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The Spy Who Loved Me (2003)

The Spy Who Loved Me (2003)

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Rating
3.4 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0142003263 (ISBN13: 9780142003268)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin books

About book The Spy Who Loved Me (2003)

This book was a disgusting piece of shit. Avoid at all costs....What? You want details? Okay. For one thing, I have no idea what possessed Fleming to write a book from a female first-person perspective. He is a misogynist. Trying to write from a female perspective when you barely acknowledge that women are human is problematic at best.It seems as if his main aim was to use first-person female perspective in order to write lurid and titillating (to an asshole male reader) scenes of sex from a woman's point of view.So much sex is in this book, and very, very little of it is even resembling consensual. The whole first third of the book is called "Me" and gives us all the history on our heroine, Viv Michel (Vivienne). Fleming, instead of describing her likes, dislikes, hobbies, personality, friends etc. - decides to give us an in detail rundown of her entire sexual history.It's very disturbing. I won't go into detail here, but let's just say that from the age of 17, pretty Viv is constantly, daily fighting off men's groping hands and sexual overtures. She has two real lovers, both of who are extreme assholes - one guy who sees her on the side, never ever telling her he's engaged to another woman, and taking her on dates every Saturday while slowly going further and further with her until he talks her into "giving her virginity" to him - which he doesn't even bother to do on a bed, instead he takes her on the floor of a movie theater, and of course they are caught, and she is shamed and humiliated and called "whore" by the people in the theater. Then he leaves her and never sees her again, instead writing her a letter saying "Oh, by the way, I'm engaged. Nice knowing you."Her second boyfriend isn't any better - a German Hitler sympathizer who is really fucked up about sex. He's engaged to another woman, and tells Viv - his employee and next door neighbor - about every single sexual thing he does with his fiancee in graphic detail. No mention of why Viv doesn't just tell him to shut up and keep it to himself. He puts sex on a schedule - twice a week, and has all these rules about sex that I won't get into, but it's weird. And very creepy.When his fiancee dumps him (jeez, I wonder why?) he insists Viv must "give him comfort." After two weeks they are regularly having sex. He's just as weird and messed-up with her. At no point does she try to tackle his sexual issues, but instead just goes along with it. Also, he makes her stop drinking and smoking, and she's no longer allowed to listen to jazz.Finally, she accidentally gets pregnant by him. He immediately breaks up with her and sends her to Switzerland to get an all-expenses paid abortion. She is heartbroken, but of course obeys and doesn't question him, or say 'no,' or make any decisions of her own.After the abortion, she goes on a fun road trip from Quebec to New York on her little motor scooter. She is, of course, still fighting off men with a stick (almost literally) the whole way. And this is not "fun, oh he's flirting with me," I'm talking about this woman - since she was 17 - being seen as a sexual plaything by every man, boss, coworker, neighbor, hotel employee - whatever. It's so disgusting and disturbing.SO. She stops at this motel and the husband-wife team say she can stay for free if she works as a receptionist. She accepts the job, even though the husband has fondled her breasts about three times in the 14 hours she's been there. She works there, ducking his groping hands every day and barring her door with a chair every night because he tries to rape her by breaking into her room every night.THIS IS ALL TREATED AS IF IT IS JUST NORMAL. As if this is exactly the life of a pretty girl and basically all she can expect. I was practically projectile vomiting during this whole novel. Don't even get me started on how Fleming describes the abortion. RAGE RAGE RAGEAnyway. The hideous couple leaves during the off season and Viv is left alone to tend for the motel. There is a huge storm. Two armed thugs break in. Now we have to suffer through about 20 pages of them groping her, threatening to rape her with very graphic language, stripping her, beating her into unconsciousness, etc. etc. etc. She valiantly fights against them and tries to escape numerous times, but is always caught and brutally punished for it. This makes it sound as if this is going on for days, in fact, this section represents only about five hours or so. Then, finally, in the last third of the book James Bond shows up. Just as the two were going to start raping her. Nick of time, right? He comes in, looking for help (he got a flat down the road) and immediately gets the gist of the situation. Long story short, thugs die, Viv goes to bed with James.And that, too, is really problematic. For one thing, both Bond and Viv seem to just completely accept that she's his "prize" and basically his reward for saving her life is getting to have sex with her. After her frankly horrible sexual past, and her EXTREMELY recent sexual assault life-and-death situation, you may think that she might not be feeling so romantic and sexy towards James. Did I mention that she was earlier beaten into unconsciousness and is very bruised and sore?NONE OF THAT MATTERS. Of course, she has sex with James. Of course, she is instantly in love with him and attracted to him. No need to recover from her ordeal, no need to perhaps deal with the fact that her sexual history is traumatic, and definitely no need to be gentle with her in bed, seeing as she is PHYSICALLY HURT and in pain. Fucking piece of shit!And then we have this gem:All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.Ah, yes, the finally nail on the coffin from Fleming. Bond is rough with her and forceful with her and doesn't really care about her pleasure - in a way that strongly resembles rape if she weren't saying yes and proclaiming herself in love with him - BUT THAT'S OKAY, BECAUSE WOMEN LIKE RAPE, Fleming informs us. All women secretly want to be raped and owned. That fighting and scratching and biting and trying to escape, saying no and crying and stuff is just you know, FOR SHOW. Ignore all that, it only makes sex more exciting for the man (and the woman, who is secretly loving it!) Fleming has put this in a lot of his other novels too (most notably the hideous FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE).I can't deal with this horrible book. I JUST CAN'T DEAL WITH IT. It's disgusting on so many levels.This is extra sad, because there are occasions when I enjoy Bond novels, and Fleming CAN make James a halfway decent guy sometimes (only halfway, though). However, just when I was starting to enjoy the series and get into the swing of things, he has to publish this shit. I don't care whether you are a male or female reading this book, it's not appealing at all. Actually, if I were a man I would be fucking insulted reading this book. It's fucking insulting towards men, too.Alright I've got to end this. I could rant for hours but I won't. DO NOT RECOMMEND. STRONGEST ANTI-RECOMMENDATION.ETA: And he leaves her! James Bond leaves her to wake up alone, in bed. I hate when people do this. Also, there's a dead body outside her window, the thug James killed last night. Just leaves her there to wake up in a cold bed with a dead body right outside after what was one of the worst nights she'd had in her short life. Real classy, James, you jerk.ETA 2: I do believe men can write good books from a female perspective. It's definitely possible - I've seen it. However, Fleming is not one of them. I just want to make that clear. The problem isn't that Fleming is a man, it's that he's Fleming.MOVIE UPDATE: Well, I must admit that I find all pre-Craig movies boring. I am just so bored. The movie has nothing in common with the book except for the title. The 'Bond girl' Anya was completely boring without personality or even many facial expressions. Her tone was flat and listless. Not that Moore's Bond is exactly a font of personality! The best thing I can say about it, and the only thing I enjoyed, is that Moore acts the gentleman. Even the villain was boring and forgettable in this movie. And they give Moore the cheesiest lines. I can't understand why any woman is sleeping with him, to be honest. I have no idea why she let Bond live in the end. It made no sense.I am not in the spirit of things, I know.You watched this movie growing up and because of that you are fond of it, I know.Jaws, I know.Perhaps I should stop watching the films to accompany the books. I'm not doing myself any favors, that's for sure.

