From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


""'You are very handsome,' she said. She searched for a comparison that would give him pleasure. 'You are like an American film star.'
She was startled by his reaction. 'For God's sake! That's the worst insult you can pay a man!'"

Indeed. Bond, who quite cares about his image, certainly wouldn't be thrilled when compared to, say, Leonardo DiCaprio. From Russia, with Love (1957) is the fifth installment in Ian Fleming's Bond series. In Author's Note Mr. Fleming ensures the reader about the accuracy of the background to the novel, and in particular about the authenticity of the SMERSH ("Death to Spies") organization in Russia. Well, we now know better. Nevertheless, the author offers quite an interesting story that happens in mid-1950s, a tense period during the Cold War.

The reader first meets the chief executioner for SMERSH, a man who is on a fast career path because of severe shortage of executioners when there are so many millions of people in the Soviet Union that urgently need killing. We also meet the formidable and monstrous Rosa Klebb, the head of Department II, whose favorite pastime is partaking in torture of prisoners and closely watching their faces:

"[...] she would watch the eyes in the face a few inches away from hers and breathe in the screams as if they were perfume."

Colonel Klebb authorizes an elaborate plan to kill Bond ("Shems Bond") with the use of Tatiana Romanova, an extremely beautiful clerical employee of SMERSH. And then, of course, we have Bond himself, much more human than in the movies, regardless of who played him on film.

I have also enjoyed the vividly painted character of Darko Kerim, perhaps the most interesting person in the novel, a man who wants to have "This Man Died from Living Too Much" on his tombstone. But then, the introduction of Kerim to the plot leads to two completely gratuitous scenes - fight to death between two Gypsy women and then the attack of the Bulgars - that markedly cheapen the overall stylish tone of the novel.

The reader may enjoy the extended plot sequence that happens on the Orient Express and a delightful and cinematic passage of one of the bad guys coming to his well-deserved death through Marilyn Monroe's lips (yes, through her lips). I quite like the ending, a little ambiguous and somewhat surprising. Readers with some knowledge of Russian will appreciate cool puns on names: Rosa Klebb and Mr. Nash. I also had to smile when I was reading Mr. Fleming's footnote in which he refers to his correct prediction of twists the Burgess and Maclean cases.

Overall, From Russia is quite a nice read. Yes, it is very dated (almost as old as this reviewer), but if one were to delete the idiotic Gypsy and Bulgar scenes, it would be a solid three-star old-style thriller. I will read some more Fleming.

Two-and-three-quarter-stars.



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