defunct Reviews

A strange book. You can read about its history on Wikipedia. After Fleming's death, it was decided that it would be a good idea to continue the series under the authorship of 'Robert Markham', which would be a pen-name to a series of authors, the first (and only) of which was Kingsley Amis. The novel is very uneven, and though parts of it have been cannibalized for plot elements in the Pierce Brosnan Bond films, Colonel Sun does nothing for me. Reprinted in my copy of the book, one reviewer says of Colonel Sun that: "It is as indistinguishable from the real thing as butter is from butter." Reading stuff like that makes me wonder sometimes. Regardless, I'm afraid I have to disagree. Colonel Sun does not feel like a Fleming novel at all. That is not a fault, specifically, but it also is not an especially strong book. It is a bold move to begin a book by kidnapping M and slaughtering several minor, though beloved characters. Fair enough, but everything that follows is a bit of a mess. Amis was a bit of a sex fiend, and so the book tends to have rather unnecessary instances where, when nothing else is going on, Bond fucks his companion. The plot is convoluted and incoherent, the characters not especially sympathetic, and it really isn't a particularly strong book in any way. The villain, Colonel Sun, is flat and convoluted, with a forced background to accommodate poorly-written eccentricities. I've said it many times and I stand by it, not perhaps as solidly as I did before, but just as relentlessly: if you want to read a James Bond book, stick to one written by Ian Fleming. I've never read any of the Raymond Benson books, but John Gardner, 'Robert Markham', Sebastian Faulks (as 'Ian Fleming') have all failed pretty horrendously at writing a good spy novel featuring James Bond. Jeffery Deaver's Carte Blanche was easily the best "new Bond" book I've read, but it succeeded largely because this was a new beginning for the character, rather than a continuation of a line. Like I said, stick with the Fleming.

The short stories are criticized for not feeling like Bond adventures, but that's precisely why I enjoy them. I find I like his adventures less, and his thoughts and behavior more. The short stories are slices of his life, rather than proper narratives. I find them more attractive in many ways, even though only about half of them are any good as reading. If you love the character, you are likely to enjoy the shorts. If you like the adventures, you are likely to dislike them. "Octopussy" barely features Bond at all. Aspects of this story and "Property of a Lady" were used as elements for the film Octopussy, but that's about it. The thief, who has spent most of his late life as a drunk underwater enthusiast, knowing his goose is cooked, dies from an underwater wound while trying to catch an octopus. The story gives us a bit of insight into Bond's past, but Bond seems far more detached than usual - perhaps even bored. It could be he's carefully controlling himself, but it's hard to say. "Property of a Lady" is odd and very quiet, but pleasant. A bit difficult to make sense of it, in some ways. Apparently Fleming was so dissatisfied with the end result that he refused payment from Sotheby's auction house, who commissioned the story. "007 In New York" was written to appease someone after Fleming had panned NYC in a previous article. The town wasn't to his liking, but he hoped this short would help smooth any hurt feelings. It is notable for containing the recipe for Bond's scrambled eggs. For me, "The Living Daylights" is by far the highlight of the collection, and it remains one of my favorite bits of Bond. The short story was adapted into the pre-credit sequence of the Living Daylights film. This is unglamorous spy/assassin work. Bond is being supervised by a stuffy field agent, and must out-sniper a Russian sniper. Bond is annoyed to discover that the blonde cellist he's been eying each night turns out to be the sniper, and so rather than kill her, he shoots the gun itself and disarms her. He spends the whole story reading a German thriller, eating bacon and eggs, drinking scotch, and waiting to commit murder. Great fun. The weakest thing about the story, though, and what a professional of Bond's ilk ought to know, is that there's no evidence that the girl was actually a cellist. Sure, she's carrying an instrument case, but that's just a front. The exposition mentioned that she was one of the KGB's top snipers. The fact that she's a looker shouldn't have interfered with his job. In the film adaptation, it's made clear that the girl is not actually a capable (or competent) sniper, but merely posing as one, so his decision is forgivable. In the book, Bond basically avoids killing an enemy agent because she's a pretty cellist, and that seems uncharacteristically poor judgement on his part. Still a great read, though.

The Man With the Golden Gun is a controversial novel, and a polarizing one a that. Fleming died prior to its publication, and it has long been rumored that the book was finished by a ghost-writer who may or may not have been Kingsley Amis. The novel does have a full structure, and various persons who were around at the time have sworn that Fleming did finish the book himself. Who can know for sure? I have read some Kingsley Amis, not enough to be entirely familiar with his style, but The Man With the Golden Gun does not feel to me like the work of Amis. However, it does have a very different feel from any of Fleming's other books. In some ways, I would have an easier time believing that some other writer actually wrote the whole thing. If that were the case, though, this mystery writer would have at least done his/her homework. The pacing of the novel is peculiar. It's quite short compared to his other novels, and it begins splendidly. Bond has been brainwashed by the Russians who found him wandering in Vladivostok, and he's been sent back to infiltrate the British Secret Service and kill M. However, suspecting foul-play from this "Bond" who has reappeared after being MIA for a year, his assassination attempt fails. As was the case with You Only Live Twice, M punishes/goads Bond by giving him another impossible assignment. He has to hunt down and kill Scaramanga, a gunman working for the Russians who has eliminated several western operatives.  The novel then skips forward several weeks to Bond in the Caribbean. A clue leads Bond directly to Scaramanga, who then carelessly hires Bond as a temporary/disposable assistant. The 'Pistols' Scaramanga of the novel is in no way the same character as Francesco Scaramanga of the film, even though they are both brilliant gunmen with brilliant guns. 'Pistols' is an American gangster, unrefined, and careless. He's too arrogant to be careful, which makes him unbelievable as an operative with any administrative power. The actual plot of the book is unremarkable, though I actually really like the fact that it was of a modest scale. There is no world domination and/or megalomania here. This is simply a front for Russian money being destroyed by the west. Bond is again teamed with his old American friend Felix Leiter, and the two covertly try to identify the plot and unhinge the opposition. They succeed and are both badly injured in the process. The book ends with Bond losing consciousness in the hospital after parting with Felix. Fleming had been saying for years that he was running out of steam, interest, and ideas for the Bond series, and that this novel would be his last. Even though I quite enjoy The Man With the Golden Gun as a novel, in no way is it "an ending" to the series. Part of that might be the fault of his death interfering with the projected conclusion, or maybe he just planned to end it as a book and not to follow with another. Who knows? I enjoyed its modest scale, but in a way its a shame the book was written at all. It would have been perfect had it appeared somewhere mid-series, perhaps directly after Dr. No, but then we would have lost the entire brainwashed-Bond sequence, which is actually excellent, and that would be a shame too. Oh well.