Now, I am a Bond fan. I grew up on Bond movies. I know what Bond is and everything he stands for, and totally accept that. Hell, I get a kick out of it. It’s just too fun not to! The Spy Who Loved Me is actually one of my favourites, because of Jaws. He’s such an awesome villain!If you’ve seen the movie for this Bond story and think you know it- think again. I was thinking of Jaws, skiing, submarine cars etc… they are not here. The movie resembles this book only in name.It is narrated in the first person by Vivienne Michel, rather than in the standard Bond style. The book is divided into three parts: the first details Vivienne’s clumsy first relationships and why she is in a backwater hotel, the second has the gangsters showing up to cause trouble and the third is when Bond shows up and shit gets real.Yes, Bond doesn’t turn up until the third section.I think seeing Bond from this perspective is quite interesting. It would have been better if Viv wasn’t such a Mary-Sue, but the concept is definitely a good one. The problem is Viv’s tendency to be not very useful and the fact that Fleming has written from the female perspective dismally. There’s definitely still enough to go on here, but I just wish it had been executed better.Then there are the racist bits, mostly through off the cuff remarks about Germans. There is one nasty bit about a Lebanese girl being hairy, petulant and extremely smelly, as opposed to all the nice white girls… Definitely back in the 60′s here. I cringed internally but kept on, as it’s definitely a product of it’s time.Then there’s the bad, bad paragraph that made me actually say “Ooooh, that’s a bit far”:“All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful. That and the coinciding of nerves completely relaxed after the removal of tension and danger, the warmth of gratitude, and a woman’s natural feeling for her hero.”Oh dear.I can see where he’s getting at, but this is poor, poor word choice by today’s standards- possibly by 60′s standards too.Also, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a love scene where the woman is turned on by the fact that the man is sunburnt. SUNBURNT. With a very white bum. Oh baby, oh baby. Doesn’t that just get your engine revving like a Jaguar at a red light, hey ladies?The first section was slow, but fine. It did well at introducing Viv, though she isn’t the most interesting character to be inside the head of.The second section was actually really good. It gave off the right amount of threat and menace to make me nervous and excited to see how she got out of such a bad situation. The villains were a two dimensional, but I don’t expect any more from a novel of this length or style- again, remembering what we’re dealing with here.The third was good also, loads of action and sex. The sex scenes were poor, as I’ve mentioned already, but they did give me a giggle. My favourite line was: “I smell like Cleopatra”, which is exactly what one wants their one night stand to say! The action scenes were really good though, definitely the perfect Bond style.I wouldn’t say the spy loved Viv. It’s more like The Spy Who Fucked Me, but that would never have got printed!The book is fine, despite its shortcomings. It’s definitely a 1960′s novel through and through, and probably appealed to many men in its day. It’s intended to be a man’s book- again, probably why it was written the way it is, but there’s enough to keep women happy enough too. It kept me busy for an evening and reminded me a bit of why I find Bond such a hell of a lot of fun.2.5/5 stars (Which to me is a decent enough rating- it deserves it)

