I'm not a big fan of Diamonds Are Forever, the movie. Connery spent most of his screen time looking bored, and Tiffany Case wasn't the most likable Bond girl in the series. Blofeld goes out on a low note. At least Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd were fun to watch. So let's see how the fourth James novel is like. Here's my jumbled thoughts. Warning - thoughts more jumbled then usual.
Heh, almost forgot to mention the SPOILER ALERT!!!
The novel is about James Bond and his attempt to shut down a diamond smuggling gang. There's a pipeline from Africa to New York to Las Vegas and Bond beats up some people on the way. Blofeld doesn't make any appearances.
The book is more episodic then previous Bond novels. In the first and third novel, he basically goes somewhere to investigate or confront the villian. In Live and Let Die, Bond is on the run from Mr. Big, but this is the primary focus of the rest of that novel. Diamonds Are Forever is much more disjointed. For example, after Bond goes undercover, the gang tells him to go to the races to collect his money for smuggling diamonds. There's a couple chapters where Bond learns about horse racing at Saratoga and the latter chapter is about how Bond fixes the race to screw with his bosses. This is interesting but it has little to do with the rest of the book except to explain how crooked the gangsters are. Later Bond goes to Las Vegas. One of the gangsters are there, but the whole poin of the trip seems to be a chance to take a few shots at Las Vegas.
I have to say that this novel is disappoining. The villians, two brothers who run the "Spangled Mob", don't appear too often. I'm having trouble remembering much about them except that one was a hunchback and the other was really into westerns. Also, to stop the diamond smuggling, Bond basically has to travel from poin A to poin B and shoot the bad guys on the way. There's some obligatory pathos (some ally gets shot, Bond gets tortured) but I don't think there's enough payoff in the story.
There is some character stuff, and it's mostly between Bond and his American friend, Felix Leiter. Leiter was partially eaten by a shark two novels ago so now he's a member of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Leiter's job in the novel is to basically give Bond all the info he needs while in America. While it's nice to catch up on this character, I think too much time is spent on listening to Leiter talk about the gang and not enough time on Bond actually investigating the gang.
Tiffany is much better in the novel then she is in the movie. After reading the novel you can see what the film makers were going for, but they forgot to make her sympathetic. In the novel you can at least see why she acts the way she does. Still, I wish the novel gave a better reason for Bond falling in love with her. I'm willing to bet that the reason she won't be in the next novel (besides the obvious meta reason) is because Bond got bored after he was able to melt her heart. There isn't much else to their relationship besides having a few meals together.
Mr. Witt and Mr. Kidd make their appearances halfway through the novel to torture a guy who Bond paid to fix a race.* They're not as flamboyant as in the movies and they don't call each other Mister, but they're just as deadly. One thing I wish the novel could have had that the movie did have was them killing off several people as time went on. Still, they're far more memorable then the brothers who run the gang. At one poin they torture Bond by kicking him with football cleats. They spend most of the time wearing sacks over their heads, so their last moment in the book is suppose to be a surprise. (When Bond figures out who these guys are, he appears to be particularly boneheaded.)
* - (This part of the novel is bizarre, by the way. There's some stupid clinic where people wrap themselves in mud and fry in 'tombs' for 20 minutes at over 100 degrees. Was this suppose to be a weird nod to Dante?)
To give you an idea of how Ian Fleming constructs his villians, not only did we have the aforementioned hunchback, but one of these guys has a wart on his thumb-joint that he sucked. (The previous novel also had a thumb sucker and nail biter.)
The final villian of the piece is some guy who got introduced early on and then gets killed at the end of the novel. I can't remember if he appears in anywhere between those poins.
I think the novel would have been better if Bond wasn't moving around too often. I guess it's because of the pipeline that makes it necessary, but I would have rather had Bond do more learning about the gang and the pipeline and less time trying to get his money for his smuggling job. I also wish the novel would have told us more about Tiffany then she was gang-raped, she hates men as a result, and she's good at cards. The final-twist-head-bad-guy should be dropped because he wouldn't be missed, and the Spang Brothers should be more memorable.
I give this book a grade of "Wasted Potential." I give the movie a grade of "Waste of a Couple Million Dollars, but Mr. Wint and Mr. Kitt were Cool."
Currently Reading: State of Fear by Michael Crichton
Previous Read: Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming
Also, in case anybody cares, here's the DVD set I'm working on.
Currently Watching: Addams Family Volume One
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