope and safety had arrived as soon as he knocks on that motel door where Vivian is held captive. It is somewhat ironic that Fleming wanted to achieve that his readers learned that Bond is not a hero to aspire to be as he has many flaws and is quite dark. Not necessarily someone to look up to. Yet, in this book, I found him to be more of a heroic gentleman than he ever was from the outside in. Through the eyes of Vivian, [music] he seemed very professional, in control of the danger therein, and totally capable of calming Vivian down and making her feel safe. By the time he saved the day, she's completely in love with the image of this handsome stranger that saved her life and made sweet love to her. It truly seemed like no matter which man she'll run into next, no one could live up to the impact that Bond made on her that one night. There might be many consequences for me. Not the least that I might now be dissatisfied with other men. But whatever my troubles were, he would never hear of them. I would not pursue him and try to repeat what there had been between us. I would stay away from him and leave him to go his own road where there would be other women, countless other women, who would probably give him as much physical pleasure as he had had with me. I wouldn't care. At least I told myself that I wouldn't care. Because none of them would ever own him. Own any larger piece of him than I now did. And for all my life, I would be grateful to him for everything. And I would remember him forever as my image of a man. How silly could one be? What was there to dramatize about this naked male person lying beside me? He was just a professional agent who had done his job. He was trained to fire guns, to kill people. What was so wonderful about that? Brave, strong, ruthless with women. These were the qualities that went with his calling, what he was paid to be. He was only some kind of a spy. A spy who had loved me. I found that passage somewhat poetic. It probably also illustrates exactly how multiple Bond girls would feel after their encounter with him. And to me, again, as a male reader, that fuels the fantasy element of Bond instead of warning me not to be like him. The rest of the characters appearing in this book are all deliberately written as either or backstabbers or a bit of both. Her exes, Derek and Kurt, are very easy to dislike. And knowing Fleming, he of course had to make Kurt a German. His dislike for Germans always shines through in his books and is definitely a sign of this being written shortly after the war. The gangsters, Horror and Sluggsy, seemed lifted straight out of a 1930s gangster movie. You almost picture a cartoony duo of gangsters. But then add in a bit of a creep factor of one of them wanting to rape her. The very two-dimensional mob-like characters working for the Mr. Sanguinetti. You can totally picture them saying stuff like, "Mr. Sanguinetti sends his regards." But that creep factor worked for me as there is a real sense of helplessness when they enter Vivian's life. She even tries to run into the forest away from the motel at one point, but gets bullets sprayed at her and is soon recaptured. It truly feels like there's no way out of this isolated area until Bond knocks on that door. They are definitely not terrific larger-than-life Bond villains. But then again, it doesn't really feel like a typical story in which Bond takes the center stage. For this story, they seem appropriate. They're not after world domination or funds for Smersh or whatever. They're just petty thugs, but they seem to fit in in this world and they seem like an actual threat in Vivian's world. I somehow went along on the ride and got creeped out just enough by these two. Plus, it makes it all the more satisfying when Bond finally shows up and teaches these two a lesson. So, normally, this is where I compare the novel versus the movie. But as stated before, Fleming did not want Eon to use any of the story elements taken from this book. So, the movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, really has absolutely nothing to do with the book. The only stretch you could find is that one of the two gangsters is described to be bald and the other one has some metal teeth, which [music] I guess are physical attributes of Sandor and Jaws. But really, that's about it. The movie is typical cinematic Bond at its finest. And the book could not be farther away from typical Bond. There really is no comparison. So, I went into this book with the expectations of reading Fleming's absolute worst. And I knew that Bond wasn't going to appear until 2/3 into the book. Knowing that beforehand though, and with my expectations set so low, >> [music] >> I was honestly surprised that yeah, I enjoyed reading this. I was never bored at all. Maybe it was Rosamund Pike's audiobook that lifted the experience up for me. But I got invested into the life of this stranger and just switched off that feeling of reading another Bond novel. Maybe that's simply the best way to go about this book. By the time Bond does arrive, it feels somewhat cool that this familiar character enters this world that is so not Bond. Yet, the way that Vivian eventually falls for Bond and his heroism makes her feel like a typical Bond girl in the positive sense that just happened to have a lot of backstory leading up to this point. To me, it felt like a curious look at Fleming attempting something completely different that I for one could appreciate. And honestly, I was expecting this to be his worst because of the reputation this book has, but was pleasantly surprised that to me, it was a more enjoyable read than, for example, Diamonds Are Forever had been for me. So, to me, this is not his worst. It's definitely different and certainly has its flaws. And it's not a particularly deep story. [music] It's rather a bit of a fictional autobiography of a character dreamed up by Fleming. Or more like a Bond girl's autobiography telling the story of her life before meeting Bond, so to speak. It's quite interesting if you look at it that way. If you have some hours to spare and want to delve into something completely different outside of the usual world domination and Cold War-esque thrillers that you come to expect like I did. Who knows? You might have an enjoyable time with it, too. Next time though, we'll dive into the book that has the reputation of being among Fleming's very best as we jump back into the second of the Specter trilogy, On Her Majesty's Secret Service. >> [music] [music]