As a sad interjection, the fact that Marc-Ange Draco (Bond's father-in-law) is not mentioned once in the story, nor that Draco might have had any kind of reaction to his daughter's murder in the previous novel, is one of You Only Live Twice's weakest links. Draco was a very active, very involved character (specifically against Blofeld) prior to this. The fact that Blofeld killed his daughter makes his absence in the aftermath that much more baffling. Bond's British mission is almost supplanted by a new mission assigned him by Tanaka, his Japanese contact, and that is what occupies the second half of the book. Bond must kill a mysterious foreigner, who conveniently turns out to be the same man who killed Bond's wife. Blofeld's reasons for being in Japan, and his rather outrageous "Garden of Death" are a mystery to me. Following Thunderball, Blofeld becomes less and less comprehensible a villain. He's a bored, rich criminal genius, tinkering with humanity. The suicide angle works with a Japanese backdrop, but at one point in the novel Blofeld is overheard saying that eventually he'll uproot and try the same thing elsewhere, which borders on nonsensical. One of the most peculiar things about You Only Live Twice is that Fleming abandoned two perfectly good ways of ending the Bond series. After escaping Blofeld's lair, Bond falls a great distance into the sea and awakes an amnesiac. He has been living on an isolated fishing island for a short period prior to attacking Blofeld's lair, and the girl who rescues him wants him to stay on the island. She doesn't know Bond's real name, only his undercover pseudonym, and neither does Bond. The two begin a happy life together on the island before Bond's memory is slightly jostled by the word "Vladivostok" on a stray piece of newsprint. He leaves the island, thinking that the keys to his lost past have something to do with this place, and she reluctantly lets him go. She is pregnant, and he doesn't know it. Wikipedia actually lists the offspring's name as James Suzuki Bond, which makes zero sense, given that the mother never knew his real name was James Bond. Had Fleming left Bond on the island, he could have had a happy life as a fisherman with this woman. Or, had Fleming not written the subsequent novel, we would have never known what happened to him behind enemy lines. Both were interesting, and entirely reasonable ways of ending this kind of a series. In a way it's a shame he chose to continue.

If you're somebody who really detests spoilers, you really should not read this review, or my reviews You Only Live Twice and (possibly also) The Man With the Golden Gun. From this point on Fleming's novels are not closed systems and the end of each affects the bulk of what follows. The short, spoiler-free review: it is a very good, very sad novel. Longer, spolier-ripe review follows.... On Her Majesty's Secret Service (henceforth referred to as OHMSS) is a strange novel, and one of the series' strongest. Or not, depending on your prejudices. It is a controversial book. Bond collaborates with a high-ranking Corsican criminal to locate the super-villain Blofeld. Bond also falls in love with the Corsican's daughter, a mentally unstable woman called Tracy who becomes dependent on Bond as an emotional anchor. As she rehabilitates her humors off-stage, Bond engages in a covert operation to track down and identify Blofeld by posing as a genealogical expert. Bond, having learned the enemy's plans, fails to kill/capture Blofeld after destroying his base of operations. Blofeld escapes, and Bond marries the girl. Blofeld follows the wedding car and ambushes it in a drive-by shooting during which Tracy is killed. The end. Ian Fleming wrote OHMSS in Jamaica while Eon Productions was filming the Jamaican-based scenes for the first Bond film Dr. No. As a result, elements from the film-casting begin influencing the trajectory of the novels. Bond's lineage is determined to be half Scottish and half Swiss, actress Ursula Andress, who plays "Bond girl" Honey Ryder in the film, gets a name-check in the novel, and Bond finally marries. OHMSS is definitely located in Fleming's third-phase as a novelist. The tone of the book, and those which follow it, feels different from those that came before. Fleming's failing health and increasing fame might have been the cause. He admitted to his publisher and to friends that he was running out of ideas and scenarios to occupy his anti-hero. The story begins with Bond tracking this mysterious girl who has captivated him. As he pursues her, he repeatedly mulls over the idea of resigning from his position with the Ministry of Defence, which he feels has wasted a year of his life hunting for the missing-presumed-mischievous villain Blofeld. Working together with Corsican crime-boss and concerned father Draco, Bond finally meets Blofeld. The film adaptation of the novel boasted about how close it stayed to the source material, and in many ways it does, but re-reading the novel it's interesting to compare how different the two are. Of the two, I prefer the book, though the Tracy of the novel is a much less developed character than that of the film. Most of her action happens in the background. Outside of Bond and M, Fleming's best characters are all rascal heroes. He even gives them all similar names: Darko Kerim Bey (head of Station T), Marc-Ange Draco (Head of a Corsican Crime Syndicate), Richard "Dikko" Henderson (Australian MI6 agent). They all have qualities which would make them villains, but for their allegiances to Bond. Rather like Shakespeare's Falstaff or Sir Toby Belch, they're also (usually) the most enjoyable  characters to read, though now always the most sympathetic. The weakest part of the book, for me, lies with Blofeld. The reason Bond is able to track him down is because Blofeld has decided he is descended from nobility and wants to be recognized as the official heir to this legacy. WHY? WHY? WHY WHY WHY??? You are a villain that holds the world ransom. You are in the process of committing a serious act of agricultural terrorism. Is it just some kind of misdirected vanity? You shouldn't be drawing undue attention to yourself if your main hobby involves not being noticed destroying the globe.

