Live and Let Die (novel)
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| 2002 Penguin Books paperback edition 2002 Penguin Books paperback edition | |
| Author | Ian Fleming |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | James Bond |
| Genre | Spy novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | April 5, 1954 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Preceded by | Casino Royale |
| Followed by | Moonraker |
Live and Let Die, originally titled The Undertaker's Wind,[1] is the second novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. First published by Jonathan Cape on April 5, 1954, it is considered one of Fleming's most controversial novels due to its depiction of Afro-Caribbean people and voodoo. In 2002 for the first time in the United States since the book was published, the original title of chapter five, "Nigger Heaven", was used. In 1973 the novel was adapted as the the eighth official film in the EON Productions Bond franchise and the first to star Roger Moore as James Bond. Besides the film of the same name, major plot elements from this novel appeared in two other Bond films: For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Licence to Kill (1989).
Plot summary
James Bond is sent to New York City to investigate "Mr. Big", an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected by M of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in Harlem and Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the Welsh pirate Sir Henry Morgan. Although Bond is at first reluctant to take on the mission, his attitude quickly changes upon learning that Mr. Big is an agent of SMERSH and that this mission offers him a chance of retaliation for previously being tortured by SMERSH operative Le Chiffre and branded on his hand by a SMERSH assassin in Casino Royale.
In Harlem, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two decide to visit some of Mr. Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but Mr. Big is aware of their movements through his network of informers and they are easily captured. Bond is personally interrogated by Mr. Big, and he uses his fortune telling-girlfriend, Solitaire to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr. Big, supporting Bond's cover story. Mr. Big decides to release Bond and Felix with only a mild beating, but Bond escapes from the nightclub, killing several of Mr. Big's men in the process. Solitaire later contacts Bond and they escape together to St. Petersburg, Florida. While Bond and Lieter are scouting one of Mr. Big's warehouses that deals in exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr. Big's minions. Felix later returns to the warehouse by himself, is captured by Mr. Big's men, and is fed to a shark. Although he survives he loses an arm and a leg. Bond finds him in their safe house with a note pinned to his chest "He disagreed with something that ate him". After getting Felix to the hopsital, Bond investigates the warehouse himself, and discovers that Mr. Big is indeed smuggling gold by placing it in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish. Bond destroys much of the warehouse and feeds the henchman who captured Felix to his own shark without leaving evidence that he has discovered the coin-smuggling scheme.
Bond continues his mission in Jamaica where he meets Quarrel and John Strangways, the head of the MI-6 station in Jamaica. Quarrel gives Bond training in SCUBA diving in the local waters. Bond swims through shark and barracuda infested waters to Mr. Big's island and manages to plant a limpet mine on the hull of his yacht before being captured once again by Mr. Big. In the grand finale, Mr. Big ties Solitaire and Bond to a line behind his yacht and attempts to drag them over the shallow coral reef, with the sharks and barracuda that Mr. Big regularly feeds to keep them in the area finishing them. They are saved when Bond's limpet mine explodes, destroying the yacht. Bond and Solitaire are protected from the explosion by the reef, and they watch as Mr. Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barricuda.
Characters
- James Bond - A British Secret Agent, working for MI6, who travels to New Orleans, New York and Harlem to find a drug smuggling villain.
- Mr. Big - A Master of Fear, an influential government official for Harlem, Voodoo expert, plans to smuggle drugs throughout the world. His name is actually an acronym for Buonapart Ignace Gallia, his real name.
- M - M sends Bond on a mission to investigate an underworld of Voodoo headed by Mr. Big; who is suspected of financing 17th century gold coins.
- Felix Leiter - Acts as the CIA liason as Bond operator in New York, investigating the deaths of British agents who were the victims of Mr. Big.
- Quarrel - Bond's guide while 007 is investigating Mr. Big
- John Strangways - Chief Secret Service agent in the Caribbean.
Critical reviews
Racism
Reaction to the novel has been mixed, some critics have accused Fleming of barely concealed Racism and ignorance regarding the general social behaviour of black people in the Caribbean and America, as for instance when he describes a room in Harlem as :
"the air was thick with smoke and the sweet, feral smell of two hundred negro bodies[2]"
Fleming's writing style cannot divert attention away from his copious use of the word "nigger" in the novel. It is used, generally, in reference to black people and, specifically, in reference to Mr. Big. Fleming uses the word to denote people of passion who think by instinct, in contrast to Bond and white people, whom Fleming regards, as thinking by logic.
What contemporary critics deplore is Fleming's suggestion that Mr. Big's leadership qualities stem from his "French"—i.e., non-black— blood: the obvious inference being that people with "black blood" are biologically excluded from being leaders.
