I didn't think Golf could get more boring than it already is, then I read this book.

I stopped after the first disc, now almost two? months ago, and didn't touch it. Then I figured I would power thru on my drive to Houston this past weekend. It is already halfway through August and I need to step it up if I want to read all of the Bond books by the end of the year.

FYI, reading the books and watching the movies are two entirely different experiences. It's fair to say that the books inspired the movies, and that anyone wanting to read them should really toss out any preconceptions they have concerning the characters, plot, and general storyline.

Very different to the movie. Another one checked off the list.

Book: Goldfinger (1959)
Movie: Goldfinger (1964)

Summary: James Bond is set on the trail of the of gold obsessed crooked business man Auric Goldfinger. On his journey Bond encounters the deadly henchman Oddjob and the enigmatic Pussy Galore.

Differences: There a number of adaptation changes in the film for the better. The racism towards Oddjob is cut, the deeply homophobic Pussy Galore subplot is cut, Bond drinks much more in the book, and Goldfinger's ultimate plan with the gold in Fort Knox is somewhat different. The low-key sexism is similar in both mediums.

Verdict: The book has aged quite badly and the film is still considered one of the best James Bond films ever made. Not an especially hard choice really.

Book: 1/5
Movie: 5/5

Better than the movie even with the racism and homophobia

It never ceases to amaze me how Hollywood always got the interesting bits wrong in these. Sure they’re racist and homophobic in a classically English middle class way but the women in the books are fully realized characters, unlike the two dimensional playmates of the films. And it’s not as if the movie versions were paragons of anti racism. The action is fast and the story, though fantastical, holds together. Totally fun if you can read it in the context in which it was written.

I read all of the James Bond books when I was 13 because they were 25¢ each at the thrift store around the corner from my house. My family read constantly, but never anything too highbrow. Mom was an Agatha Christie fan, while my dad was loyal only to Stephen King. I read the James Bond books because I wanted to read, but had no idea where to start.

I identified with James Bond because he came from a poor background. As a white trash boy, the James Bond series exposed me to a kind of British sophistication that didn't exist in my immediate world, but it gave me a kind of hope because I knew that James Bond wasn't born debonair, he had to learn it. Like old Playboy magazines, which taught me how to tie a basic skinny knot, make a sloe gin fizz, and appreciate Norman Mailer, James Bond books taught me that a person of the lower classes could grow to transcend class, and interact as equals with members of all classes, even if he was eventually going to kill them.

Of course, it also taught me that the only things lesbians need to make them straight is a real man, which I later found out is not true at all.

Fleming's Bond is a vain, quite stupid, racist and misogynist pig. He's also reasonably rubbish at this spying lark. Seriously, he makes plenty of mistakes that should have ended up in his death. For the reader, alas he makes it out alive this time around.

Indeed, despite coming across as a vapid banality, somehow this Bond chap even manages to seduce a number of lesbians, who don't seem to be at all concerned with his casual racism. Oh, and he's the hero. The extended description of the round of golf must go down as one of the most tedious things ever put down on paper.

Even worse than the tedium, is the ludicrous plotline. Why on Earth the limp villain decides to spare Bond's life (despite having him as good as dead), is beyond this reader. I understand the need to further the narrative, but you'd think that Fleming could have come up with something a bit more believable than this.

This is a silly book with an odious main character. I see very little to recommend it.

Weak. Misters Bond and Fleming and I are taking a break now. This is the point at which the villain's scheme (and chief henchman) seemed truly absurd, and then shortly after foiling it, Bond falls for the oldest trick in the book and gets recaptured--in this case it was the old "you need a fresh typhoid vaccine before you can fly from NYC to London" line. The hell?

Yes, James Bond with your rather cruel smile, comma of black hair, and vast store of prejudices, we need to spend some time apart.