After watching the James Bond movie ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ last week, I thought I will read the book and compare. Finished reading it today. The basic story goes like this – Bond is driving through some exotic mountain road in Europe. A beautiful woman driving a fast car passes him. Bond tries to catch up with her but he can’t. Later he discovers that she is trying to commit suicide. He saves her. But she doesn’t thank him. She seems to be a troubled soul. Then Bond is kidnapped by some bad guys. It turns out that the kidnapper is a godfather style head of mafia. He is also the beautiful woman Tracy’s father. He asks Bond to marry her. Bond says he will think about it. Meanwhile Bond is in search of his nemesis, the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who wants world domination. Bond ends up in the Alps in a research clinic, where Blofeld seems to be the research doctor. There are many beautiful young women in the clinic. They are all attracted to Bond. And then blah, blah, blah. You have read the book or watch the movie to find out more.
So how does the book compare to the movie? One of my friends says that Bond movies are better than the books. I had mixed opinions on that, but with the evidence of this book, I have to agree. The movie stays faithful to the book mostly, but in many cases the scenes are rearranged in the movie to create a better dramatic effect. For example, in the first scene, the movie improves upon the book. Also, I loved the movie Tracy more than the book Tracy. It helped that Diana Rigg delivered a charming, brilliant performance as Tracy. Also the skiing scenes are breathtaking and spectacular in the movie. And so is the avalanche scene – amazingly spectacular. To be fair to the book, the skiing scenes are pretty well described there – they are very informative. The things where the book scores over the movie are these – in the book, Bond feels like a real person. He is not the cool, stylish Bond of the movie. For example, in the book, when Bond tries to escape from the bad guys by skiing down the Alpine slope, he is not sure whether it is going to work, because he hasn’t done skiing in a long time and he is not great at it. In the movie, Bond just puts on his skis and starts skiing down the Alpine slope like he owns the place and it feels like we are watching a gold medallist in the winter Olympics in action here. The movie also has other flaws – Blofeld starts as an interesting villain and ends up being like a cartoon villain. Inspite of its flaws, I liked the movie more – the scenes are more dramatic and the scriptwriters have taken liberty with the book in mostly the right ways.
I thought Ian Fleming’s prose was good, but it is passable at best. If I compare Fleming with his Scottish contemporary Alistair MacLean, I feel MacLean was better. MacLean wrote better first pages – his first pages were literary, humorous and spectacular – his prose was gorgeous, he told better stories and the drama and suspense and surprises in his books were better. MacLean’s ‘When Eight Bells Toll’ is better than any Bond novel. I have read it atleast ten times. If you like spy novels, I will recommend highly that you read that. Fleming’s Bond novels are predictable with passable prose. His formula of the handsome British spy who drives fast cars, drinks martinis, gambles in casinos, charms beautiful women, gets chased by bad guys by cars and boats and planes through exotic locales like Europe and Florida and the Bahamas and how he always wins in the end with the beautiful woman in tow – this must have been irresistible to the readers and movie makers of his time. It is formulaic, predictable, escapist, but it is the kind of reading you might enjoy on the beach on a hot summer day.
Some of the things (mostly useless) that I learnt from the book :
(1) “worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due”
(2) Bond uses Pinaud Elixir, the prince among shampoos
(3) “since Victorian days it has been assumed that ladies do not gamble”
(4) “It was true that this Blofeld had held up Britain and America to ransom by his illegal possession of atomic weapons. But this could not be considered a crime under the laws of Switzerland, and particularly not having regard to Article 47B of the banking laws.”
(5) Bond’s father was Scot and his mother was Swiss! (Take that, English folks!)
(6) ‘The World is Not Enough‘ is the motto engraved in the Bond family’s coat of arms. This Bond family might be related to our James Bond, Spy.
