 Previously, I took a look at Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel that started it all in the early 50s, Casino Royale. And you may have seen, I had a lot of praise for that novel. So in honor of this new format, I decided to expend my bookshelf by collecting most of the literary Bond library. And I honestly cannot wait to delve into them one by one as we go through the upcoming years. The novel, which came out a year later in 1954, is one I've read four times before. My first couple of times, I read the novel in Dutch, where it was called Moord onder water, which translates to Murder Under Water. Yeah, I'm so happy they never gave Dutch titles to the movies because I find these novel titles to be absolutely dreadful in Dutch. And the first time I was barely aware that it was even supposed to be Live and Let Die. The translation, especially the slang of the African Americans in this book, cannot be captured in Dutch and I wasn't the biggest fan of this follow up. So obviously as I got older, I bought all the books in English. Having read it a third time in English, I did like the book better but still found it to be a massive step down from Fleming's first brilliant novel. It's been about seven years since then. So for this episode, I recently revisited Live and Let Die once again. Has my feeling changed towards this book? Find out in this episode. Live and Let Die sends James Bond on a mission to New York to investigate Mr. Big, one of the most powerful black criminals in the United States, who also happens to be an agent of the Soviet counterintelligence organization, SMERS, returning from the previous novel. Mr. Big is suspected to smuggle and sell 17th century gold coins from a pirate's treasure buried in Jamaica. Also returning from the previous book to aid Bond on his mission is CIA agent Felix Leiter. As Bond falls into the hands of Mr. Big and gets his finger broken, he meets Mr. Big's prisoner and fortune teller, Solitaire, who ends up viewing Bond as her escape from Mr. Big. As the pair end up on a dangerous adventure that stretches from New York to St. Petersburg, Florida and eventually leading to an explosive climax set in Jamaica. We are reintroduced to James Bond, Agent 007. This time he is described to have taken a military haircut. I can't help but picture Bond with his regular hair when reading this though. This time he actually gets to use his license to kill in this book. In contrast to Casino Royale, he is involved in multiple close gunfights in this novel, one of which involves a gunfight in a warehouse full of fist tanks versus Mr. Big's assassin, the robber, which ends in a brutal revenge kick from Bond where the robber meets his demise in the hidden shark tank. Much like in the previous novel, I once again find it super interesting to read Bond's inner thoughts and go through his analytic mind in his book. For example, as he is in the train with Solitaire on his way to Florida, he is considering all angles and potential dangers that the opposition could attack him in. He finds himself analyzing his compartment bathroom like Bond went over it very carefully for vulnerable points. There was only the air conditioning vent in the ceiling, and Bond, who was prepared to consider any possibility, dismissed the employment of gas in the system. It would slay all the other occupants of the car. There only remained the waste pipes in the small lavatory, and while these certainly could be used to insert some death-dealing medium from the underbelly of the train, the operator would have to be a daring and skilled acrobat. There was no ventilating grill into the corridor. Bond shrugged his shoulders. If anyone came, it would be through the doors. To me, reading what Bond is thinking like that really makes Fleming's writing so compelling. Although Bond has less of a personal story arc that he's going through compared to the first novel, but I do believe Fleming portrayed him a bit warmer in this one. It's a shame to see no mention of Vesper and her tragic death from the previous book or any repercussions this may have had on Bond as a character, as Fleming laid perfect groundwork for a revenge story follow-up. There is continuity though. Because of the events of Casino Royale, we understand why Bond is so motivated to take down the Smurz agents, and Bond also gets some skin-crafted over the Russian spy tag that was engraved on his hand by the Smurz agent in Casino Royale. Bond's love interest in this novel is the mysterious Solitaire, essentially imprisoned by Mr. Big for her powers of telepathy and is mostly being used to read whether or not someone is telling the truth. She's mostly depicted as being a white woman, though with her part Haitian background, I can't help but picture my version of Solitaire as being more of a tanned woman. I guess you could argue that Solitaire doesn't end up being much more than a damsel in distress, but to me, it's still interesting to read about her background and whether or not she can be trusted in the beginning of the novel. She has this sensual and mysterious factor, and I actually kind of enjoy it. Bond plays the odds in trusting her and jumps on a train with her to St. Petersburg in Florida. This is where their romantic relationship starts, and although I don't think Bond develops any real feelings for her, he does, at the very least, start to care about her. And I wouldn't want my Bond to fall deeply in love every time around anyway, but I do find he's much more happy to have a woman on his side this time around and stating it as, I have an ally in the villain's camp. Her sixth sense doesn't play that much of an important role, and I think it's a shame. Fleming could have utilized that aspect of her a lot more to aid Bond on his mission. For someone that is able to tell the future, she doesn't do a lot of telling the future. She just does a lot of, I have a bad feeling. In my experience, a lot of women do exactly that. It's not that unique. If you're gonna make a supernatural character, I think Fleming could have played around with it a bit more. After a kidnapping later on in the story, Bond and Solitaire are reunited and it gets to the iconic keel hauling sequence, where the parrot is being dragged behind Mr. Big's yacht through the ocean, attracting sharks and barracudas with their bloody wounds. It's quite a thrilling read. Mr. Big himself is a much more interesting Bond villain in this than I remember him be. An absolutely huge and intimidating man with enormous influence among the African American population. It's an aspect of the book you can truly feel as he has a big communication network called The Big Switchboard and has eyes on the streets everywhere making it feel like Bond can easily be spotted and is always a step behind no matter where he finds himself. He's feared among black Americans where he is viewed as a voodoo god, the zombie of Baron Samedy himself, where people believe he's truly a walking corpse that is