Mister, there’s something quite extra about the smell of death.
Care to try it?
The Man with the Golden Gun is the twelfth and final James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, and was originally published posthumously in 1965.
Missing and presumed dead after his last mission in Japan, Bond returns to Britain, brainwashed by the K.G.B. to assassinate his superior, M. To prove his value and worth to the Secret Service, he is instructed to find and kill his deadliest opponent yet: ‘Pistols’ Scaramanga – The Man with the Golden Gun…
Incomplete and unfinished are perhaps the best words to describe Fleming’s final Bond novel, The Man with the Golden Gun. By this stage ill health had begun to affect him and his writing process, resulting in a decrease in his writing rate. Consequently only a first draft of the novel was completed in March 1964, and Fleming was unfortunately unable to rework and complete a second draft of it before his death in August 1964.
Consequently, The Man with the Golden Gun is a shorter novel that lacks much of the detail, suspense, mystery and drama that is typical of previous Bond novels. As the novel was basically half-finished, it would seem somewhat churlish to criticise its flaws.
Note – mild spoilers follow.
The novel itself actually isn’t bad per se, but feels more like a very ordinary (and somewhat boring) read. The opening, where Bond returns to London after his last mission to Japan, is actually excellent. Bond’s brainwashing by the K.G.B to assassinate his superior M in his office is a brilliant storyline, and the chapters in London are intriguing as Fleming describes the work and operations of the Secret Service. It is a brilliant twist to the typical Bond novel openings and gives the novel a major action kick.
The rest of the novel takes place in Jamaica, and is unfortunately not very interesting, especially as Jamaica as a location was previously explored in Dr No. There is a distinct lack of suspense and action here which is replaced by meetings and dialogue, and the novel subsequently drags with boring characters and events. Bond’s first meeting with Scaramanga is a disappointment – and Scaramanga hiring Bond as a henchman on the spot is unexpected and coincidental. The subsequent chapters at Scaramanga’s hotel, where he meets his business partners to conduct some mafioso operations of drug smuggling, prostitution, money laundering and destabilising the local sugar industry, feels stale and has a strong ‘been there, done that’ vibe. The climactic finale however, with Bond and Scaramanga’s duel in the swampland, is brilliantly executed and written with vivid imagery.
Due to the novel’s brevity, unfortunately most of the characters (if not all) are thinly written and are not very interesting or compelling. Bond himself is dull, with little character development after the cataclysmic events of You Only Live Twice. Scaramanga, the main antagonist and assassin, never really comes off as a truly dangerous or formidable adversary for Bond and seems like more of a criminal, henchman or thug, rather than a mastermind. Mary Goodnight, Bond’s former secretary who appears in Jamaica, is another boring and underdeveloped character compared to previous Bond girls, and her flirtations with him are… rather camp. It is fantastic to see Bond’s C.I.A. friend Felix Leiter again posing as a hotel manager, but sadly the novel doesn’t give him much to do. Finally, Scaramanga’s business associates are all one-dimensional characters and are a disappointment compared to the gangsters in Goldfinger or the SMERSH operatives in From Russia, with Love.
The Man with the Golden Gun is a sad and disappointing end to Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Due to its brevity and incompleteness, it lacks the trademark traits of action, suspense and mystery of previous Bond novels, and is sadly a boring and stale read.
Rating: 4/10
Since this is the final novel of Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, I thought I would list my Top 5 Bond novels:
- From Russia, with Love
- Moonraker
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
- Thunderball
- Dr No
Also here are my Top 5 Bond films:
- Casino Royale
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
- GoldenEye
- Licence to Kill
- Dr No
Further reading:
Fleming, Fergus., ed. The Man with the Golden Typewriter – Ian Fleming’s James Bond Letters. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.
Andrew Reviews 