(7) Types of British accents – “the broad vowels of Lancashire, the lilt of Wales, the burr of Scotland, the adenoids of refined Cockney”
(8) There are three kinds of peaks in Switzerland – the piz, the alp and the berg. Piz is the smallest, alp is the middle one, berg is the tallest. Sometimes alp and berg are used interchangeably.
(9) Ursula Andress, who played Honey Rider in the first Bond movie ‘Dr.No’, makes an appearance in this story.
(10) “What did one do when the avalanche hit? There was only one rule. Get your hands to your boots and grip your ankles. Then, if you were buried, there was some hope of undoing your skis, being able, perhaps, to burrow your way to the surface…”
(11) Bond’s boss M is an amateur painter as this passage shows – “M had one of the stock bachelor’s hobbies. He painted in water-colour. He painted only the wild orchids of England, in the meticulous and uninspired fashion of the naturalists of the nineteenth century.”
(12) “there is plenty of evidence for the medical efficacy of hypnosis. There are well-authenticated cases of the successful treatment by these means of such stubborn disabilities as…homosexual tendencies.” Well, if you are a gender scholar or activist, you can start kicking Ian Fleming now. Ian, you might be dead for fifty years, but you are in trouble now, buddy 🙂
(13) Bond’s words of wisdom – “Too much money is the worst curse you can lay on anyone’s head. I have enough. Tracy has enough. It will be fun saving up to buy something we want but can’t quite afford. That is the only kind of money to have – not quite enough.”
Well, it is time for me to take a break from escapist summer reading. When the sun gets hotter in May, and nearly melts my brain, I might get back to my next Bond novel. For now, it is time to get back to ‘The Power of the Dog‘ by Thomas Savage, the dark, bleak, depressing kind of book that I read on a normal day. Normal service resumed 🙂
Have you read ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service‘ or watched the movie version? What do you think about it?
Vishy's Blog 
Oh Vishy, I did enjoy reading this!
I’ve never read Fleming, but I’m pleased to hear that in the book, Bond has the occasional doubts… when I was younger I was attracted by all that sauvity but now I think I’d laugh at it. (Maybe I was always meant to do that, the movies are a sort of spoof of themselves, I think).
Glad you liked it, Lisa 🙂 Yes, I found the Bond from the book more real, but the movie Bond is cool and stylish. I was surprised at how good George Lazenby was as Bond.
I rather liked Sean Connery:)
Sean Connery was so cool and stylish, Lisa! Still is 🙂
I enjoy watching Bond films. I have not read any of the books. I like your list of things you learnt, especially the one about different british accents. I am not sure if I understand that right since I have not heard all of them, but I like how the different accents are differentiated.
Nice to know you like Bond films, Resh. I read a few Bond novels during my teens but haven’t read much since then. I read this one after a very long time. Nice to know you liked that description of British accents. I liked it too.
What a funny post. I never tried reading him because I always assumed he’s one of the rare cases in which the movies are superior. You just confirmed that. 🙂
Your list is priceless. I would disagree with point 8.
Yes, the movies seem to be better than the books, Caroline. Glad you liked that list. I knew when I was typing out #8 that you would have a comment on that 🙂 It looks like one more instance where outsiders state a supposed fact about Switzerland which is incorrect. I would love to hear from you on what the real fact is – are there really different types of peaks in Switzerland with different names? Please do share your thoughts.
I can’t really say what is what because there are too many. It’s not as simplistic as Fleming said. On the contrary and the name doesn’t always tell you how high a mountain is. But it’s complicated and I’m not an expert. I only know he’s not right. 🙂
What a wonderful review. I appreciated the informative aspects as well as the humor. Isn’t it interesting that some books which aren’t particularly well written can become famous movies?!
I am all for fun, light reading, in fact that is a goal of mine in my reading this year.It can become fatiguing to read too many heavy books!
I have never read any Bond books. I was going to try a couple a few years back but never got round to it. It’s not a genre that I particularly like but they could be fun if I was in the right mood. Glad you enjoyed it.