Live and Let Die (novel)
Encyclopedia
Live and Let Die is the second novel in Ian Fleming
's James Bond
series, first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape
on 5 April 1954, where the initial print run of 7,500 copies quickly sold out. As with Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale
, Live and Let Die was broadly well received by the critics. The novel was written at Fleming's 'Goldeneye' estate in Jamaica before Casino Royale was published and much of the background came from Fleming's own experiences of travel in the US and his knowledge of Jamaica itself.
The story centres on Bond's pursuit of an American criminal, Mr Big, who has links to the American criminal network, the world of voodoo and SMERSH, an arm of the Russian secret service, all of which are a threat to the West. Bond becomes involved in the US through Mr. Big's smuggling of 17th century gold coins from British territories in the Caribbean. Themes that run through the novel include the ongoing East-West struggle of the Cold War
, race relations and friendship.
Following an adaption in 1958-59 by John McLusky
in the Daily Express
in comic strip format, the novel was adapted in 1973 as the eighth 'official' film
in the Eon Productions
Bond series and the first to star Roger Moore
as James Bond. Major plot elements from the novel were also incorporated into two other Bond films: For Your Eyes Only
, released in 1981 and Licence to Kill
, released in 1989.
, to New York City
to investigate "Mr. Big", real name Buonapart Ignace Gallia, an agent of SMERSH and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected 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 pirate Sir Henry Morgan
.
In New York, 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 are subsequently captured. Bond is personally interrogated by Mr. Big, who uses his fortune telling-girlfriend, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), 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 Leiter and has one of his men break one of Bond's fingers. Bond escapes, killing several of Mr. Big's men in the process, whilst Leiter is released by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz.
Solitaire later contacts Bond and they travel to St. Petersburg, Florida
. While Bond and Leiter are scouting one of Mr. Big's warehouses used for storing exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr. Big's minions. Felix later returns to the warehouse by himself, but is either captured and fed to a shark or tricked into standing on a trap door over the shark tank: he survives, but 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 hospital, Bond investigates the warehouse himself and discovers that Mr. Big is smuggling gold by placing it in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish. Bond is attacked in the warehouse by Mr. Big's gunman, the "Robber", and the resultant gunfight destroys many of the tanks in the warehouse: Bond tricks the Robber and causes him to fall into the shark tank.
Bond then continues his mission in Jamaica where he meets Quarrel and John Strangways, the head of the MI6 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. The following morning, Mr. Big ties Solitaire and Bond to a line behind his yacht and plans to drag them over the shallow coral reef
and into deeper water so that the sharks and barracuda that he attracts in to the area with regular feedings will eat them.
Bond and Solitaire are saved when the limpet mine explodes moments before they are dragged over the reef: though temporarily stunned by the explosion and injured on the coral Bond and Solitaire are protected from the explosion by the reef, and Bond watches as Mr. Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barracuda. Quarrel then rescues Bond and Solitaire.
Live and Let Die, like others Bond novels, reflects the changing roles of Britain and America during the 1950s and the perceived threat from the Soviet Union to both nations. Unlike Casino Royale
, whose Cold War politics revolve around British-Soviet tensions, in Live and Let Die Bond arrives in Harlem to protect America from the Soviets working through the Black Power movement: America was the Soviet objective and Bond comments "that New York 'must be the fattest atomic-bomb target on the whole face of the world'". Bond’s briefing also provides an opportunity for Fleming to offer his views through his characters and "M and Bond…offer their views on the ethnicity of crime, views that reflected ignorance, the inherited racialist prejudices of London clubland"; Academic Jeremy Black
has pointed out that "the frequency of his references and his willingness to offer racial stereotypes [was] typical of many writers of his age". Writer Louise Welsh
observed that "Live and Let Die taps into the paranoia that some sectors of white society were feeling" as the civil rights movements challenged prejudice and inequality.