The Spy Who Loved Me This is a tricky one to review. It's not widely liked, and many people don't seem to count it as part of the cannon-proper. When I first read the novel, many many years ago, I remember enjoying the story and the shift in narrative perspective. Returning to it last year, I repeatedly found it uncomfortable to read. The problem isn't to do with the switch to a first-person narrative, but rather that I don't like the life story of the heroine/narrator. The book is broken into three parts: the first part tells her life-story up to the present day, and describes how she came to work at this small motel in the American wilderness; the second sets-up the action when two hoods bent on committing insurance fraud siege the motel and take her prisoner; the third is the point in the novel when James Bond is introduced and deals with the violent night at the motel to which he was brought by chance, and how they survive the thugs. Like I said, the narrative-shift from the other books isn't a problem for me, and structuring the novel as one might a three-act play is actually refreshing. During this re-reading I found I was simply desperate for Bond to arrive and occupy the focus of the attention. And then, when he does arrive, he seems to make several really bunglesome choices that unnecessarily endanger both him and the narrator. We're irregularly reminded throughout the series of novels that Bond has never killed in cold blood, and he seems really reluctant to kill enemies unless they are attacking him at the time. As a result, he seems to put himself unnecessarily in danger with alarming frequency. It's not one of the stronger novels in the series, and it has absolutely nothing in common with the plot of the film that shares its name, but it's also not a bad book. It just isn't to my taste anymore, and I'd rather not read it again anytime soon.

Ian Fleming's output as a novelist can be broken into three periods. The first period spans Casino Royale and ends with From Russia With Love. I don't know where the second period ends. It might be with Thunderball, or two novels down the line, with On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's hard for me to tell, but the consensus seems to be that the final period is marked by Fleming's failing health, his dissolution with the Bond character/format, and his waning interest toward continuing the series. Thunderball is the first novel that breaks with the old Bond format, in that it began not as a novel but as a screenplay. This fact would come back to haunt Fleming (and later the company which produced the Bond films) for decades. Thunderball was originally meant to be a film, and of all the novels it is possibly the most cinematic in style and scope. Thunderball began as a collaboration between Fleming and several other men, one of whom is/was an opportunistic chump called Kevin McClory. The screenplay yielded some ideas, but was eventually abandoned. Unfortunately, Fleming drew from the abandoned screenplay to produce the novel Thunderball. He was promptly sued by the surviving collaborators (or, at least McClory), who claimed they/he co-owned the source material, everything to do with Thunderball, and therefore also James Bond. The case was eventually settled, and when the filmmakers opted to adapt the novel to the screen, McClory wrangled an Executive Producer credit. For the next 15+ years, McClory would wrestle with these his fragments of ownership, attempting repeatedly to make his own Bond film(s). All McClory's scheming was derailed when courts ruled that the only Bond-related material McClory had any claim to was the story for Thunderball. In 1983 he took that right and, with an enriched Sean Connery in tow, produced/released the uneasy Never Say Never Again. But let's nevermind about the films for now. For me (at least during this most recent re-reading), Thunderball is the third of Fleming's great Bond novels in the series (the other two being Casino Royale and From Russia With Love). I don't mean that Thunderball places third for quality ranking (though it probably does, actually), but that it was the third time he'd written a great Bond book, rather than just a fair or good one. Whether it has to do with the richness of the collaborative source material that inspired it, or if he was simply in rejuvenated form, for some reason the book seems more evenly gripping.  Fleming's own health was beginning to deteriorate after a lifetime of excessive living and vice. Thunderball opens with Bond feeling wretched, diagnosed as being in a biologically toxic condition, and on the receiving end of one of M's temperamental fads. He sends Bond to a health spa called Shrublands, where 007 will be decontaminated, cleansed, and healthified. Bond's near hysteria at the absurdity of M's decree is probably the funniest prose Fleming has ever written, and Shrublands itself is filled with head-shaking quackery and other amusing jazz. Bond eventually graduates from Shrublands, healthy and exhibiting hippy-dippy behavior that has his peers doubting his sanity. After a near death experience, Bond snaps out of his recent wellness, and has a righteous ration of goodly bacon and scrambled eggs, chased with proper drink and cigarettes, before departing on his mission. The novel marks the debut of the criminal organization called SPECTRE, and Thunderball shows SPECTRE at their most plausible and straightforward: we have stolen two atomic bombs, and we are holding the western world ransom for a vast amount of money. The puzzling thing, which has never been clear to me, is why Blofeld, the leader of SPECTRE, is called "Number 2" in Thunderball, and Largo, Blofeld's subordinate representative, is called "Number 1". Largo is not superior to Blofeld. It's just one of those things that probably should have been corrected during revisions and was never adjusted. Blofeld is, likewise, at his most plausible here. A minor character when considering the actual page-time that he occupies, Blofeld lacks the rather loopy hubris that undermines him in later novels. Here he's just a criminal genius, rather than a vain supervillain. Domino, the "Bond girl" of the novel, manages to be very sympathetic for some reason. Largo's kept-woman, she seems like a lost twenty-something who recently fell in with a bad crowd, and is now in over her head - she just doesn't know it yet. In the novel, it's as though she hasn't known Largo more than a few months, whereas in the film I always got the impression that she had been Largo's mistress for at least a few years. The Domino of the film is attractive, but rather aloof and bratty. She seems like a rather bored socialite. In the novel she is more multifaceted and sympathetic. Her imaginary love-affair with the sailor depicted on packets of Player's cigarettes is one of the best examples of Fleming writing emotions well. As much as I love the character of Felix Leiter, in Thunderball he begins to feel a bit contrived and out of his league. The man has several artificial limbs, yet he insists he be allowed to participate in an underwater knife battle. It just seems forced. Like I said, I love the character, I wish he wasn't always being hoisted on Bond whenever the action takes place near American territory. Thunderball is a really good read, and I recommend it without reservation. Of course I'd recommend anyone start at the beginning of the series and work along in that sequence, but if you're someone who loves the films and wants to start on the books gradually without being too far removed from the familiar, Thunderball is about as close as you'll get from Fleming.

