You Only Live Twice [Paperback]

This is the second of Ian Fleming's novels that I have re-read before reading "Devil May Care", the latest Bond Novel, by Sebastian Faulks under licence from the Fleming Estate.

It is, I think, my favourite Bond. Bond goes to Japan on a mission to help restore his self confidence after the death of his bride at the end of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and a couple of bungled missions thereafter. He has been stripped of his "double - 0" number but allocated a "diplomatic" one - 7777 - instead. He comes up first against Tiger Tanaka, head of the Japanese secret service and then, in an attempt to prove to Tiger that the British are a race still to be respected, against a mysterious botanist who turns out to be none other than his old enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. The scenario - a garden designed to entice hundreds of suicidal Japanese to their deaths - is perhaps the most fantastical of all Flemings' plots.

Tiger provides Fleming with a mouthpiece to express his angst about contemporary British society and its place in the world: "Bondo-san, I will now be blunt with you...it is a sad fact that I, and many of us in positions of authority in Japan, have formed an unsatisfactory opinion about the British people since the war. You have not only lost a great Empire, you have seemed almost anxious to throw it away with both hands...when you apparently sought to arrest this slide into impotence at Suez, you succeeded only in stage-managing one of the most pitiful bungles in history. (Tiger's English is impeccable - he went to Oxford, and spied against Britain, before the war!) Further, your governments have shown themselves successively incapable of ruling and have handed over effective control of the country to the trade unions, who appear to be dedicated to the principle of doing less and less work for more money. This feather-bedding, this shirking of an honest day's work, is sapping at ever-increasing speed the moral fibre of the British, a quality the world once so much admired. In its place we now see a vacuous, aimless horde of seekers-after-pleasure-gambling at the pools and bingo, whining at the weather and the declining fortunes of the country, and wallowing nostalgically in gossip about the doings of the Royal Family and your so-called aristocracy in the pages of the most debased newspapers in the world."

What would Tiger Tanaka and Fleming think of Britain today, I wonder? Given that Fleming was something of a hedonist himself, one might consider him ill-qualified to make such a judgement in any case. One wonders, moreover, with the best will in the world, the extent to which the Japanese ever admired the British.

Bond roars with laughter at Tiger's analysis - but then goes on to risk life and limb to prove him wrong and so to win vital cooperation over intelligence in the Far East. In so doing he meets the lovely pearl-diver Kissy Suzuki, loses his memory as the result of injuries on his mission but is nursed back to health and subsequently presented with a "pillow book" by her - to which he memorably replies "Kissy, take off your clothes and lie down there. We'll start at page one." - but earns a premature obituary.

This is Bond at his best - valiantly struggling to maintain Britain's status in a changing world, having quite a lot of fun along the way, but knowing, in his heart of hearts, that he needed something more.

You Only Live Twice has a fair claim to being the best of the Bond novels. It has arguably the most deranged villain of all, Ernst Stavro Blofeld posing as, of all things, an insane horticulturalist going by the name of Dr Shatterhand (nobody did names quite so well as Ian Fleming); it has a terrific heroine in the resourceful and fascinating Kissy Suzuki; it has two charasmatic allies in the form of Tiger Tanaka and Dikko Henderson and it has the exotic locations - the islands skirting mainland Japan with their mountains, beautiful flowers and clear blue seas. Unusually for a Bond novel, and for me this is what sets it apart and places it very near the summit of all the Bond books, it has a fascinating and surreal plot and a great deal of emotional depth.

At the beginning of the novel James Bond is suffering from depression, experiencing a nine-month stretch in which his world crumbles and the colour bleeds from his life. He is not sleeping, he is drinking too much and his work for M has gone to hell. M, sensing that something must be done, sends him to Japan on what is regarded as an impossible mission - not because he believes Bond has any chance of succeding, but merely to present him with a challenge so insurmountable that he is forced to face reality and thus hopefully emerge from his moribund, drink-addled stupor. In Japan Bond meets Tiger Tanaka, finds himself getting an insider view of the Japanese secret service, and becomes immersed in Japanese culture (Tiger sees Britain as old, crumbling and decadent - a fading power - while for Bond Japan is a land of cloying ritual and rigid - too rigid - discipline); in a discussion on information-sharing between the two powers a side-issue emerges, a tale of a mysterious 'Castle of Death' in a remote coastal region of Japan where suicides flock in vast numbers to do away with themselves. Bond takes up the challenge to investigate and put an end to the macabre castle, and its mysterious owner, Dr Shatterhand.

The idea of a 'garden of death', a region cultivated with toxic plants that weep poisonous sap, yield lethal seeds and exude a miasma of decay comes - I suspect - from Nathanial Hawthorne's short story 'Rappaccini's Daughter', in which Dr Rappaccini cultivates flowers that positively exhale a toxic scent. In Fleming's hands the garden becomes a surreal devil's playground in which Blofeld - who patrols the garden in a suit of Japanese medieval armour in order to protect himself from the plants - provides what he sees as a noble service (a means by which suicides can easily do away with themselves without inconveniencing others). The accounts of Bond making his way through the garden to reach Blofeld's castle, and the sinister games of cat and mouse that follow, are amongst the finest things Fleming ever put down on paper.

In conclusion You Only Live Twice is one of the finest Bond novels. You can keep your straight-forward megalomaniac plans for world domination - a personal battle between Bond and an insane genius inhabiting a noxious landscape of beautiful poisonous plants is way more fascinating. Superb, surreal, baffling, dazzling stuff! Recommended.

You Only Live Twice has the feeling of a grand finale. It's not, of course, but it feels like one. Bond is suffering depression following the events of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and his work is suffering. M decides to set him an impossible mission to snap him out of it, and off Bond flies to Japan.

The book is neatly split into two halves along Fleming's usual lines. The first is about Japan, and Bond's assimilation of a new culture. This is typical Fleming mix of fact and fantasy that nevertheless convinces the reader that he knows the area, and successfully adds that touch of the exotic that Bond stories are known for.

The second half is the action part of the story - more similar to elements of the films (which of course by this point had begun) and rounds things off nicely.

One of my favourite things about this book is Fleming's sense of humour. The opening chapter is almost entirely taking the mickey out of one of the repeated elements of the series - following the classic card games of Casino Royale and Moonraker. Later he makes reference to Hollywood, and even breaks the fourth wall with a little dig at himself.

It's another excellent adventure for Bond. He has far more depth than the screen portrayals suggest and is one of the richest characters in fiction, despite the time that has passed since the stories were written. I've really enjoyed re-reading the series and look forward to a time in fifteen years when my memories have faded and I can enjoy them once again.