Ephemeris of the Mind (Book Review) Live and Let Die
Time to read: 2 min read
Book Cover
You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy.
Previous James Bond novel review:
Review
In the second James Bond novel, Bond is up against Mr. Big, a sort of Black version of Marvel’s Kingpin character who controls the African American underworld operating out of Harlem. Mr. Big is smuggling 17th-century gold coins and selling them to finance SMERSH operations within America. Bond teams up with his American counterpart Felix Leiter to investigate and bring down Mr. Big’s operation.
This is probably one of Fleming’s more problematic stories in terms of race. Fleming goes into depths to make Black people sound exotic with a fixation on Voodoo and tons of dialogue in Ebonics. Despite this, I don’t believe the portrayal is necessarily malicious (at least for the time period in which the book is written); while Fleming does try to make American Black culture more sound more exotic and stereotyped, he actually does a great job making Black culture appealing, such as describing the electric atmosphere of Harlem, especially the jazz club that Bond and Leiter go to. Mr. Big, once you get past the corny Voodoo aspect, is actually a way more capable villain than Le Chiffre.
The plot feels a tad of a stretch, such as shoehorning in SMERSH so that Bond has an excuse to be involved. The damsel in distress this time around is Solitaire, a fortune-telling Voodoo practitioner being held capture by Mr. Big. As with the previous book, the relationship between Bond and his romantic interest is pretty corny. I enjoyed the bits of the story where it’s just Bond and Leiter palling around much more than those with Bond and Solitaire.
Conclusion
Another dated story with some thrilling bits.