Glittering Set Pieces, But Tarnished Tropes.

In Miami, James Bond helps an acquaintance by investigating how the mysterious Auric Goldfinger is cheating at cards. This sparks a chain reaction: first, a round of high stakes golf in England, then a pursuit across Europe, followed by an audacious scheme to break into Fort Knox in Kentucky and, finally, a fatal confrontation in Canadian airspace.

With so many different locations, this felt like the first truly globe-trotting James Bond adventure of the series. Bond has travelled before, but not to this extent in just one book. It’s an exciting novel, and Goldfinger is an interesting and fairly complex antagonist. That said, he did remind me a little of Hugo Drax in Moonraker, from his entry into England to the way he, also, cheats at cards. OddJob was an interesting minion, although Bond’s (and therefore you have to presume Fleming’s) attitude towards Koreans in general was unpleasant to read.

Fleming usually wears his research lightly, but there are times, such as in Diamonds are Forever, when he has an expert character lecture the reader, by way of Bond, about something he has clearly spent time looking into. Unfortunately, he fell into that trap again when Bond went to the Bank of England to gather information. The sermon about the value of gold seemed endless. Luckily, I play golf (or have done in the past), so I could follow – and enjoy – the ins and outs of the game Bond played against Goldfinger. For non-golfers, I can imagine the chapters given over to the game might have felt somewhat turgid.

One doesn’t read Bond novels for their realism, but Goldfinger’s plot had more holes than St. Andrews. The reason Goldfinger gives for sparing Bond’s life at one point feels too convenient, because it basically gives Bond what he wanted anyway: an in into Goldfinger’s plans. (SPOILER: I also wasn’t entirely convinced by the way Goldfinger’s Fort Knox scheme was foiled.)

Up until now, I’ve been aware that the female characters in the Bond books are not always three-dimensional, but this is the first time I’ve actually disliked the way they are written. Jill Masterton, is indeed a rather flat, two-dimensional character who, of course, sleeps with Bond. Then her sister comes along, and she has no interest in sleeping with Bond because – why else? – she’s a lesbian. The poorly named Pussy Galore (I mean, really?) is also a lesbian – until she realises that she has just never met a real man like Bond before. You can excuse Fleming for some of the views that creep into his writing because of the time he lived in, but that view of lesbianism was surely anachronistic even then.

So: Goldfinger is an exciting, globe-trotting spy novel that sits nicely in the halfway point of the series and for the most part I really did enjoy it. But the book didn’t particularly enhance or develop Bond’s character, the plot’s problems were numerous and I really didn’t like the way the female characters were written.

Rating: 79%