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A review by jdglasgow
James Bond 13 - Der Mann mit dem goldenen Colt by Ian Fleming
3.0
It’s kind of unbelievable to me that I’ve now read 13 James Bond books because I’m kind of hate-reading them. I mean, they’re… fine, I guess, but I kind of hate the main character, who comes across mainly as a bigoted right-wing buffoon. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is actually the final full-length Bond novel written by Fleming. It and the final book (a short story collection) were actually released posthumously. This book lives up to its predecessors by being thoroughly mediocre, although there’s maybe one or two scenes of a higher caliber that I’ll discuss shortly.
First, though, the book opens with 007 (he’s back to being 007 instead of 7777, sadly) arriving at MI6 having been brainwashed by the KGB into wanting to kill his boss M.! You may recall that he had amnesia at the end of the last book and this is the result. Of course, because Bond is such a shitty secret agent it’s immediately apparent to literally everyone he encounters both what has happened and what his plan is. They wrestle him to the ground and send him for some RE-reprogramming, to make him love the Tories again, which happens off-screen between chapters, and then he’s back to normal again. And that’s a wrap on that whole amnesia subplot. Pretty uneventful!
To earn his wings back, Bond is sent to Jamaica (of course) to pursue a legendary gunman named Scaramanga, known colloquially as “The Man with the Golden Gun” thanks to a literal golden gun he has. Scaramanga is a cold-blooded killer and a crack shot and is working for the KGB himself I think. Everybody’s pretty well convinced Bond’s got no chance of survival on this one. Scaramanga’s too good! Ah, but they’ve all underestimated Bond’s ability to take up space, start working *for* the bad guy (oh, but it’s a ruse, you see—honest!), and wait for somebody else to save the day. Here the person that saves the day is, of course, James Bond’s lover Felix Leiter. Oddly the book fails to describe their lovemaking in detail, merely implying it by giving Bond a spring in his step and a goofy smile on his face the next morning. It turns out Leiter and the F.B.I. are also after Scaramanga. In fact, they’ve got like professional spy equipment to record his conversations and everything, whereas Bond has to put his sweaty ear up to a champagne glass pressed to the door in order to hear every third word. Leiter, in the end, has a grand plan to capture Scaramanga and a whole gang of hoodlums on a train. Bond blows their cover by jumping the gun, so to speak, when he believes his former secretary Mary Goodnight has been tied to the tracks.
The reason Goodnight was tied to the tracks (or a realistic mannequin body double, at least) is that Scaramanga—like everybody else—clearly knows who Bond is because he is the world’s shittiest secret agent. So he essentially works FOR the bad guy, gets trapped on a train with his cover blown, almost messes up Leiter’s plans, and then in the end he’s got Scaramanga cornered and mortally wounded and yet he *still* manages to almost lose the battle as The Man with the GG gets one more shot off, the bullet dipped in snake venom. It’s played off as a result of Bond’s unwillingness to kill a man in cold blood, but my god. Give the man a lay-up and he still needs a fucking ladder to get to the net.
There is at least one positive thing to say, though, and that regards Scaramanga’s “origin story”, which is described in detail in his file. He was in the circus and trained an elephant named Max. Due to lack of care, Max developed mucus behind his ears which drove him into a rage; he stampeded the crowd, killing several, and then barreled down the railroad tracks for a while until he had expended his energy. The cops, being cops, fired at Max who by this time was completely docile. The gunfire threw him into a rage once more and he charged a second time, returning to the big top. Once there, he tried to resume his act of standing on one leg despite bleeding heavily. The cops, being cops, arrived and shot the elephant in the eye, killing him. Scaramanga took matters into his own hands, shooting the offending officer through the heart. He then absconded. The whole sequence of events—particularly Max’s pathetic attempt to rejoin the circus act—is heartbreaking. That’s definitely not typical of this book or of Fleming generally, but it’s nice to know that sometimes he can write. Just not often.