Many Fridays ago (my reviews sometimes get awfully backlogged) we decided for a quick and easy dinner-out at Phobulous, our go-to Vietnamese soup joint. Unfortunately, when we arrived they were overflowing with customers still waiting to be seated. As our dining time was limited, we opted to change plans and try something else. Observing the surrounding options, we opted to give Highlevel Diner another try. I had been to the Highlevel Diner only once before. I was with Mrs. Us, and it was not a happy experience. At the time, she was spiraling miserably in her soon-to-be-former job with the YMCA, and that day had been particularly bad. One of us ordered a dish (I think it was a burger she'd ordered...) that came with a side of four different salsas. I don't remember what I'd ordered (something nagging in my memory suggests it was a salmon dish) but I do remember having their hummus with it, and that it was some of the worst, blandest hummus I'd ever tasted. In my desperate attempts to cheer her up, I began several disgusting food combinations, combining my hummus with her salsas, refilling the little serving cups, and swallowing the mixture like one would swallow a jello-shot. Allegedly, I was embarrassing. Until 2011, that had been my one experience at the place: bad memories; substandard food. For those unfamiliar with the establishment, Highlevel Diner is one of Edmonton's beloved businesses, and in most polls and opinions it can do little wrong. It was an opinion I couldn't really understand or share. During this most recent visit, which I gladly admit was much happier, Mrs. Us and I both had one of their highly esteemed clubhouse sandwiches ($14 each) and a glass of their home-brewed iced tea ($3.75). The drinks tasted strongly of slightly sweetened orange pekoe + some lemon. Not bad, but certainly nowhere near the sugar-levels of most iced teas you're likely to find. Now, the sandwich.... Mrs. Us and our friend Nick had previously praised the Highlevel Diner clubhouse, so I figured it was a better bet than most. To be fair, I think Mrs. Us enjoyed hers better than I did. Clubhouse sandwiches are tricky organisms, especially if you opt to use real roasted/baked turkey instead of processed- or deli-style slices. The danger of turkey is that it's nearly always notoriously dry, and that is precisely why mayonnaise is so necessary for the sandwich to succeed. It also adds a bit of fat to the otherwise lean breast meat. Highlevel Diner is the sort of place that is proud to serve complex, multi-grain breads on their sandwiches. That's all well and good, but you'd better be sure you choose sympathetic textures for it to succeed. The long and short of my nit-picking gibberish is this: turkey breast + three slices of Earth toast + lettuce, tomato fragment, and lean bacon = SUCH A GOD DAMNED FUCKING DRY SANDWICH THAT IT IS HARD TO PRODUCE ENOUGH SALIVA TO SWALLOW. Now then.... The sandwich did contain a dusting of mayonnaise. I know, because I went hunting for it. It needed much much more, though. Once I was able to flag down our genuinely busy server, I requested (and offered to pay extra for) an additional side of mayonnaise for my sandwich. I am very grateful she provided me a substantial portion, and free of charge at that. What little mayo didn't end up on my sandwich went to flavor my unremarkable and bland french fries. Highlevel Diner's table ketchup is their own recipe, and though mild and pleasant it didn't interest me at the time. Their mayonnaise was alright when used in excess. As we ate, and awaited our pleasant dessert - a shared slice of Skor cheesecake ($7.50) - I watched a newly arrived neighbouring table. Amongst its occupants, I spotted one of my old science professors; I assume the others were his family. It appears as though one of his sons is rather badly autistic. I always found the man to be a peculiar, rather petulant fellow, but I can't help but feel more sympathetic toward him now. Nevertheless, I still maintain that I am right: that the Earth is an open-system as far as mass is concerned, and that he still owes me marks. We left the diner in a hurry after paying, as our limited supping time had expired, and proceeded with our evening. I'm afraid the appeal of the place is still lost on me. It's not a proper diner. It's not a proper health-food cafe. I have yet to truly enjoy any of their food. None of that changes the fact that its status remains almost legendary in this town, and is likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future.