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I was not very wild about this particular installment.First off, it's quite short. The Bond stories by Fleming all tend to be thin, but this one is 50-60 or so pages shorter than a typical Bond novel. Given that most Bond novels are 200-250 pages, that makes this one pretty brief. By itself that wouldn't be a problem, but the first third of this book is all about a French Canadian girl's young adulthood experiences in school and working while having the occasional romantic misadventure. It's not a bad story, but the long and short of all that development is that she decides to go on a road trip south to Miami on a scooter to clear her head. That's an awful lot of elaboration to justify a road trip, and once things get into the "spy novel" aspect of the book (very little actual spying happens, really) all that background has no actual affect on the plot other than to serve as the occasional reference to how much better a man Bond is than any other man the protagonist has encountered.When Bond does finally show up, it's a pretty much random encounter. He arrives in the nick of time... but by accident. He just happens to appear at the motel where our lady narrator has taken up a little part time work on her way south. It seems the motel is owned by a sort of low-level mafioso type. The "mastermind" has a plan to burn the place down for the insurance money. If a few dead bodies get burned up in the place along the way then that's not going to bug the two thugs he sent along to get their hands dirty.That main plot isn't really up to the standard of international crime and massive secret organizations plotting to take over the world. It's a side adventure. In a computer game it would be a brief encounter with a few minor monsters designed to give a character a little extra experience and/or a treasure drop before encountering a minor boss. The boss in this case is mentioned, but never makes an appearance. Instead, we get two (suitably well drawn and described) thugs. Their dialogue is more than a little broad.The thin man said, "The lady's right. You didn't ought to of spilled that java, Sluggsy. But ya see, lady, that's why they call him Sluggsy, on account he's smart with the hardware. Sluggsy Morant. Me, I'm Sol Horowitz. They call me 'Horror.' Can't say why. Kin you, Sluggsy?" Yeah, OK. Cute, but a little slapstick for my taste.The narrative is generally good, if somewhat slavish in it's characterization of Bond, and there are a few odd bits. For example, in the first person narrative the protagonist often refers to Bond using his full name. James Bond was where I had left him, and, to keep him there, Sluggsy now kept up a steady stream of single shots.... Perhaps James Bond guessed the significance of this steady fire. That was a little odd. It was like listening to someone referring to himself in the third person. In this case, it's made weirder by the way the narrative jumps about between calling him "James" and "James Bond" apparently at random.I would be remiss not to report this next issue: We don't read Bond books in anticipation of a great characterization of women. However, I had hopes that this book might differ a bit from others and show a bit of development of the author when he spent so much time dealing with the perspective of a more-or-less developed female character. Granted, she's not portrayed as the sharpest pencil in the box, but she's basically a decent gal. Of course, she's hotter than she realizes and seems to alternately take that for granted and not realize it (a combination that many authors seem to find irresistible) but it was nice to see Fleming spend so much time trying to portray the mind of a young lady, even if that portrayal was generally a product of his time.Then...."All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful."Now, it is important to note that the word "rape" did have the same definition that it has now, but it also had a broader sense. Fleming is trying to describe there a more "vigorous" sort of sexuality, if you will. He wants to portray Bond as a "manly man" and he's getting at the strange appeal that the harsh and even cruel man can have to women when that harshness and cruelty are directed at other men--particularly rivals--is satiated by her stereotypically calming femininity, or more subtly if that barbarous maleness might even be utilized by the woman for her own purposes....However, the word "rape" has shifted away from the naughty "Ooh, you're so strong and forceful, baby!" meaning that Fleming was using. Now it is the more stark, violent violation concept, and those uses of the word that describe socially acceptable conduct, or even borderline conduct, are more or less gone. That means the casual use of the word is generally unacceptable as it evokes in the mind of many 21st century readers only the horrific crime of violence. Reading it in relation to the character of a woman in a piece of fiction is painfully obnoxious. I'm confident that Fleming didn't mean it in the way that most modern readers will understand that word, but that doesn't mean the reading experience is going to be better for that intention. It's not pleasant to read. It doesn't really matter if that's because it's dated and WE have moved on any more than it would matter if it were intentional and we should ignore it. A book like this is meant to be entertainment, and in our entertainment we shouldn't have to overwork our ability to justify the language of two generations ago. An astute reader is able to recognize it for what it is, but in this day and age, there's not a lot of reason why that reader should bother for something like a Bond novel. There are plenty of other books, authors and series available.Unless you're looking to read the whole Bond series or if you've got an afternoon to kill, I wouldn't really recommend this book. It's a quick, light read, and it has some action in it, but the overall story isn't up to snuff and in the scope of the whole Bond franchise it's really more of a diversion than an anything else. If you want a little diverting then go ahead, but it's more than likely you could find something else that would be better worth the time.
—Gary Foss

