I really really enjoyed this book. Once again, I read it with my head full of the film, and once again the bare bones of the story is very similar.
But in movie terms, this is where they started to deviate from the books to deliver spectacle. The end of the book (the actual attack on Fort Knox) is very different, but apart from that most of the other differences are superficial.
But actually the book was far more interesting. We see Bond in a desperate situation, he actually feels like he is going to die in a way that he never has before (although this was largely an effort to humanise him, the main critics of the series said they didn't like it because the main character was a ruthless killer).
The end of the book would not have made a great film - the last three Bond books that I have read were actually the first three movies, in a different order, and it is always the end that they play with - quite rightly - to give the movie a decent set piece at the end. Here they have taken the most liberties, because in the book there is no Flying Circus and the baddies don't even reach Fort Knox. And Oddjob is a massive bloke in the book.
But the pacing and the threat are great in this book. The critics seemed to think that From Russia With Love is the best book in the series so far but in my opinion it is not, Goldfinger is by a fair margin.

21.10.23 I re-read a Folio Society edition of this book. Generally, I agree with my previous comments - it’s best book in the series so far. The only thing that left a slightly and hasn’t taste in the mouth was the last couple of pages. Having saved the day, Bond then seduces a lesbian (Pussy Galore). I’m sure she was grateful for what he did, but the seduction seemed somewhat… unlikely. Still, a great book.

My journey through the James Bond chronology moved from the page to audiobooks this week, as I've been listening in acknowledged sequence on a cross-country drive from New York to California. I'm two days into my four day journey as I'm compiling my thoughts on a few of these, starting with Goldfinger as read by Hugh Bonneville. You may know Bonneville from various film and television roles, perhaps most notably Downton Abbey, Twenty Twelve and W1A. Interestingly, one of his first film roles was in a Bond film, where he had a few seconds of screen time in the not terribly good Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Bonneville is one of several British actors of note who tackled a Bond novel a few years ago, and he does a terrific job here of keeping the action rolling along, even through some of Ian Fleming's trademark slogs through technical tedium. Say that five times fast.

Goldfinger was first published in 1959, hitting the silver screen as the third - and for many, best - James Bond film five years later. It can be difficult when a film is so iconic to separate actors cast in certain roles from their description in the source material. Such is always the case with Bond himself, who I never picture as Fleming described, but sometimes an amalgamation of various actors who've played him in movies. Gert Fröbe, who played Auric Goldfinger in the film adaptation, is perhaps a foot taller than the character as described by Fleming, but fuck it; Fröbe is who I pictured.

Quite a lot of the book made it into the movie, though thankfully most of Fleming's renowned racism did not. In the book, Koreans are described as animals, confused with people from other Asian countries, and are generally made to look inferior to straight white men.

In previous books, Fleming has also used Bond and other characters to espouse his ridiculous theories about both women and homosexuals. Here, he gets uglier still...

"Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and ‘sex equality’. As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits – barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them."

God, what a fucking dick. It's like the Trump platform minus all the jingoism, racism and paranoia.

One notable area where the book differs significantly from the film is in the depiction of Pussy Galore, who here is a leader of a lesbian gang of cat burglars rather than the leader of a female flying circus. She's a more compelling character in the film, mostly because Fleming can't possibly introduce an attractive woman who doesn't succumb to Bond's manly charms, even if she is a lesbian. Tilly Masterson is also revealed to be a lesbian, and while she doesn't succumb to Bond's manly charms, it may only be due to her dying on a train platform; plus Bond was already turning Pussy Galore.

The book also stays away from Kentucky until the raid on Fort Knox, which is unfortunate because the scenes in the film on Goldfinger's horse farm are pretty neat.

I love the film, and I'd give it just shy of five stars. The book is docked a full star for Fleming's consistently ignorant bigotry, misogyny and homophobia.

The wonderfully detailed descriptions are back! Delicious! I even enjoyed the golf game which was thrilling, but most of all I enjoyed the food! :)
You also get more of an insight into who Bond is and how he thinks during the course of this book.

Running on fond memories of watching the Bond films in my childhood, I was recently inspired to pick this up. I wish I hadn't bothered. See, it wasn't the I didn't expect the sexism and the racism...ok I probably didn't expect the homophobia...but I didn't expect it to be so blatant! I expected useless women who's only function to the plot was to fall into Bond's arms or die, to be honest I'm used to it. I didn't expect a diatribe blaming homosexuality on women getting the vote. I didn't expect a character to die because she was lesbian. Admitedly, once a lesbian showed up I expected that Bond would cure her of this affliction with the power of his ALMIGHTY PENIS but, still, I can be annoyed that I was right and it did. Not to mention the child abuse thrown in to explain lesbianism. And, of course, the blatant racism. I'd expected that we wouldn't have any possitive characters who weren't white, but still, the out and out, blatantly stated racism was just too much for me.

I wouldn't recomend this to anyone and won't read it again. If James Bond is a real man that I think Pussy Glaore was better sticking with women.

Hmm. The book was different than the movie, and I hate to say it, but I think I liked the movie better. May have been because I've seen the movie so many times and this was the first time I read the book. May have been because Bond's flaws and insecurities were more obvious in the book. May have been the long paragraphs that have seen gone out of style.