You Only Live Twice

Books | Project Ninety | Training

3 February 2022

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My whole life has been filled with James Bond movies. I used to sit on the floor and watch them while my dad cut coupons. Then at GA Tech the local television station, TBS, would run a marathon of Bond movies during finals week. The last Bond movie I finally saw in Germany a year and a half late thanks to the pandemic. It was also the last movie I watched with my dad a month later. But I'd never read an Ian Fleming James Bond novel until I picked up You Only Lived Twice, which has belonged to cousin Ebbie before dad. I've also inherited books from Ebbie through grandma. Provenance aside, Fleming's novel was real pageturner. The action was surprisingly confined to a few chapters at the end, while the rest was exposition. Fleming described Japanese culture as Bond became immersed in it. He described Shatterhand's garden of death down to the plants and their poisons, listed on several pages. One can recognize elements that ended up in many of the films, including the last. This book was definitely richer than any of the films, and never having seen them I think I would have still enjoyed it.