Goldfinger Final Blog

Ian Fleming's Goldfinger is told from the third person perspective with descriptions and insights of James Bond's thoughts and motivations. To make the experience from the book better and feel more real the reader learns facts in the novel as James Bond learns them himself and the events don't unfold until James has actually experienced them first. These techniques help to build suspense and tension in the story as Bond learns the facts and truth about his adversaries and their plan. To avoid confusion, Fleming is not using the typical type of suspense in novels where the reader is aware of danger and the main character is not, but instead Fleming places James in the center of the book to suprise the reader with plot twists and climaxes. These different combination of techniques make me and other readers feel like we could be in the middle of the action and this makes the novel a much more enjoyable experience overall.

Goldfinger 5

"You play a slazinger 1 don't you..............well this is slazinger 18 and since we are playing under strict rules that means you lose the hole and the game." (Fleming 152) There is a 20 page description of the golf game between Goldfinger and James and during the game James realizes his opponet is cheating but he knows this for most of the game, they are not testing each others skill but each others wit and Bond comes out on top in the end. Fleming does this alot throughout the novel, always showing a fight between Goldfinger and Bond and not a fight of physical prowess but a fight of wit.

Question:

• When love scenes are described why are they so rough?
• What side is Pussy Galore on?
• Does James even care for Pussy Galore?
• Why is Oddjob Goldfinger's personal guard?
• Why aren't there many plot twists as in other Fleming novels?

Goldfinger 4

"The Russians were notoriously incompetent payers of their own men." (Fleming 123) Bond quotes this and shows his attitude to wealth and frankly to James having wealth is completely meaningless unless it used for a purpose. He wins money from Goldfinger in the book twice and he gives both of the payments that were given to him away one to a girl he likes and another to an orphanage organization. Despite his take on wealth, Fleming describes that James can pretty much tell a wealthy person from the rest through their mannerisms which also brings up the assumption that he may have some of those mannerisms.

Questions:

• Does James consider a wealthy person who does nothing with his wealth, useless/selfish?
• How does Bond see SMERSH with its attempt to gain wealth?
• Does Goldfinger value his wealth or his gold?

Goldfinger 3

"I love its colour, its brilliance, its divine heaviness." (Fleming 102) This quote spoken by Golfinger himself and its this quote lies a gold motif. Goldfinger quotes his love for gold more than plenty of times in the book and he even shows it too, such as killing a woman by painting her gold and a gold painted car and gold colored clothes. Fleming uses his descriptions to make sure that you don't forget that Goldfinger's only one true passion and love is gold.

Questions:

• How James justify killing?
• Is James immoral?

Goldfinger 2

"Bond's first view of Mr. Goldfinger was startling. At the far corner of the roof, just below the cliff of the hotel, a man was lying on his back with his legs up on a steamer chair. He was wearing nothing but a yellow satin bikini slip, dark glasses and a pair of wide tin wings under his chin." (Fleming 35) This quotes show how good Fleming is at describing the exact situation and actions that are taking place he uses common vocabulary to put creative images in your head so that you will not only have an understanding of the story and situation but you will be captured and intrigued by what is going on and what is going to happen next in the book.

Questions:

• Does Bond think if Goldfinger as a business man and visionary or just a sick murderer?
• Why does Goldfinger love gold so much?
• What was Ian Fleming's signifigance in naming him "Goldfinger" ?

Book 2 - Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

"It was part of his profession to kill people. He had never liked doing it and when he had to kill he did it as well as he knew how and forgot about it. As a secret agent who held the rare double-O prefix - the licence to kill in the Secret Service - it was his duty to be as cool about death as a surgeon." (Fleming 9) This quote describes James Bond's personality in this book and it develops character so that when you continue to read on through the book and you read about James assassinating someone or fighting with someone you know how he feels while he is doing that action because according to the description James is quite calm and keeps his cool during the action and tension of his job.

Here are some questions I asked myself:

• How is James so calm in a situation surrounded with danger?
• Is James just a common killer in the end?
• How is Goldfinger connected to SMERSH?
• Does Bond always find his villains funny?
• Did Ian Fleming love to play card games?

Live and Let Die Final

Live and Let Die is told from the third person perspective because Fleming knows all details and thoughts of the story and I and others who may read this book know things the character does not like Oedipus Rex we know what Oedipus has done before we really even start to read where as the he does not. I like this perspective because I can feel like I'm a part of the adventure and I can picture the whole book in my head with all the detail that is put into the book. This book by far has one of the most best endings ever because the ending has a cool quote that James Bond is known for most of the time and its pretty much a hero's ending kill the bad guy, get the girl, live happily everafter. Bond inflates the main bad guy and he explodes he then says " He always had an inflated opinion of himself." This satisfied my urge for a good ending. (Fleming 223)

Live and Let Die Part 5

The book takes place in many places it starts off in New York because the main protagonist's operation is located in Harlem which is African American. Then towards the end of the book it takes place in Florida and Jamaica, ending in Jamaica. Fleming takes alot of the book to descirbe the setting of New York City and Harlem. Here's a quote that mentions the setting "We'll take a bus to Harlem, its a bit of a jungle these days you won't find many cabs that want to go there after dark."(Fleming 149)

Live and Let Die Part 4

While I was reading the book I started to wonder if voodo had a strong effect on African
Americans while Ian Fleming was writing this book because Fleming describes many different times how the main protagonist uses the voodo to smuggle money from African Americans so I raised the question if Voodo as a belief had a strong effect on the African American community during the time Fleming was writing the book or if still has a strong effect African Americans today.

Live and Let Die part 3

"What a brilliant set-up for dealing with the smaller fry of the negro underworld and for keeping a coloured information network well up to the mark! - the fear of Voodoo and the supernatural, still deeply, primevally ingrained in the negro subconscious." (Fleming 142) This quote shows how much detail he uses in the novel itself he uses a rich vocabulary and imagery so that you can picture in your mind what the character is speaking of. From this passage alone you know that the character who is making this statement is running an operation and he is tricking people into running an operation by putting the fear of Voodo into the black community all this information was gained from this quote. Also I noticed that after each chapter is coming to a conclusion Fleming likes to keep the reader interested by keeping almost each chapter at a cliffhanger so that the reader will keep interest.

Live and Let Die 2

Throughout Live and Let Die, race is expressed as the main theme. Ian Fleming, the author is british and clearly Live and Let Die shows his view on race and America when he was writing this book. When ever African American people or any other race of people are mentioned he always calls them "negroes" ,"chinamen", or "japs" where as Whites they only referred to as people. He could also use these terms to make the story clearer. An example of one of the references is, "I don't think I've ever heard of a great negro criminal before." "Pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought except when they've drunk too much."(Fleming 20) These quotes shows how he clarifies that he is talking about people who are not white. Race is the main theme.

Live and Let Die Part 1

Live and Let Die is a typical Fleming book. The book is categorized into mystery for James Bond's role as a detective and a spy.