Friendship is another key element of Live and Let Die, where the importance of male friends and allies shows through in the form of Leiter and Quarrel. The more complete character profiles of the novel also aid the storyline with regards to the shark attack on Leiter and Bond's strengthened motives for chasing Mr Big.
train to St. Petersburg
in Florida and then on to Jamaica. Once in Jamaica, at his Goldeneye estate, Fleming started work on the second Bond novel; this was intended to be of a more serious tone, a meditation on the nature of evil and the novel's original title, The Undertaker's Wind, reflects this. Fleming conducted research for Live and Let Die and completed the novel before Casino Royale was published: shortly after Live and Let Die was completed, Casino Royale was published, selling out its first two print runs within a month. Sales were successful enough that his publishers, Jonathan Cape, offered him a contract for three further Bond novels.
Much of the novel drew from Fleming's personal experiences: the opening of the novel, with Bond's arrival at New York's Idlewild Airport
was inspired by Fleming's own arrivals in 1941 and 1953 and the warehouse at which Felix Leiter is attacked by a shark was based on a warehouse Fleming had visited in 1953, as well as much of the journey Fleming and his wife had undertaken. Fleming's friends also had their names used throughout the story, with friend Ivar Bryce giving his name to the alias used by Bond, whilst friend Tommy Leiter found his surname being used for Felix Leiter; Ivar Bryce's middle name of Felix was used for Leiter's christian name. Fleming's experiences on his first scuba dive with Jacques Cousteau in 1953 provided much of the description of Bond's swim to Mr. Big's boat, whilst the concept of the limpet-mining "may well be based on the extraordinary wartime activities of the 10th Light Flotilla
, an elite unit of Italian navy frogmen". Fleming also used, and extensively quoted, information about voodoo from his friend Patrick Leigh Fermor
's book The Traveller's Tree.
analysed Fleming’s writing style and identified what he described as the "Fleming Sweep": a stylistic point that sweeps the reader from one chapter to another using 'hooks' at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader into the next: Benson felt that the "Fleming Sweep never achieves a more engaging rhythm and flow" than in Live and Let Die.
On 8 May 1954, Live and Let Die was banned in Ireland by C. J. O'Reilly, a member of the Irish Censorship of Publications Board
. Fleming biographer, Andrew Lycett
noted that "the banning of Live and Let Die in Ireland in May helped the general publicity".
noted "How wincingly well Mr Fleming writes", whilst his colleague in his sister paper, The Times
, thought that "This is an ingenious affair, full of recondite knowledge and horrific spills and thrills - of slightly sadistic excitements also - though without the simple and bold design of its predecessor" Elizabeth L Sturch, writing in The Times Literary Supplement
observed that Fleming was "without doubt the most interesting recent recruit among thriller-writers" and that Live and Let Die "fully maintains the promise of ...Casino Royale. Tempering her praise of the book, Sturch thought that "Mr. Fleming works often on the edge of flippancy, rather in the spirit of a highbrow". Overall, however, she considered that the novel "contains passages which for sheer excitement have not been surpassed by any modern writer of this kind". The Daily Telegraph considered that "the book is continually exciting, whether it takes us into the heart of Harlem or describes an underwater swim in shark-infested waters; and it is more entertaining because Mr. Fleming does not take it all too seriously himself", whilst George Malcolm Thompson, writing in the Evening Standard
believed Live and Let Die to be "tense; ice-cold, sophisticated; Peter Cheyney
for the carriage trade".
Anthony Boucher
in The New York Times
- described by a Fleming biographer, John Pearson
as "throughout an avid anti-Bond and an anti-Fleming man" - thought that the "high-spots are all effectively described...but the narrative is loose and jerky". Boucher concluded that Live and Let Die was "a lurid meller contrived by mixing equal parts of Oppenheim and Spillane". In June 1955 Raymond Chandler
was visiting the poet Stephen Spender
in London when he was introduced to Fleming; Fleming subsequently sent Chandler a copy of Live and Let Die and in response Chandler wrote that Fleming was "probably the most forceful and driving writer of what I suppose still must be called thrillers in England".