Although the fifth James Bond movie, 1967's "You Only Live Twice," was the first film in the series to radically differ from its source novel, perhaps no other 007 picture jettisons author Ian Fleming's original conception as completely as 1977's "The Spy Who Loved Me." In essence a remake of "YOLT," substituting nuclear subs for manned space capsules (check out the point-by-point comparison of the two films in Raymond Benson's excellent "James Bond Bedside Companion"), Roger Moore's third outing as Bond was a big, splashy, colorful and superbly entertaining film, sharing its title--and absolutely nothing else--with Fleming's original book. And this was quite deliberate, apparently, and by Fleming's request. The book, originally released in April 1962 and the 10th of 14 in the Fleming series, is, in many ways, the oddball of the Bond canon. It is the shortest of the 007 novels, the most sexually explicit, and, most significantly, is narrated in the first person...and by a woman, to boot! And whereas in the fifth book of the series, 1957's "From Russia, With Love," Bond didn't make his entrance until page 72, here, we must wait until page 90 (I am referring to the classic Signet paperback editions here; the run of books that was so popular during the 1960s, at the height of the "spy craze") for Bond to appear. Fortunately, it is well worth the wait, and his entrance at that point is as dramatic as can possibly be."TSWLM" takes the form of a manuscript that Fleming tells us was sent to him by a 23-year-old French Canadian woman named Vivienne Michel, and one that allows us to see Bond "through the wrong end of the telescope." Vivienne's manuscript is cleverly divided into three sections. In "Me," we learn of her background, including her childhood in Canada, her finishing-school years in London, and her two unhappy love affairs with men who turned out to be callous cads, leading to her decision to tour the U.S. on a Vespa and her short-term gig working at a motel near Lake George, N.Y. In "Them," we learn of how two thugs, Sol "Horror" Horowitz and Sluggsy Morant, had beaten her at the abandoned motel--for reasons unknown--and were about to sexually abuse her. And in "Him," we learn of the British secret agent who had happened by--"like the prince in the fairy tales," as she later tells us--and rescued her. Vivienne, as it turns out, is just as great a writer as Ian Fleming himself (ha ha!), and just as likely to use a plenitude of detail and product names while telling her tale. She is a very charming and self-assured young woman, who instantly gains our sympathies, and, in telling her own story, makes herself easily the most fully realized and (you'll pardon the expression!) completely fleshed-out female character in the Bond novels. Vivienne's tale is interesting to start with, despite its soap opera qualities, and turns out to be highly suspenseful and exciting by its conclusion. It affords us a look at Bond that is also unique in the novels; 007 had never before come off as so gallant, as such a white knight (the image of St. George and the dragon appears in the first section of Michel's tale as a bit of foreshadowing). And not just gallant as concerns the ladies; "TSWLM" gives us a glimpse into Bond's fair-play views on killing, too. When Vivienne demands to know why Bond just didn't shoot down the two thugs from a hidden position, Bond declares, "Never been able to in cold blood." And, in a moment that I just love, Bond tells Vivienne, "...these people are pros...By their own standards, that is." As it turns out, the two thugs are hardly a match for the man who had previously bested maniacs such as Red Grant and Oddjob, but still manage to give him a tough time. Bond, ultimately, has never seemed so appealing, as revealed in the farewell letter that he pens to Vivienne on motel stationery. No wonder Vivienne falls in love with him after just one night, and needs to be reminded by a fatherly state trooper that men like Bond, as well as the enemies they fight, are practically "a different species" altogether than the rest of us.Though almost 50 years old as of this writing, "TSWLM" remains remarkably fresh, if a tad dated in spots. References to Jack Kennedy, Trans-Canada Airlines, cheap gas in America (Vivienne tells us that her Vespa would be able to cruise for only $1 a day!) and $8 motels seem like time-capsule items from another age, and yet, the book is as thrilling today as it must have been five decades ago. Fleming, apparently, was dissatisfied with the novel--one that almost comes off like a breather between the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. nastiness of "Thunderball" (1961) and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1963)--hence his insistence on ditching the story when it was ultimately brought to the screen. It turns out that Fleming was a better writer than he was a critic, however. This is, quite simply, a marvelous, smashing tale, and one that this old Bond fan simply adores. Like the best of the Bond books, it is one that will leave readers both shaken AND stirred....
—Sandy

