Year - 1964
Tease - James Bond has an appointment with destiny in the exotic Orient - a place of sensuous pleasures and easy death. You only live twice: Once when you are born, and once when you look death in the face.
Villain - Dr. Guntram Shatterhand a.k.a. Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is now retired and is hiding out in his castle, with Irma Bunt, on the island of Kyushu near Japan. His castle is surrounded by poisonous plants and animals. This so-called 'Garden of Death' has attracted the local Japanese people who want to commit suicide. Blofeld enjoys walking around his garden in medieval chain armour. Since the last novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he has grown a drooping black moustache, had the syphilitic nose repaired and has a gold capped tooth among the upper frontals.
Bond-Girl - Kissy Suzuki, has almond eyes and a rosy-tinted skin on a golden background. She is very athletic since she is an Ama girl or diving girl. Because of her great beauty, she once was chosen to make a film in Hollywood. But after the film was made, she went back to her home on Kuro Island.
Minor Characters - Tiger Tanaka, Richard 'Dikko' Henderson, Irma Bunt, M, Sir James Molony
Plot - M, the head of MI-6, doe not know what to do with Bond following the death of his wife, Tracy. Sir James Molony suggest an assignment so difficult it would throw Bond back into his old self. M eventually promotes Bond into the diplomatic section and ordered to Japan to retrieve a new secret ciphering method known as MAGIC 44. While in Japan, Bond finds out that a man by the name of Dr. Shatterhand entices people to commit suicide in his private poisonous garden. The head of the Japanese secret service, Tiger Tanaka, will hand over MAGIC 44 if Bond would liquidate Dr. Shatterhand.
Highlights - Japanese customs, Tiger's headquarters, Shatterhand's secret identity revealed, Infiltrating the 'Garden of Death', final confrontation with Blofeld.
Opening Sentence - The geisha called "Trembling Leaf" on her knees beside James Bond, leant forward from the waist and kissed him chastely on the right cheek.
Trivia - The characters of 'Dikko' Henderson and Tiger Tanaka were created after two men who traveled around Japan with Fleming - Richard Hughes and Torao 'Tiger' Saito. This is Fleming's last completed novel, he will not live to finish the next novel - The Man with the Golden Gun.
Personal Comment About This Novel - The darkest and most atmospheric of all the Fleming novels. Ian Fleming wrote this book several years after his first heart attack and the themes of life and death echo throughout. Many critics complained that the book has very little action and that the real meat of the adventure does not begin until the last third of the story. I personally enjoyed this book on two levels - the first being the Japanese culture and the second was how Fleming uses many structural styles that make this story standout from the others for example:
One of the most ironic parts in this novel is towards the end when Bond has lost his memory. Bond is considered dead after Blofeld's castle blows up and Kissy keeps him hidden on her island. She makes love to Bond who thinks he is a local fisherman. Later, Kissy becomes pregnant. It is the only time a Bond girl is with child because of OO7. But the real irony is that Bond does not know who he is, therefore it is the complete absence of Bond's personality that causes him to help conceive a child. Bond, the conquering hero, would have claimed his prize by having sex with Kissy and nothing else. Bond, the fisherman, is only a common man and not St. George who destroyed the dragon. It also emphasizes the title of the book. Bond, like a phoenix, has been reborn out of fire and ash of Blofeld's castle, he will slowly regain his memory back as well as his life. However, it is the memories of Russia, Bond's enemies, that he begins to remember and thus decides to travel and find out who he is.
Jonathan Cape hardcover edition
Dr. Shatterhand's Scale from 1 - 10
"10"
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