Live and Let Die 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 15 December 1958 to 28 March 1959. The adaptation was written by Henry Gammidge and illustrated by John McLusky
, whose drawings of Bond had an resemblance to Sean Connery
, the actor who portrayed Bond three years later.
Live and Let Die (1973)
Live and Let Die, a film based loosely on the novel, was released in 1973
. The film was directed by Guy Hamilton
, produced by Albert R. Broccoli
and Harry Saltzman
and starred Roger Moore
in his first outing as the secret agent. 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.
Scenes used (1981 and 1989)
Some scenes from this novel were depicted in later Bond films, including the keelhauling sequence, which was used in the film adaptation of For Your Eyes Only
, whilst Felix Leiter was not fed to a shark until Licence to Kill
, which also faithfully adapts Live and Let Dies shoot-out in the warehouse.
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
's James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
series, first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
on 5 April 1954, where the initial print run of 7,500 copies quickly sold out. As with Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale
Casino Royale (novel)
Casino Royale is Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. It paved the way for a further eleven novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections, followed by many "continuation" Bond novels by other authors....
, Live and Let Die was broadly well received by the critics. The novel was written at Fleming's 'Goldeneye' estate in Jamaica before Casino Royale was published and much of the background came from Fleming's own experiences of travel in the US and his knowledge of Jamaica itself.
The story centres on Bond's pursuit of an American criminal, Mr Big, who has links to the American criminal network, the world of voodoo and SMERSH, an arm of the Russian secret service, all of which are a threat to the West. Bond becomes involved in the US through Mr. Big's smuggling of 17th century gold coins from British territories in the Caribbean. Themes that run through the novel include the ongoing East-West struggle of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, race relations and friendship.
Following an adaption in 1958-59 by John McLusky
John McLusky
John McLusky is a former comics artist best known as the original artist of the comic strip featuring Ian Fleming's James Bond.-Biography:...
in the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
in comic strip format, the novel was adapted in 1973 as the eighth 'official' film
Live and Let Die (film)
Live and Let Die is the eighth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman...
in the Eon Productions
EON Productions
Eon Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom...
Bond series and the first to star Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
as James Bond. Major plot elements from the novel were also incorporated into two other Bond films: For Your Eyes Only
For Your Eyes Only (film)
For Your Eyes Only is the twelfth spy film in the James Bond series and the fifth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It marked the directorial debut of John Glen, who had worked as editor and second unit director in three other Bond films. The screenplay by Richard Maibaum...
, released in 1981 and Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill, released in 1989, is the sixteenth entry in the Eon Productions James Bond series and the first one not to use the title of an Ian Fleming novel. It marks Timothy Dalton's second and final performance in his brief tenure in the lead role of James Bond...
, released in 1989.
Plot
British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent by his superior, MM (James Bond)
M is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, as well as the films in the Bond franchise. The head of MI6 and Bond's superior, M has been portrayed by three actors in the official Bond film series: Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and since 1995 by Judi Dench. Background =Ian Fleming...
, to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to investigate "Mr. Big", real name Buonapart Ignace Gallia, an agent of SMERSH and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
and Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
by the pirate Sir Henry Morgan
Henry Morgan
Admiral Sir Henry Morgan was an Admiral of the Royal Navy, a privateer, and a pirate who made a name for himself during activities in the Caribbean, primarily raiding Spanish settlements...
.
In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, Felix Leiter
Felix Leiter
Felix Leiter is a fictional CIA agent created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond series of novels and films. In both, Leiter works for the CIA and assists Bond in his various adventures as well as being his best friend. In further novels Leiter joins the Pinkerton Detective Agency and in the film...
. The two decide to visit some of Mr. Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but are subsequently captured. Bond is personally interrogated by Mr. Big, who uses his fortune telling-girlfriend, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), 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 Leiter and has one of his men break one of Bond's fingers. Bond escapes, killing several of Mr. Big's men in the process, whilst Leiter is released by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz.
