A major blip in the Bond canon

You Only Live Twice is not very good. It has many things wrong with it, so let's name a few. It's too close to caricature and even to spoof, at times. Bond drinks and smokes more than ever (he is sad, you see) and must be on the point of alcoholic brain damage because he fails to suspect the identity of the mysterious European with immense wealth who turned up in Japan a few days after Tracey Bond's death, accompanied by a squat female companion, and proceeded to establish a macabre garden of death. Then we have the long discussions with Tiger Tanaka and Dicko Henderson about the state of the world, and mainly Britain. These seem to be included to allow Fleming to let off steam about all the bloody workshy young beatniks and the moral collapse of the old world. Which is, quite frankly, boring.
There's also the business of disguising a strapping six-foot Scots-Swiss fellow as a Japanese man by shaving the ends of his eyebrows and dying him with walnut juice, the one aspect of the book that the movie (regrettably) got right in its patent absurdity. And the dialogue handed out to the main villain is some of the worst stuff Fleming ever wrote - real Dr Evil from Austin Powers kind of stuff. If you can see past the sheer implausibility of Kissy Suzuki, a kind of Japanese peasant fisher-girl version of Esther Williams who has learned English from one trip to Hollywood, you then have to cope with the ballooning, the amnesia and the cage full of electrocuted sex toads. I'm not making this up.
Finally we have the performance of this recording. I'd be interested to know what American listeners made of it, but as a Brit, I cannot imagine why anyone thought Martin Jarvis was right for a Bond book. Just William, yes. Bertie Wooster, okay. But Bond? And as well as Bond, all the Japanese and German voices. It's a massacre. Tiger Tanaka sounds like Lionel Jefferies voicing Winnie the Pooh and Blo - sorry, Dr Shatterhand - sounds like one of the German officers from Allo Allo. Jarvis reads with a smile in his voice which is why he suits some things so well, but this was all wrong. A major key performance when some minor key threat and drama was vital.
It's all a bit of a shame. The risky policy of going for a different actor for every Bond novel almost paid off, with some notable high points - Jason Isaacs, Bill Nighy, Rosamund Pike - and only one wrong turn with Rory Kinnear being cast adrift in the African-American and white American voices of Live and Let Die. But that was a joy compared with You Only Live Twice.

3 people found this helpful

You only live twice.

The only Bond book that I have not enjoyed up to now. It has a slow pace compared to all the others and this may have somethingvto do with it following on from the death of Bonds wife. Theres plenty going on but the action all comes very late on. Once again, nothing at all like the film. A must from the point of view of working through the series but not the
best by a long chalk.

2 people found this helpful

Last book

This book was very well read by Martin, I felt it took a very long time ,up 12 chapters before the story really began follow just like the old James Bond books.

2 people found this helpful

Another Great Bond

Though this is far from your typical Bond and far from the movie I cannot but reccomend it. Jervis gives a truly great performance and the more human Bond out for revenge makes for a truly gripping tale.

1 person found this helpful

So much better than the film!

It’s an absorbing story and the narration is superb (as you would expect from Martin Jarvis). The material is dark in a way that is different from most of the Bond novels and, certainly, from the films.
Jarvis manages a very difficult task in voicing Tiger Tanaka without sounding like a comical parody of a Japanese accent and I loved every minute of this book.
I’ll return to it again for sure.

1 person found this helpful

thoroughly engaging thriller

as always Ian Fleming delivers with a marvellous and slightly macabre tale ..it's almost depressin g to see what Hollywood did to these finely taut thrillers

1 person found this helpful

Excellent story and superb narration

This is a classic Bond and far better than the film. This is a faithful unabridged version with a superb narrator. You really get a feel for the ‘true’ Bond in this ‘book’- one of Flemings best!

1 person found this helpful

Fleming at the height of his power as an author

This is a brilliantly realised story of Bond, vulnerable and yet vengeful, and ultimately adding the poignancy of new love discovered and then, as the reader, must ultimately conclude, to be lost in the recovery of memory. I loved this book!

1 person found this helpful

Great listen, well presented and very different from the film

I've been working my way through the James Bond audiobooks over the last few months and I was not expecting this story to have anything original to grab my attention. I was pleasantly surprised to find it contained a great many new ideas, was as beautiful as the earlier books and seemed rather less racist to boot. It's still not politically correct but it is certainly less unkind than the previous books.

I enjoyed listening. The action takes a little time to bring but the build up is interesting and Bond's exploration of and immersion in Japanese culture is quite deep and thoughtful. There's nothing worth skipping over and I highly recommend this book.

1 person found this helpful

Far from Fleming’s best, but excellently narrated

‘You Only Live Twice’ is far from Fleming’s best 007 novel. Much more than any other of his novels, this one reads like a travelogue. Doubtless Fleming spent many months in Japan getting the feel of the country, and his observations became much of the content of the book. But the story feels a little feeble compared to most of the other novels. Nonetheless there are enough interesting and charming moments here — such as the depiction of Bond falling to pieces after the death of his wife in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,’ or the friendly cormorant named after David Niven — to make this well worth a listen. Also, Martin Jarvis’ narration is excellent and makes the story easy on the ear.