"Moonraker" Review

The second Fleming novel I decided to tackle is "Moonraker."  Why this one?  Well, the main reason is that I found a kindle edition for less than $2!  Not bad, eh?  But also, the film version is one of my least favorites of the series, so I was curious to see how it compared to the source material.  I had discovered that the novel has a good reputation in the Bond fan community, so my hunch was that it must not have a whole lot in common with the movie, which is certainly among the more ludicrous entries of the franchise.     

So what do I think of the novel?  

I'm pleased to report that I liked it.  I think it's a strong novel overall.  It's better, I think, than "Casino Royale," which didn't surprise me, since "Moonraker" was Fleming's third Bond novel.  By this outing (which was actually just a couple of years later), Fleming seems to have become a better, more confident storyteller.  The prose is stronger, and I get the sense that Fleming was feeling more comfortable as a writer.  His writing is more graceful here, feeling less forced to me than in his debut try. 

It was neat to see a bit of Bond's day to day work life.  The movies can make it seem like Bond is more or less constantly off on some adventure, but this book reveals that he may be on assignment just once or twice a year.  So the idea that his job often comprises a lot of boring office work was an unexpected insight.  Also interesting is the notion that Bond is sort of ambivalent about his work as a 00.  In "Casino Royale" he seemed okay with hanging it up after falling for Vesper, and here too he seems to groan at the prospect of doing the work much longer.  Does the Bond of the movies share this attitude?  Something interesting to examine, I suppose.

The book is fairly suspenseful and moves at a good pace.  The threat that is revealed is a good one, and I found virtually everything involving Drax, his backstory, and villainous scheme to be strong.  Drax is an intriguing and intimidating villain.  I like how much personality Fleming gives him (even if he does rely too heavily on descriptions of Drax's "barking" laugh).  I like that through most of the book, Fleming retains some mystery about him and what he is up to.  Drax's evil plans are not explicitly revealed until closer to the end.  Because of this, the climax is actually pretty tense and exciting.  Based on the two Fleming novels I've read thus far, I would say his books tend to get better as they progress (in both instances, I found myself getting sucked in pretty good at about the midway point), and that his endings are very satisfying.

             Gala Brand is a well developed female character.  While I realize that these stories will, as a rule, tend to feature attractive females for Bond to work with (and want to sleep with), I must admit that Gala's relationship with Bond doesn't pay off the way I expected it to.  How cool is it that, in the end, Bond doesn't get the girl?     

There's a lot to enjoy in "Moonraker."  In the spirit of being somewhat critical, however, I will point out that various elements of the plot seemed similar to things that happen in "Casino Royale."  For example, there is a lot of card playing, a car chase, Bond and the girl being captured and tortured.  It's not all handled in the same manner as it was in the prior book, but it did strike me as a bit redundant.  

Also, I read somewhere online that the basic premise of "Moonraker" was intended as a short story, and that Fleming ended up adding the early plot involving Drax's cheating at cards to flesh the novel out.  I suppose it all works okay, but I does have the mild feel of something shoehorned in.  But I suppose when it comes to writing sequences about gambling, Fleming just can't seem to help himself!

All in all, I liked "Moonraker" quite a bit.  Fleming definitely seemed to be hitting his stride as a writer with this entry.  I haven't seen the Roger Moore film in many years, but if memory serves, the movie is very different from the book.  So if they ever end up remaking some of the Fleming novels, "Moonraker" is one I'd love to see.     

"Casino Royale" Book Review

Well, I've finished "Casino Royale," the first of Ian Fleming's Bond novels.  It didn't take me very long to read it, really.  I appreciated that, since I often seem to gravitate to books that end up being long, and I'm not the world's fastest reader.  If the Bond novels tend to be on the shorter side as a rule, that'll be a plus!

My initial impression of "Casino Royale" is that it's very good.  There are aspects of it that are very strong, and the final third or so of the book verges on greatness.  But I'm not sure that overall it felt as seamless as it could have, or that Fleming communicates all the ideas he wants to convey as clearly as he intends.  It felt like I was reading a debut novel.  I don't mean that as too much of a criticism.  Fleming's natural talent for writing is clearly on display, but it seemed he wasn't yet in full command of his storytelling powers.  Still, for a first novel, it's pretty impressive.  I could even sense ambition in parts of the book, particularly in Fleming's efforts to create some complexity in his characterizations.

Regarding Fleming's writing style, on the plus side it felt lean and clear.  The tone also felt even throughout.  Fleming seems to be adept with language, and there is a certain precision to his word choices and descriptions that I admired.  On the negative end, the writing often comes across as bland.  Occasionally a sentence might contain a nice turn of phrase, but mostly the prose is straightforward and lacking much in the way of feeling.  There are some spots where Fleming gets a bit more reflective and philosophical, and I like those passages a lot.  

Most of the character work in the book impressed me.  Fleming seems to have a knack for writing believable and fairly engaging dialogue, and he did a good job conveying Bond's thoughts and internal experiences.

I was less enamored with the novel's plot, which didn't grab me right away.  To be honest, I wasn't very involved in the story at all until probably a third of the way through.  And even when I started to get more involved, it wasn't until the torture scene that the book finally became compelling enough to not want to put down.  From that point on, I basically loved the rest of the novel. 

I liked the book well enough, but a certain mild feeling of disappointment did color my reading experience.  The reason for this is because, more or less the whole time, I couldn't help but mentally compare what I was reading to the 2006 film adaptation.  It's hard to say how I'd have felt about the book without already being familiar with the movie.  To be honest, I think the film version is so much richer and more involving than the novel it's kind of astonishing.  The suspense, action, and even the romance all work substantially better in the movie.  This is definitely a case of a film being a significant improvement over its source material.



Still, that's not to say that the elements don't work fairly well in the novel.  They do.  It's all mostly persuasive, even if it doesn't have as much depth as I hoped for.  Perhaps my biggest wish for the novel is that Fleming would have devoted more focus to the relationship stuff.  It might have given the ending more of a punch. (This is where having seen the movie first poses a particular challenge.  Would the ending of the novel been more impactful had I not known what was going to happen?  I suppose it would have.) Fleming seems very interested in a variety of elements in the setting, background, and general plot, and so his focus is broad, and he spends a good amount of time exploring and explaining things that are less gripping to me than the action and romance.  For example, there were stretches of writing related to the story's gambling component that I struggled with.  I could sense that Fleming himself was fascinated by this, and enjoyed elaborating on it, but I'm not sure he did a great job persuading his audience to join in on whatever fun he was having.   

Regarding the character of Bond, I have read that Fleming wanted him to seem bland and uninteresting.  I don't know much about his reasoning for this; perhaps I'll try to research that more.  Regardless, if that was Fleming's intention, then he succeeded, because Bond is not a particularly intriguing or appealing character in this book.  Certainly he lacks the charm and likeability we've come to associate with him through the film series.  I will be very interested to see how Bond evolves over future novels.  Will there be, for example, more fun and humor in other books as the series progresses?  I wonder.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had been told that the Fleming novels are fairly serious and realistic.  I was happy to discover that "Casino Royale" felt that way to me.  Like I've said, I generally prefer my Bond to be dark, tough, and serious.  If those traits continue to be a hallmark of the Fleming novels, I'll be a happy fan indeed.