Solitaire later contacts Bond and they travel to St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. It is known as a vacation destination for both American and foreign tourists. As of 2008, the population estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau is 245,314, making St...
. While Bond and Leiter are scouting one of Mr. Big's warehouses used for storing exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr. Big's minions. Felix later returns to the warehouse by himself, but is either captured and fed to a shark or tricked into standing on a trap door over the shark tank: he survives, but 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 hospital, Bond investigates the warehouse himself and discovers that Mr. Big is smuggling gold by placing it in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish. Bond is attacked in the warehouse by Mr. Big's gunman, the "Robber", and the resultant gunfight destroys many of the tanks in the warehouse: Bond tricks the Robber and causes him to fall into the shark tank.
Bond then continues his mission in Jamaica where he meets Quarrel and John Strangways, the head of the MI6 station in Jamaica. Quarrel gives Bond training in scuba diving
Scuba diving
Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....
in the local waters. Bond swims through shark and barracuda infested waters to Mr. Big's island and manages to plant a limpet mine
Limpet mine
A limpet mine is a type of naval mine attached to a target by magnets; they are so named because of their superficial similarity to the limpet, a type of mollusk....
on the hull of his yacht before being captured once again by Mr. Big. The following morning, Mr. Big ties Solitaire and Bond to a line behind his yacht and plans to drag them over the shallow coral reef
Coral reef
Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...
and into deeper water so that the sharks and barracuda that he attracts in to the area with regular feedings will eat them.
Bond and Solitaire are saved when the limpet mine explodes moments before they are dragged over the reef: though temporarily stunned by the explosion and injured on the coral Bond and Solitaire are protected from the explosion by the reef, and Bond watches as Mr. Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barracuda. Quarrel then rescues Bond and Solitaire.
Characters and themes
Fleming builds the main character in Live and Let Die to make Bond come across as a more human character than he was in Casino Royale, coming across as "a much warmer, more likeable man from the opening chapter". Similarly, over the course of the book, Felix Leiter develops and also comes across as a more complete and human character and their friendship is evident in the story.Live and Let Die, like others Bond novels, reflects the changing roles of Britain and America during the 1950s and the perceived threat from the Soviet Union to both nations. Unlike Casino Royale
Casino Royale (novel)
Casino Royale is Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. It paved the way for a further eleven novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections, followed by many "continuation" Bond novels by other authors....
, whose Cold War politics revolve around British-Soviet tensions, in Live and Let Die Bond arrives in Harlem to protect America from the Soviets working through the Black Power movement: America was the Soviet objective and Bond comments "that New York 'must be the fattest atomic-bomb target on the whole face of the world'". Bond’s briefing also provides an opportunity for Fleming to offer his views through his characters and "M and Bond…offer their views on the ethnicity of crime, views that reflected ignorance, the inherited racialist prejudices of London clubland"; Academic Jeremy Black
Jeremy Black (historian)
Jeremy Black MBE is a British historian and a Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute...
has pointed out that "the frequency of his references and his willingness to offer racial stereotypes [was] typical of many writers of his age". Writer Louise Welsh
Louise Welsh
Louise Welsh is an author of short stories and novels, based in Glasgow, Scotland.Welsh studied History at Glasgow University and traded in second-hand books for several years before publishing her first novel....
observed that "Live and Let Die taps into the paranoia that some sectors of white society were feeling" as the civil rights movements challenged prejudice and inequality.
Friendship is another key element of Live and Let Die, where the importance of male friends and allies shows through in the form of Leiter and Quarrel. The more complete character profiles of the novel also aid the storyline with regards to the shark attack on Leiter and Bond's strengthened motives for chasing Mr Big.