Feta & Olives Mediterranean Grill The donair quest continues. Feta & Olives Mediterranean Grill is located in the University of Alberta's HUB mall. HUB mall is an uncomfortably long, narrow stretch of building that's always felt to me like some kind of airport runway. Imagine the world's biggest food-court as a long narrow hallway. It is usually populated by lollygagging students who don't know how to walk efficiently or in single-file. Idiots. Despite its similarity to angina, I often used HUB mall as a way of dodging inclement weather when navigating the campus during my student days. A few years ago, Mrs. Us mentioned to me that her favourite donairs were sold in HUB Mall, from a kiosk that used to be called Pita Pizazz. At some point in the last five years, the Pita Pizazz was renamed Feta & Olives Mediterranean Grill, though according to Mrs. Us the menu looks more or less identical. Chances are they simply lost/abandoned the rights to the franchise but chose to continue operating. Anyway, Feta & Onions' offers a variety of Mediterranean standards. Their donairs ($6) are quite small when compared with those offered by many other places. The biggest difference is that theirs is more a murky honey sauce rather than the typical sweet white donair sauce. It is very flavourful, though. They also seem to use a spongy flat-bread rather than a pita. My most recent experience at Feta & Onions was mixed. The donairs were of fair quality. The vegetables were rather soft and over-ripe, and the meat was pre-cut and kept along the cold line. I can understand the logic behind having a lot of ready-meat on hand for rush periods, such as lunchtime, but I've had three different donairs in the last few months, at different times of the day, and I have yet to see someone actually serve me their kinetic kabab meat. On this occasion, the donair meat was predictably tepid and a bit dry, as pre-cut meat often tends to be.

World's Finest Donair 12106 Jasper Ave. The donair quest continues. Some weeks ago, my hungry brother seemed to be enjoying my company and wanted to continue our conversation, so he took me to World's Finest Donair, where he's eaten on occasion in the past. I remember he, Mrs Us, and I had gone there once previously, a year or two ago, but I don't remember what I ate then. On this occasion he and I each had the same thing, one of their "Super Donair" combos: donair, fries, and can soda. ($11) The serving/eating area manages to be both bleak and shockingly neon - try to imagine a place where characters in a 1980s Tarkovsky film would take turns serving Happy Meals and shooting heroin (and/or gang members). It's not a filthy place, more stained than dirty, but it looks as though it took decades to eventually euthanize the grime. Probably not an ideal setting for a romantic dinner. Despite my best efforts on two separate occasions, the sign outside World's Finest Donair refuses to be coherently photographed by my cellphone. I'm not sure what makes them claim that theirs are the "world's finest" donairs, but mine was certainly fair. The "Super Donair" is not insubstantially meat-stuffed. The bottom of the pita is  reinforced by a bit of processed cheese strip, like some sort of smegmalicious panty-liner. We had our donairs with tomatoes and onions. The meat used was not cut fresh from the kebab, but was (disappointingly) pre-cut and reheated on their flat-top. Their chips are McCain-style pre-fab frozen fries. Crispy outsides with fluffy and unmemorable innards. I accepted the server's offer of a spattering of seasoning salt for my fries. The meat was somewhere between tepid and hot, thanks to the flat-top reheat. The donair sauce sweet and oily. A fair donair, to be sure, but it'd be a sad thing if there was no better to be found.

Mrs. Us and I recently did something we've never done together before: we attended an Edmonton Opera production. She'd seen several operas previously, most of them old Edmonton Opera shows, while I'd seen a few of theirs and some other unrelated productions. Neither of us are culture snobs, but we do enjoy some of that stuff. Unfortunately, Edmonton Opera (and the Symphony) tends to only produce the usual Hits-of-the-Classics-schlock that isn't worth bothering with. Neither she nor I are especially interested in Mozart, or Verdi, or Puccini, and Gilbert & Sullivan aren't fucking opera anyway. (You'd never know it from their repertoire, though.) The only good production I've ever seen out of that company was one they did about five years ago of Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle paired with Schoenberg's Erwartung. That was a risky production, based on a foreign adaptation, and it was fucking brilliant. She and I both saw it, separately, and still talk about how good it was. We wish they would take chances with their repertoire more often, but history suggests that's not likely to happen anytime soon. However, through her employer, Mrs. Us was offered some discounted tickets for their current production and we decided to give it a try. I've actively avoided the Jubilee Auditorium since the last time I saw George Carlin there. That concert, which took place only a few months before the maestro died, was wretchedly uncomfortable for me. The show was fine, but the recently renovated Jubilee Auditorium seemed even more claustrophobically tiny. I am not a short, narrow, shallow fellow. I spent that entire show with my feet off the ground, because my knees were jammed into the seat before me, and leaning forward, because my shoulders were too wide to exist within the space allotted one seat. So, I sat hunched forward, knees propped, a mass of precariously balanced tension for three hours. Carlin was ace, testing new material and all, but everything other than him that was murder. It was not an experience I was keen to repeat. Thankfully, perhaps because we had semi-upgraded seats this time, I found my level of comfort to be tolerable. However, strangely, even though we occupied the same seats during both halves of the program, I found my spot much less comfortable during the second half. The first half of the show consisted of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, and the second half was Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci. Of the two, of course I had heard of I Pagliacci, whose one (hit) aria is as iconic as the image of the titular clown. I'd never heard of the Cavalleria Rusticana previously, and after hearing it I'm not surprised why that is. Completely unremarkable, not at all memorable, and extremely bland, but obviously Italian. The grossly unbalanced narrative sucked, the staging was ludicrous and baffling, and the pacing beyond oafish. The story centres around a woman whose man has left her for an old flame. This old flame is currently a different man's woman. During Easter celebrations in a small Italian town, eventually this scandal is unleashed and the two men duel. The tresspassing man is suddenly killed, and the opera ends. At one point, a pretty pathetic Passion of the Christ (and/or Stations of the Cross) wanders across the jolly singing stage, consisting of one doofus Jesus and a pathetic Roman soldier bumbling after him. We laughed. Completely forgettable; completely meh. We wandered during the intermission and shared a hot chocolate prior to the start of I Pagliacci. The second opera, at least, wasn't awful. I wasn't as impressed by it as I expected I might be, but that one tune certainly has legs. The lead tenor handled the vocals well enough, but he also looked very unwell. Strenuous activity, such as walking across the stage, appeared to exhaust him. He managed the role, though. The rest of the focal cast did as well. The biggest problems, material aside, had to do with the direction and the choreography. I will repeat most of Mrs. Us' opinions on the subject, as she's better informed than I. Basically, the chorus in both operas did nothing but stand around. When they did move, the choreography seemed to consist of: stand still, walk back-and-forth, shuffle, look out of place. The people on the stage seemed to not know what to do with themselves. It was as though they learned their parts, but had no idea of the context of the work. It all looked awkward as hell. The leads fared marginally better, but not by much. Grabbing someone by the shirt and holding him/her there for the duration of entire musical measures while singing at them is as unlikely as it is ineffective. Lazy director. Chances are we won't bother revisiting the opera any time soon. Their current season is more of the same. However, I'll be glad to try them again in the event that they actually try performing something interesting again.

