Are the James Bond novels worth reading?
Well if you are a big fan try reading a couple of them. I read Goldfinger, and was really disappointed by some bits of it. When Bond and Goldfinger have the game of golf just skip it, there are about 20 pages of a boring game of golf. Ian Fleming had a couple of big problems. The first, analysis and break down of novel writing was unheard of so the idea of sub-plots wasn’t developed, which is why you have a chapter at the beginning which has nothing whatsoever to do with the book, anyone reading Goldfinger leave the first chapter till the end and see what I mean. Secondly and this is the bit everyone now forgets, Ian Fleming until 1963/4 after From Russia with Love film, was the lesser known brother of the famous travel writer Peter Fleming. Ian had a big chip on his shoulder about this, and certainly in writing competence, Peter was much better and at the time sold larger quantities of books. When Dr. No and From Russia hit the screens they were in tune with a lot of things going on.
