The Old Man and the Spy

It's taken a while, but I have finally finished the AudioGo recording of Ian Fleming's 'From Russia with Love'.  This version was read by Toby Stephens, who fans will recognise as the villain Gustav Graves from 'Die Another Day'.

'From Russia with Love' by Ian Fleming
Read by Toby Stephens
(AudioGo, 2012)

James Bond is a marked man.  The Russian spy-killers SMERSH have decided they need to bag a big name and none come bigger than Bond.  Orchestrated by Colonel Rosa Klebb and chess master Kronsteen, SMERSH set a trap with the twin temptations of the beautiful Corporal Tatiana Romanova and a top secret Spektor coding machine.  Although suspicious, M and Bond decide it is a prize worth making a play for and before long the famous secret agent is on his way to Istanbul, unaware that Russia's top assassin, Donovan Grant, is on his tail...

Unfortunately, I found this story hard work.  It starts well enough, with a focus on Grant and his origins, but once the story moved to the boardrooms of the Russian military, my mind began to wander.  In the paperback, it's more than 90 pages before Bond makes an appearance, but it's hard to believe that it's purely his absence that stopped it holding my attention.  I usually like it when Fleming tries something different, but I think this time it fell a bit flat and led to a lack of tension early on, for me anyway.

Whether I enjoy each Bond novel often seems to hinge on how much I like the female lead.  Romanova seemed a bit too much of a push-over, little more than a pair of blue eyes and some fluttering lashes.  That may appeal to a certain male audience, but I'm afraid I need a brain too please.  I know that the girls can't outshine Bond and that these books represent the values of a different era, but it's always more fun when the ladies get a look in on the action rather than just being damsels in distress.

I think my love of the film version was also a big problem here.  'From Russia with Love' is one of

'From Russia with Love'
by Ian Fleming
(Penguin Modern Classics, 2004)

my favourites, so I had high hopes that the book would exceed the movie and flesh out the key characters, particularly Kerim and Klebb.  To a degree it did, but unfortunately I didn't really like what I found out, especially about the apparently lovable Kerim.  I'm very glad that the sexual politics of today don't accept 'taming' women the same way they did in 1957.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed by the book.  Perhaps people who haven't seen the film will get more out of it because they don't know the basic plot, but I doubt there are many people who haven't watched it already and that doesn't make up for the dodgy way the female characters are portrayed and treated.  On the whole, like Grant and Klebb, it's a bit odd, but that won't stop me pushing on with the rest of Fleming's novels.

I will return.... with the rather different 'The Victorian Chaise-Longue' by Marghanita Laski!

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