I don't know why in particular this collection is called For Your Eyes Only. Perhaps that's the longest story in the set, or perhaps it's considered to be the strongest? I don't know. It's probably the closest to a small-scale, proper Bond plot. The film adaptation of For Your Eyes Only mashes together the short story that shares its name with that of "Risico". Even though neither of the two stories has anything to do with the other, the film combines them ably. Sadly, Bond seems to still be in his "bitch"-mode, and so the women present aren't portrayed especially sympathetically. "Quantum of Solace" has no elements upon which a Bond film could be based. It's a fine bit of reading, and I enjoyed it well enough, but the entire story is a conversation about an immature man and his failing marriage. Bond is not an active character at all. He simply sits, while awaiting a flight away from Nassau, and listens to this story narrated by his host. The film that eventually stole its name has absolutely nothing in common with the short story. "From a View To a Kill" never interested me. Some people like it because it gives us a few insights into Bond's youth and history. I like a one particular passage that criticizes post-war Paris. The rest of the story alternates between action-film and dull spy-work. I'm all for more spy-work in Bond, but this particular story does nothing for me. "The Hildebrand Rarity" is actually shockingly weak, and I don't think especially well written or even properly structured. Bond is, for some reason, in the Seychelles trying to track something down, and then he's suddenly a guest on this jerk's yacht. The jerk is boorish, very rich, and an abusive husband. He gets very drunk one night, again insults his guests, and gives his wife another beating. He is then killed on his boat by someone unseen, via a rare spiked fish (called "the Hildebrand Rarity") that is rammed down his throat. Bond spends the remainder of the story trying to decide who killed the bastard, and never really learns the truth. Neither do we, but nobody should care. The only influence this story had on the films was that the murdered jerk (Milton Krest) appears as a character in the much maligned License to Kill film. I seem to remember more-consistently enjoying the remaining four short stories that are bundled in the Octopussy and the Living Daylights book. We shall see how well they have held up when I get to them.

Of all the Bond novels I've read during this most recent marathon, Goldfinger was the first time I found myself reluctant to continue reading. As soon as Bond enters America, I find my interest waning. I don't know why, but it's one of those things. I have the same problem with the film version. Ian Fleming is quite often criticized for the way he views, writes, and addresses women in his works. The novel Casino Royale famously ends with Bond uttering the grim and broken phrase "The bitch is dead," about his double-agent lover Vesper Lynd. It set a tone, and helped cement some of Bond's signature brutality. But, it also did not seem horrendously out of place given the context of that utterance. At the time, Bond was angry and hurt, and his way of coping involved dehumanizing the woman who had wronged him. Fair enough. However, move forward several books in the series, and something of a trend begins to emerge. By the time we reach Goldfinger, a novel which admittedly does not portray women in any kind of especially balanced fashion, Fleming seems to have chosen 'bitch' as Bond's preferred synonym for 'woman'. He also deals uncomfortably with the subject of lesbianism, writing it off as a transitory condition born out of post-war confusion and affluence. I was never a big fan of the film Goldfinger, which I shan't bore you with at the moment. (I'll save that for my review of the film.) I remember, after reading the novel for the first time, thinking that I preferred the book to the film. In some ways that's still true, but having re-read it, I'm afraid the story isn't especially strong. Mr. Goldfinger, a Soviet agent obsessed by gold, is raiding the gold supplies of the western world and smuggling it into the USSR. He also cheats at gambling in order to raise large sums of money to fund his own enterprises. Goldfinger's plan in the novel is to rob Fort Knox by poisoning the town's entire population and importing his own removal force. This is one of the ways in which the film improves on the book, where Goldfinger, in order to cause the value of his own gold to skyrocket, schemes to expose the Fort Knox gold to large amounts of radiation, making it functionally worthless for generations. This saves him having to remove it all. For some reason, Goldfinger doesn't kill Bond and Tilly Masterson, but rather kidnaps them as hired help. This allows the previously asexual Tilly to become infatuated with the explicitly lesbian gang-leader Pussy Galore. This is, naturally, the only way to explain why she wasn't at any point keen to shag Bond, and makes her less human and more expendable in the course of the narrative. By the time she's finally killed-off, it's almost a relief that we won't have to endure this forced character any longer. Fast-forward to the end, when Bond is captured again by Goldfinger, Pussy Galore is (for some reason) also present, and she has somehow very suddenly become allied with Bond, and also become explicitly heterosexual. Her admission that, prior to Bond, she'd "never met a real man before" is pretty groan-worthy. Seeing how relatively misogynistic the rest of the book is, what can you do but shake your head and finish reading?   I've always found Goldfinger to be one of the weaker stories in the series. However, there is one area where Fleming consistently shines, and that is the way he writes scenes of competitive gaming. Early in the novel, Bond is hired, following a chance encounter, to thwart this man who so expertly cheats at cards. Setting aside the fact that the scene involving Goldfinger's card-game seems very derivative of a similar scene in Moonraker, it's among the better moments in the book. The golf match between Bond and Goldfinger is probably the strongest section in the book.