What divides critics is whether Fleming was consciously being racist or whether he unconsciously absorbed the racism prevalent in 1950s America.[3]
Sex
Fleming's natural English reserve has been blamed for his fumbling descriptions of sex scenes in Live and Let Die. Bond's love making techniques are rudimentary and Fleming does not give any thought to a woman receiving any pleasure from it. Instead, women are viewed as objects of pleasure to Bond.[4]
Fleming had a tempestuous love life; he had numerous affairs even though he was married, and there were frequent accusations of sado-masochistic acts in his relationships with women.[5] This has led critics to speculate over how much Fleming projected his own character into the figure of James Bond as Bond, too, has a dismissive attitude towards women.
For instance, Bond does not desist from hitting women and his rough handed treatment of women has been noted.[6]
Style
Live and Let Die was Fleming's second novel and critics have praised the development of Fleming's writing style as he gained experience and maturity as a writer. Originally written in serial form, Fleming developed the technique of leaving the reader in suspense at the end of each installment. His style is more mature, the language is more refined, apart from the derogatory racist references, and the plot is more taut than in Casino Royale.[7]
Adaptions
1973 film
After Sean Connery departed from the role of James Bond, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman needed to find a new actor to take his place as agent 007. After a substantial search, they picked actor Roger Moore for the lead role. The film was released in 1973, directed by Guy Hamilton, and was Moore's first outing as the secret agent.
The film is based loosely on the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. In the film, a drug lord known as Mr. Big plans to distribute two tonnes of heroin free so as to put rival drug barons out of business. Bond is soon trapped in a world of gangsters and voodoo as he fights to put a stop to Mr. Big's scheme.
Live and Let Die was released during the height of the 1970s blaxploitation era, and many blaxploitation archetypes and cliché are depicted, e.g. afro hairstyles, derogatory racial epithets (e.g. "honky"), black gangsters, and "pimpmobiles". The film departs from conventional Bond plot, generally focused on villains plotting to dominate the world, and instead focuses on drug trafficking, an activity often depicted in blaxploitation films. Additionally, the film takes place in African American cultural centres such as Harlem, New Orleans, and the Caribbean Islands.
Differences from film
- Physical description of characters.
- Mr. Big's real name went from Buonaparte Ignace Gallia to Dr. Kananga.
- In the novel, Mr. Big smuggled gold coins from Bloody Morgan's treasure, not heroin.
- In the novel, Solitaire's real name is revealed. Also, she does not, as far as we know, lose her powers after having sex; and in the novel, she used regular playing cards.
- In the novel, Felix Leiter was fed to a shark. This did not occur in the films until Licence to Kill.
- Baron Samedi didn't exist as a person in the novel. He was a voodoo myth and people thought that Mr. Big was Baron Samedi's zombie.
- The keelhauling sequence from Live and Let Die was used in For Your Eyes Only (film).
Comic strip adaptation
Fleming's original novel was adapted as a daily comic strip which was published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated around the world. The adaptation ran from December 15, 1958 to March 28, 1959. The story was truncated, omitting much of the detail and background information to compress the story into 15 weeks of strips, making Live and Let Die much shorter and less faithful than the previous strip Casino Royale. The adaptation was written by Henry Gammidge and illustrated by John McLusky. The strip was reformatted from its original cells and reprinted in full in the 1967 James Bond Annual, the only 007 strip to be reprinted in this way. Titan Books reprinted the strip in the early 1990s and again in 2005 as part of the Casino Royale collection that includes Casino Royale and Moonraker.
Publication history
The following are the publications of Live and Let Die.[8]
- April 5, 1954, Jonathan Cape, hardcover, first British edition.
- Jacket devised by Ian Fleming and executed by Kenneth Lewis..
- 7,500 total first edition copies were printed.
- April 1955, Macmillan, hardcover, first American edition.
- June 1956, Permabooks, paperback, first American edition.
- October 18, 1957, Pan Books, paperback, first British edition.
- October, 1959, Signet, paperback, American edition.
- February 23, 1978, Triad/Panther, paperback, British, ISBN 0-586-04521-X.
- 1981, Triad/Granada, paperback, British, ISBN 0-586-04521-X.
- 1988, Coronet Books, paperback, British, ISBN 0-340-42570-9. Introduction by Anthony Burgess.
- April 4, 2002, Viking/Penguin, hardcover, British, ISBN 0-14-100301-4.
- April 2003, Penguin Books, paperback, American, ISBN 0-14-200323-9.
- October 26, 2006, Penguin Books, paperback, British. Introduction by Louise Welsh
References
- ^ The original title was later used for the seventeenth chapter.
- ^ "Will the real James Bond, please stand up ?". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "Live and Let Die Review". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "Double O Nothing". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "The Real James Bond". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "Understanding 007". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "Live and Let Die Book Review". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
- ^ "Live and Let Die publications". Retrieved 2007-06-30.
External links
- Blaxploitation and Live and Let Die - from the article Cleopatra Jones, 007: Blaxploitation, James Bond, and Reciprocal Co-optation