Among the whole series, I don’t know, it’s in the middle as quality goes? Nothing especially offensive. Maybe some Jamaican caricatures and a weird aside where Scaramanga is hinted as being homosexual because he can’t whistle (???) but not much. Nothing especially exciting either, except maybe that weird sex show Bond calls up with a woman writhing naked on a giant hand (???). In general, though, there’s better Bond no matter your taste. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN isn’t bad, exactly, but it is weak.
First, though, the book opens with 007 (he’s back to being 007 instead of 7777, sadly) arriving at MI6 having been brainwashed by the KGB into wanting to kill his boss M.! You may recall that he had amnesia at the end of the last book and this is the result. Of course, because Bond is such a shitty secret agent it’s immediately apparent to literally everyone he encounters both what has happened and what his plan is. They wrestle him to the ground and send him for some RE-reprogramming, to make him love the Tories again, which happens off-screen between chapters, and then he’s back to normal again. And that’s a wrap on that whole amnesia subplot. Pretty uneventful!
To earn his wings back, Bond is sent to Jamaica (of course) to pursue a legendary gunman named Scaramanga, known colloquially as “The Man with the Golden Gun” thanks to a literal golden gun he has. Scaramanga is a cold-blooded killer and a crack shot and is working for the KGB himself I think. Everybody’s pretty well convinced Bond’s got no chance of survival on this one. Scaramanga’s too good! Ah, but they’ve all underestimated Bond’s ability to take up space, start working *for* the bad guy (oh, but it’s a ruse, you see—honest!), and wait for somebody else to save the day. Here the person that saves the day is, of course, James Bond’s lover Felix Leiter. Oddly the book fails to describe their lovemaking in detail, merely implying it by giving Bond a spring in his step and a goofy smile on his face the next morning. It turns out Leiter and the F.B.I. are also after Scaramanga. In fact, they’ve got like professional spy equipment to record his conversations and everything, whereas Bond has to put his sweaty ear up to a champagne glass pressed to the door in order to hear every third word. Leiter, in the end, has a grand plan to capture Scaramanga and a whole gang of hoodlums on a train. Bond blows their cover by jumping the gun, so to speak, when he believes his former secretary Mary Goodnight has been tied to the tracks.
The reason Goodnight was tied to the tracks (or a realistic mannequin body double, at least) is that Scaramanga—like everybody else—clearly knows who Bond is because he is the world’s shittiest secret agent. So he essentially works FOR the bad guy, gets trapped on a train with his cover blown, almost messes up Leiter’s plans, and then in the end he’s got Scaramanga cornered and mortally wounded and yet he *still* manages to almost lose the battle as The Man with the GG gets one more shot off, the bullet dipped in snake venom. It’s played off as a result of Bond’s unwillingness to kill a man in cold blood, but my god. Give the man a lay-up and he still needs a fucking ladder to get to the net.
There is at least one positive thing to say, though, and that regards Scaramanga’s “origin story”, which is described in detail in his file. He was in the circus and trained an elephant named Max. Due to lack of care, Max developed mucus behind his ears which drove him into a rage; he stampeded the crowd, killing several, and then barreled down the railroad tracks for a while until he had expended his energy. The cops, being cops, fired at Max who by this time was completely docile. The gunfire threw him into a rage once more and he charged a second time, returning to the big top. Once there, he tried to resume his act of standing on one leg despite bleeding heavily. The cops, being cops, arrived and shot the elephant in the eye, killing him. Scaramanga took matters into his own hands, shooting the offending officer through the heart. He then absconded. The whole sequence of events—particularly Max’s pathetic attempt to rejoin the circus act—is heartbreaking. That’s definitely not typical of this book or of Fleming generally, but it’s nice to know that sometimes he can write. Just not often.
Among the whole series, I don’t know, it’s in the middle as quality goes? Nothing especially offensive. Maybe some Jamaican caricatures and a weird aside where Scaramanga is hinted as being homosexual because he can’t whistle (???) but not much. Nothing especially exciting either, except maybe that weird sex show Bond calls up with a woman writhing naked on a giant hand (???). In general, though, there’s better Bond no matter your taste. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN isn’t bad, exactly, but it is weak.