Unfortunately (or not, depending on one's preferences), I initially chose to read the novels in the sequence which followed the film releases, rather than the chronology of the books themselves. As this was before I had any access to the internet, or really any familiarity with publisher notes, I just assumed that the films followed the books, which they certainly don't. This didn't hinder my enjoyment of that first book, mind you, but it did  rather muddle some of the details later on. Eventually, I reread the entire series in the correct sequence, and currently find I am doing so again. Dr. No (the first of the Bond films) is one of the nearest adaptations to its source novel (the sixth of the series). The story is among the more modest in scope, at least until the last third of the story. In the novel, Bond has just returned to service following his near fatal poisoning at the end of From Russia With Love. M, sends him on what seems to be a relatively cushy and tedious assignment to Jamaica to clear up why MI-6's Jamaican agent has vanished along with his secretary. Bond does so, reluctantly and spitefully, thinking he is being simultaneously punished and coddled for his sloppy near-death experience in the previous mission. When the Jamaican assignment proves to be both dangerous and high-stakes, Bond relies on his own skills and some local allies, and eschews reporting his findings to HQ until he's proven himself to still be an able and resourceful agent. The novel, prior to his meeting the man Dr. No, is some of Fleming's strongest writing. Bond isn't a superman, and he's not all suave quips. He does tedious detective work. His nerves cause him to vomit violently after he escapes being killed in his bed by a poisonous insect. He wonders if he still has what it takes to survive in his chosen profession. The novel suffers once Bond and company are captured by the eponymous villain. The Dr. No's motive is one of the more plausible in the series, and also not entirely ludicrous: the Russians are paying him to disrupt the trajectory of launched American rockets, causing them to land on domestic targets. Fair enough. But, Dr. No also, naturally, has to be some kind of mad scientist with an obstacle course of torture that Bond must survive, where he battles a giant squid and so on. Oh well, it was a solid novel before that. If nothing else, it's the point in the series where Bond is deprived of his beloved (and butt ugly) "lady's gun" Beretta 0.25 pistol, and is forced to carry the legendary (and eternally attractive) Walther PPK. It's also the only time, so far at least, that I've seen Bond drink rye whisky (in Jamaica, oddly enough). Bond drinks several large Canadian Clubs on ice prior to rowing to Dr. No's island. Bizarre that.

Thought by many to be the greatest of Fleming's novels, From Russia With Love is certainly pretty good. I've always been of the opinion that it is one of the only books whose film adaptation improves on the source. When you look at the film, the novel's plot is rather flat and one-dimensional: the Russian espionage-machine, after suffering several high-profile failures, needs to reestablish their standing by lowering the status of the opposition. Eventually, a plot is hatched to humiliate the British Secret Service by ruining the reputation of James Bond, whom they plan to kill after involving him in a sex scandal. From Russia With Love, Fleming's fifth Bond novel, famously ends with Bond losing consciousness after being poisoned. The audience is left thinking that the Russians have managed by chance to actually kill Bond. I've heard conflicting accounts of what Fleming's motives were for this. Lots of people think Fleming was tiring of the routine and work-load of authoring the novels. Others have claimed that, by the time From Russia With Love was published, Fleming had already completed some/all of the next novel in the series: Dr. No. It might have been an elaborate way of getting Bond to switch from his beloved Beretta pistol, which M. confiscates at the beginning of Dr. No, to the now infamously iconic Walther PPK. The novel is interesting in that it is only one of two in which Bond is absent from a large percentage of the action - the other being The Spy Who Loved Me. The first third of From Russia With Love focuses entirely on the Russian plot to trap Bond, and the characters involved in that strategy. Once the plot is set into motion, the novel shifts to Bond's domestic life and its recent tedious routines. Having been without an assignment in several months, Bond is getting stir-crazy and, he fears, soft. Once the trap is set and Bond is assigned to his mission, the novel plays-out very much as the film. The character of Darko Kerim Bey, MI-6's Head of the Turkish Station, is one of Fleming's finest, and remains a fellow terribly dear to me. The tragic end of Kerim Bey in both versions of From Russia With Love, along with that of the actor Pedro Armendariz who played him in the film, never fails to break my heart. Curiously, it is the Russians who rely on gadgets in the novel. The Bond books have a fraction of the gadgets that ruin most of the films. In both versions of this story, Bond's only real gadget is the splendid attache case, while the Russians have several different pistols concealed in a variety of housings - why they bother with that is never really made clear. As is often the case, Bond has the fight of his life yet again, and has to inevitably rely on his wits, strategy, and brute force to survive. However, in this case Bond's fears that he's going soft might be nearer the mark than he realizes. He is careless in From Russia With Love a record-number of times. In nearly every novel, Fleming makes an observation along the following lines: Bond observes some behavior/activity. Under normal circumstances, this behavior/activity would trigger alarm bells in Bond. However, he choses to ignore it this time, as nothing else around him suggests that what he sees warrants concern. I won't bore you by listing them all, but just know that the Windsor-knotted necktie is as sure a sign of adversary as anyone should require. If nothing else, the reason From Russia With Love is fundamentally important is because it somehow got into the hands of that useless turd John F. Kennedy. Kennedy once rated it among his favourite novels in some newspaper article, and this predictably caused sales of Bond novels to irreversibly explode. Endorsing From Russia With Love remains possibly the only redeemable thing JFK ever did.