Background
In January 1953, still four months before Casino Royale was published, Fleming and his wife Ann flew to New York before taking the Silver MeteorSilver Meteor
The Silver Meteor is a 1389-mile passenger train route operated by Amtrak in the Silver Service brand, running from New York City, New York, south to Miami, Florida, via the Northeast Corridor to Washington, D.C., thence via Richmond, Virginia; Fayetteville, North Carolina; North Charleston, South...
train to St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. It is known as a vacation destination for both American and foreign tourists. As of 2008, the population estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau is 245,314, making St...
in Florida and then on to Jamaica. Once in Jamaica, at his Goldeneye estate, Fleming started work on the second Bond novel; this was intended to be of a more serious tone, a meditation on the nature of evil and the novel's original title, The Undertaker's Wind, reflects this. Fleming conducted research for Live and Let Die and completed the novel before Casino Royale was published: shortly after Live and Let Die was completed, Casino Royale was published, selling out its first two print runs within a month. Sales were successful enough that his publishers, Jonathan Cape, offered him a contract for three further Bond novels.
Much of the novel drew from Fleming's personal experiences: the opening of the novel, with Bond's arrival at New York's Idlewild Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...
was inspired by Fleming's own arrivals in 1941 and 1953 and the warehouse at which Felix Leiter is attacked by a shark was based on a warehouse Fleming had visited in 1953, as well as much of the journey Fleming and his wife had undertaken. Fleming's friends also had their names used throughout the story, with friend Ivar Bryce giving his name to the alias used by Bond, whilst friend Tommy Leiter found his surname being used for Felix Leiter; Ivar Bryce's middle name of Felix was used for Leiter's christian name. Fleming's experiences on his first scuba dive with Jacques Cousteau in 1953 provided much of the description of Bond's swim to Mr. Big's boat, whilst the concept of the limpet-mining "may well be based on the extraordinary wartime activities of the 10th Light Flotilla
Decima Flottiglia MAS
The Decima Flottiglia MAS was an Italian commando frogman unit of the Regia Marina created during the Fascist regime.The acronym MAS also refers to various light torpedo boats used by the Regia Marina during World...
, an elite unit of Italian navy frogmen". Fleming also used, and extensively quoted, information about voodoo from his friend Patrick Leigh Fermor
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick "Paddy" Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE was a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance during World War II. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer", with books including his classic A Time of...
's book The Traveller's Tree.
Release and reception
Live and Let Die was published in hardback by Jonathan Cape on 5 April 1954 and, as with Casino Royale, Fleming designed the cover, which again featured the title lettering prominently. It had an initial print run of 7,500 copies, which sold out and a re-print was undertaken. Live and Let Die was published in the US in January 1955 by Macmillan; there was only one major change in the book, with the title of Chapter five being changed from "Nigger Heaven" to "Seventh Avenue". Continuation Bond author Raymond BensonRaymond Benson
Raymond Benson is an American author best known for being the official author of the adult James Bond novels from 1997 to 2003. Benson was born in Midland, Texas and graduated from Permian High School in Odessa in 1973...
analysed Fleming’s writing style and identified what he described as the "Fleming Sweep": a stylistic point that sweeps the reader from one chapter to another using 'hooks' at the end of chapters to heighten tension and pull the reader into the next: Benson felt that the "Fleming Sweep never achieves a more engaging rhythm and flow" than in Live and Let Die.
On 8 May 1954, Live and Let Die was banned in Ireland by C. J. O'Reilly, a member of the Irish Censorship of Publications Board
Censorship in the Republic of Ireland
Ireland rarely exercises censorship though the state retains wide-ranging laws which allow for it, including specific laws covering films, advertisements, newspapers and magazines, as well as terrorism and pornography...
. Fleming biographer, Andrew Lycett
Andrew Lycett
Andrew Lycett is an English biographer and journalist.He was educated at Charterhouse School and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford University. He then worked for a while for The Times as a correspondent in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia...
noted that "the banning of Live and Let Die in Ireland in May helped the general publicity".