already dead. The supernatural belief grants him an almost immortal status making him so powerful. I can't really say the whole angle of Smurfs being funded through the smuggled pirate gold plays that much of a prominent role in the grand scheme of things, but I think the character would probably work even better as a separate entity. But it's not a major distraction to me. The character himself is a calculated, scary presence, a man with a twist of being slightly bored, thus always trying to find the most ingenious and creative ways of disposing of people that go up against him. He's definitely a great villain. That is all. He concluded, if I see you again you will die in a manner as ingenious and appropriate as I can devise on that day. Felix Leider plays a much bigger role this time around aiding Bond on his mission and their developed friendship can really be felt throughout the novel. By the way, hope I fix the rooms like you want them. Couldn't be better, said Bond cheerfully. Fine, said Leider. Just occur to me you two might be hyphenating. You read too much windshield, said Bond. It's just a delicate way of putting it, said Leider. Don't forget the walls of those cottages are pretty thin. I use my ears for hearing with, not for collecting lipstick. Bond grabbed for a handkerchief. You lousy goddamn sleuth, he said furiously. The part where Bond gets a false phone call from the hospital and raises over there and the hospital has no record of Felix even being there, Bond realizing that Mr. Big is behind this, raising back, only to find him to be brought in butchered by the shark, completely wrapped up in bloodstained bandages like a mummy and is left with the iconic note. He disagreed with something that ate him. We have plenty more jokes as good as this. It's just incredibly chilling and it really enforces Mr. Big's dangerous influence even further. During the final chapters on Jamaica, Bond meets up with the British intelligence agent John Strangways, a seasoned operative with an eye patch that helps Bond in his training thanks to his ally Quarrel, a Jamaican likeable character that is training Bond to do the scuba diving leading up to the big climax where Bond needs to plant a limpid mind underneath Mr. Big's yaw. Obviously the movie with the same name came out in 1973 with Roger Moore starting as James Bond for the first time and the movie definitely isn't a fateful adaptation of the novel but more or less takes elements from it. Of course the movie also has a Mr. Big but the movie gives him a double identity with Kananga and ignores his Haitian background completely and makes him a dictator of the fictional island obviously based on Haiti called San Monique. Instead of people believing that he is Baron Semedy, they made Baron Semedy a completely separate character in the movie. They also dropped the pirate treasure smuggling completely and changed it to heroin smuggling which plays even less of a role in the movie than the treasure does in the novel. Solitaire in the movie is a tarot card reader, an aspect not present in the novel where she's more of a sensual mysterious character with a sixth sense on the run for Mr. Big. That whole aspect of Solitaire losing her powers after having sex and turning into a nympho is not mentioned at all in the novel. The characters of Whisper and Teehee are mentioned in the novel but the more interesting robber character does not make an appearance in the film. The movie definitely added a lot of the 70s camp that wasn't in the novel at all and I would definitely take the novel over the movie to be honest. More influence of this novel can be found in other Bond movies. License to kill in particular taking a lot of inspiration from this novel. The aspect of Felix Leiter being fed to the sharks with the same note is an obvious one but Bond having a shootout in the warehouse where the villain's smuggle wear is hidden in the fish tanks and taking his revenge by kicking a villain to the shark is all directly taken from this novel too. And of course the novel's keel hauling climax makes an appearance in For Your Eyes Only with Bond being dragged behind the ship through the reef in a very similar fashion. So having revisited Live or Let Die after 7 years and with the book still fresh in my mind again, how does it hold up? Well, let me first get the obvious criticism out of the way and say the book hasn't aged well from a cultural perspective. It features the overuse of the n-word which may bother or even offend some people reading this through the eyes of today. That being said though, my advice is to try and shut that out. Of course times have changed for the better in that regard but choosing to be offended by a book which is written in an entirely different time frame in the first place may unintentionally help you grow a grudge against it and you'll miss out on a lot because honestly there is just so much to enjoy in this book. I'll be honest this definitely was my favorite time reading this book and I don't think I've ever enjoyed reading this one this much. My golden tip reading the Bond books is listening to the audio books by Robert Whitfield while reading your book to get an even more investment into them. And furthermore, I also looked through the graphic novel adaptation by Van Jensen with the art by Cuba Ball while listening to the audiobook for an even more immersive experience. This time I really had a hard time putting this book down. Does it reach the heights of the brilliant first novel of Casino Royale? Well, for the first time in my life I could honestly say yeah it does come close. Casino Royale was an exceptional introduction to the literary Bond character but if anything, Living Let Die has a lot more action, chains of locations and great suspense. Mr. Big is also far more menacing than I remember him being and the influence in the underworld can truly be felt. The book may start out a bit slow in I'd say the first five chapters or so with not much happening apart from the bomb in Bond's hotel room. But as soon as Bond is first captured by Mr. Big in New York and meets Solitaire, things really pick up and the book remains to be an incredibly engaging read. From there it's a fast-paced thrilling ride providing lots of action and suspense and memorable dark passages with the slaughter of Felix being incredibly dark and chilling. Fleming also excels in describing the underwater world during the nighttime swim, clearly having experience living in the Caribbean. And the keel hauling climax is one of the most thrilling passages that Fleming wrote as Bond and Solitaire are fighting for their lives and raising the clock desperately waiting for the limpid mind to go off. So although in parts the book indeed hasn't aged well and would be called racist by some people through social justice eyes of the day, but the book is far better than I remember it being, it's definitely a fast-paced classic Bond adventure worth reading if you are a fan of the series.