I took a hiatus from reading Bond novels for a while. I did this for a few reasons: I wanted to mix things up a bit, but also because I'd reached what I'd previously considered to be the weakest point in the series. I've never liked Diamonds Are Forever. The film is famously wretched. The first time I read the Bond books, I gave up reading Diamonds Are Forever after the first few chapters. For some reason I chose to abandon and return to it at a later date, and skipped ahead to a different novel. I didn't end up returning to it for several years. When I did finally finish reading it, my impression wasn't especially favorable. It struck me as being exceedingly dull, though I expect it was affected by many of my own prejudices. Re-reading it recently, I was pleasantly surprised, if for no other reason than I enjoyed it more than I expected to. Moonraker, which immediately precedes Diamonds Are Forever, was until recently my favourite of the novels. However, my most recent reading of Moonraker left me sorely disappointed. It might seem a ludicrous criticism to claim that I'm finding the books outlandish, but it's true. Though the books might be plausible in various ways, they seem to most-consistently fall apart around Fleming's villains. I'm getting a bit tired of maniacal villains, and the series is full of them. Diamonds Are Forever is, for the most part, devoid of take-over-the-world-er Turczyks. Instead it deals with the rather mundane subject matter of mafia gangsters and diamond smuggling from a South African source, through British interests, and into America. One of my long-standing prejudices is that I tend to dislike virtually all Bond stories that occur in America. I don't know why it is, but most of them tend to rub me unsympathetically. This could be for a variety of reasons, including the gallons of rot-gut bourbon that Bond swallows whenever he's in the States. I suspect the biggest reason is that, with the exception of very few small areas, I've never been interested in America the way that many others tend to be. Reading it this time around, I was surprised to find I was actually enjoying the book rather more than I expected to. In fact, until the last quarter of the book, I was beginning to count it among the better novels. Sadly, once Bond was faced with the villain, a wealthy, Old-West-obsessed gangster who owns his own ghost town, complete with functioning railway infrastructure and other useless bunk, I completely lost interest. The convenient appearance out of Felix Leiter helping Bond escape also felt forced, and I found the novel's conclusion unsatisfying. Diamonds Are Forever isn't as bad as I remembered it, and if I cared more about Nevada, gambling, and the mob, chances are I would have really enjoyed the book much more.

I've a soft-spot for diner culture. The idea of the honest "greasy-spoon" joint is a glorious people's-fabric sort of thing that, like so many things in our modern world, is so often shit-upon by the meddlesome yupsters that surround us. It is also just as often championed by the worst sort of irony-dispensers who want to be seen slumming it. When you have places like Urban Diner, who have completely missed the point by having expensive boutique meatloaf and salisbury steak plates, it's more disheartening than anything. The diner was supposed to be a place to get a cheap hot meal that would fill you up and sustain you (until it eventually destroys and kills you...) under the ever-present gloom of modern economic uncertainty/transit. The soft-spot I have for them is for as boring and simple a reason as anything else in my life: I like the food. I'd been meaning to try Route 99 Diner on 99st for years. I'm rarely in that area, though, and so the opportunities were few. However, on a recent evening when we couldn't decide what to have for dinner, with the clock drawing on and on, I eventually suggested we try it and Mrs. Us was game. We had a nice walk to the diner, and chose a seat in the middle of the room. We examined the menu, placed our order, and then I left the table to check out their jukebox. I am cursed when it comes to jukeboxes that I have not had some hand in cultivating. When we went to a cousin's wedding in Athabasca two years ago, we visited both of the town's bars (BOTH of them!) - each of which featured a jukebox that greedily took my money. The first one was so backlogged with shitty tunes that, even hours later at last call, I didn't get to hear my tunes. In the second bar, a server simply turned off the jukebox (another last call) before my songs could play. It's a fucking curse. The jukebox at Route 99 had serious potential to be great. Though it has a great deal of repeating songs, at least half the machine claims to be full of great 1950s tunes. I inserted money, curiously selected nine tunes, and waited. And waited. And eventually I realized my songs would never play. I thought perhaps I had erred by pushing a mysterious button which defaults to the most played song(s) in the jukebox. No dice. Later on, I inserted just one dollar and chose a song that also didn't work. So, the jukebox was faulty. When we left at the end of the night, I mentioned it to the server so she could put a note on the machine to warn other customers that it will not play your songs. She then did exactly what anyone ought do under the circumstances, even though I didn't ask her to do it: she refunded the money I had inserted into the jukebox. Our server was nice, even though you could tell she seemed pleased the night was winding down. It even looked as though they might be able to close early since we were the last food-ordering customers before last call. While we waited for consumables, we observed the room, which is decorated with many old LP sleeves. When our food arrived, I realized I would have a hard time finishing it all. There were only a few things on their surprisingly extensive menu that appealed to me, but I was pretty sure I had to try their liver & onions ($13). I like organ meats, and chicken livers are brilliant when cooked properly. Usually liver & onions involves beef livers, though, with which I've had mixed success. These livers seemed almost more like cutlets, with a bit of battering on them. Hard to tell with all the gravy. In addition to the liver & onions, I'd ordered their two eggs any style ($6), over-easy. I figured that lightly cooked eggs would be an ace accompaniment to liver. In a way I was right. What killed me were the massive (and underwhelming) side dishes. The eggs came with toast and hashbrowns, which were entirely fair. If/when I return, I would certainly consider ordering that combination again. The liver & onions came with a starter salad (I chose Italian dressing), and mashed potatoes. The salad was bitter and otherwise flavorless. The mashed potatoes, swimming in packet-gravy, were some of the worst I've ever had, if for no other reason than they tasted obscenely of margarine. I abhor the flavour of margarine; it tastes bloody disgusting to me. I barely made a dent in the potatoes, but enjoyed soft yolk bursting upon gravy-ed liver meat. Mrs. Us ordered a chicken souvlaki dish for herself, and we each drank a glass of their "home-brewed iced-tea", which tasted exactly like powdered iced-tea from a tin. I ordered far too much food, but apart from the potatoes I ate it all. Total cost before tip, around $35.