Reviews
Philip Day of The Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
noted "How wincingly well Mr Fleming writes", whilst his colleague in his sister paper, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, thought that "This is an ingenious affair, full of recondite knowledge and horrific spills and thrills - of slightly sadistic excitements also - though without the simple and bold design of its predecessor" Elizabeth L Sturch, writing in The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
observed that Fleming was "without doubt the most interesting recent recruit among thriller-writers" and that Live and Let Die "fully maintains the promise of ...Casino Royale. Tempering her praise of the book, Sturch thought that "Mr. Fleming works often on the edge of flippancy, rather in the spirit of a highbrow". Overall, however, she considered that the novel "contains passages which for sheer excitement have not been surpassed by any modern writer of this kind". The Daily Telegraph considered that "the book is continually exciting, whether it takes us into the heart of Harlem or describes an underwater swim in shark-infested waters; and it is more entertaining because Mr. Fleming does not take it all too seriously himself", whilst George Malcolm Thompson, writing in the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
believed Live and Let Die to be "tense; ice-cold, sophisticated; Peter Cheyney
Peter Cheyney
Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney, known as Peter Cheyney, was a British crime fiction writer who flourished between 1936 and 1951...
for the carriage trade".
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- described by a Fleming biographer, John Pearson
John Pearson (author)
John Pearson is a writer best associated with James Bond creator Ian Fleming.Pearson was Fleming's assistant at the London Sunday Times and would go on to write the first biography of Ian Fleming, 1966's The Life of Ian Fleming....
as "throughout an avid anti-Bond and an anti-Fleming man" - thought that the "high-spots are all effectively described...but the narrative is loose and jerky". Boucher concluded that Live and Let Die was "a lurid meller contrived by mixing equal parts of Oppenheim and Spillane". In June 1955 Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...
was visiting the poet Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
in London when he was introduced to Fleming; Fleming subsequently sent Chandler a copy of Live and Let Die and in response Chandler wrote that Fleming was "probably the most forceful and driving writer of what I suppose still must be called thrillers in England".
Adaptations
Comic strip adaptation (1958-9)Live and Let Die was adapted as a daily comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
which was published in the British Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
newspaper and syndicated around the world. The adaptation ran from 15 December 1958 to 28 March 1959. The adaptation was written by Henry Gammidge and illustrated by John McLusky
John McLusky
John McLusky is a former comics artist best known as the original artist of the comic strip featuring Ian Fleming's James Bond.-Biography:...
, whose drawings of Bond had an resemblance to Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
, the actor who portrayed Bond three years later.
Live and Let Die (1973)
Live and Let Die, a film based loosely on the novel, was released in 1973
1973 in film
The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
. The film was directed by Guy Hamilton
Guy Hamilton
Guy Hamilton is an English film director.Hamilton was born in Paris, France where his English parents were living. Remaining in France during the Nazi occupation, he was active in the French Resistance...
, produced by Albert R. Broccoli
Albert R. Broccoli
Albert Romolo Broccoli, CBE , nicknamed "Cubby", was an American film producer, who made more than 40 motion pictures throughout his career, most of them in the United Kingdom, and often filmed at Pinewood Studios. Co-founder of Danjaq, LLC and EON Productions, Broccoli is most notable as the...
and Harry Saltzman
Harry Saltzman
Harry Saltzman was a Canadian theatre and film producer best known for his mega-gamble which resulted in his co-producing the James Bond film series with Albert R...
and starred Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
in his first outing as the secret agent. 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.
Scenes used (1981 and 1989)
Some scenes from this novel were depicted in later Bond films, including the keelhauling sequence, which was used in the film adaptation of For Your Eyes Only
For Your Eyes Only (film)
For Your Eyes Only is the twelfth spy film in the James Bond series and the fifth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It marked the directorial debut of John Glen, who had worked as editor and second unit director in three other Bond films. The screenplay by Richard Maibaum...
, whilst Felix Leiter was not fed to a shark until Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill
Licence to Kill, released in 1989, is the sixteenth entry in the Eon Productions James Bond series and the first one not to use the title of an Ian Fleming novel. It marks Timothy Dalton's second and final performance in his brief tenure in the lead role of James Bond...
, which also faithfully adapts Live and Let Dies shoot-out in the warehouse.
External links
See also
- James Bond (character)James Bond (character)Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR is a fictional character created by journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the main protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games...