At this point in the series, Ian Fleming is on a rich vein of form - For Your Eyes Only, then Thunderball and now this ... (and OHMSS has started off very well too). I have to say though, this book swerved from being my least favourite Bond novel at about the halfway point, to my most favourite by two thirds through. I don't understand quite why that happened. It's very ... *very* different from every other in the series. It reminds me of a serious version of the Austin Powers idea of taking the baddie's henchmen that Powers kills and giving them a backstory that gives them flesh and blood and a rationale and sympathy from the audience, before Powers drives by and shoots them in cold blood while trying to escape. This tale is told entirely from the point of view of a "Bond Girl" very innocently caught up in a mob-driven plot to burn down a motel as an insurance scam. Even Bond appears purely as a coincidence to rescue her simply because his car had a puncture on the way back from catching a SPECTRE bad-guy in Canada.In the first part, I found the book perplexing - why were we being introduced to this girl, why was Fleming giving her such a disappointing series of sexual encounters and then leaves her in a storm alone in a motel in the Adirondack mountains. In part two, I hated Fleming for putting her through a series of distressingly sexual abuses (stopping short of her being raped ... but only just).And then .... and then Bond arrives ... and it all made sense. This is the reason women fall for Bond - normally we see the women appear halfway through Bond's adventure, but Bond appearing (literally) from nowhere halfway through her's, saving her life in a dashing, brave, devil may care way, the same cruel disregard for life as her attackers, but on her side ... the yank of the change of perspective from the other books, is almost breathtaking and I was very impressed. This was a very brave novel to give to his audience - an audience that just really wanted more of the same - and I'm not sure that its effect would be as emphatic had I not read all the other novels in sequence in such short order. Also, I'm not sure Fleming is a good enough writer to write successfully a whole novel from the perspective of a 23 year old French Canadian girl - certainly lots of the description could well have come from the mouth of Bond in other novels. But it's been a long time since I changed my point of view of a book so thoroughly in such a short sequence of pages, and for that I have to applaud Fleming.
—Phil

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