From Russia With Love brings Fleming’s series back on track (not that it went completely off) with a great spy caper that pits 007 against some of his deadliest enemies yet and paints an interesting portrait of life in Soviet Russia. James Bond is enticed to go to Turkey and meet a potential Russian defector, a woman who claims to have fallen in love with his photograph. This woman, Tatiana Romanova, offers the British a Russian cipher machine called the Spektor in exchange for her extraction, and Bond leaps into one of the Cold War’s hottest battlefields to get to her, but he’s unwittingly playing into the hands of SMERSH, the Soviet Union’s murder department, who have cooked up a plot to embarrass the West by humiliating and killing Bond.
Spoilers…
One of the most interesting themes of the book is the exploration of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain. In the beginning, the heads of the different Soviet spy groups meet to discuss how best to strike at the West. While they conspire, they all take great pains not to say anything that sounds too critical of the government, lest they be shot for treason. As such, they have to walk quite the tightrope to approach anything resembling an honest appraisal of their recent failures. When Kronsteen is called in, he must make his excuse for being late so convincing that his being on time would have caused more trouble, and indeed as he’s giving his reasons, he isn’t sure he wouldn’t have been killed for his promptness.
Bond’s love interest also furthers this theme. While Gala Brand is still my favorite of the literary Bond girls so far, Tatiana Romanova is yet another great Fleming lady. She’s a simple woman, happy with her meager life in Russia because she can expect nothing better and resigned to the fact that one day, because of her beauty, one of her superiors will select her as his wife. As such, she’s amenable to prostituting herself for the Kremlin. All of this comes from fear, of course. Tatiana is a strong woman, but she is scared to death of her government. When she is called in for a private meeting, she thinks she’ll be killed because she absentmindedly took a spoon one day. Like those who wield much more power than she ever will, she has to watch what she says and does at all times, never once denigrating the government. Still, there is a streak of rebellion in Tatiana, even if it is buried deep beneath her terror. When she’s asked about her sexual history, she recoils and declares it none of anyone’s business. She relents, of course, in the face of the severe punishment of Rosa Klebb, SMERSH’s head of operations, but burning in her is the desire for freedom, a desire she must suppress if she is to survive. It’s also what makes her so excited to take the job that will bring her, she believes, to the West to spy for the Russians. She’ll never be permanently out their grasp, but she can have just a small taste of the world she’s been denied all her life.
Luckily, of course, she’s got James Bond on her side. Having just lost Tiffany Case — whom, I believe, he very much loved — Bond is vulnerable to Tatiana’s pleading for help, and despite the protests of everyone around him, Bond believes she is innocent. Having just been left by a woman he trusted (not that he blames her), Bond needs to trust Tatiana, and his determination to prove that she is a good person shows another layer of his humanity. I don’t know if he really falls in love with Tatiana, or if he just cares for her because he needs to, but whatever the case she is what gets him through his breakup with Tiffany, and in return he frees her from her commie masters. People who need people, like Babs once said.
This book does quite a lot to explore Bond’s personality, and much of that work is done through one of the main villains, Donovan ‘Red’ Grant. Grant is the polar opposite of Bond; he has no interest in sex, while Bond loves women; he doesn’t care about food or drink, or have any taste in anything, while Bond is very particular about every aspect of his life; he accepts being under constant surveillance while Bond impedes the Russians’ attempts to watch him; he has no loyalty to any government or ideology, working for the Russians solely out of convenience, while Bond proudly fights for the Crown; and, finally, Grant is psychotic and enjoys killing, while Bond kills only out of necessity and takes no pleasure in it. Bond and Grant’s battle is a microcosm of the Cold War, with each representing the best his side has to offer. No points for guessing who wins.
Rosa Klebb, while not as interesting as Grant, is another Fleming grotesque, a frog-like monster masquerading as a human being, who delights in torture so much that she doesn’t want it conducted unless she is present. While she has sexual urges, she doesn’t mingle them with emotion, considering them ‘nothing more than an itch,’ and doesn’t even seem to care how they’re scratched, although she does seem to want to entice Tatiana. Whether she beckons Bond’s leading lady out of sexual attraction or simply a desire to ‘train’ her is unclear, but either way it’s a bloodcurdling scene, and Tatiana’s fear is palpable. She represents the horrors of living in the Soviet Union, and Tatiana runs from her as she wants to run from Russia itself, as would we all.
There are many good things about From Russia With Love. Darko Kerim, or Kerim Bey, is one of Bond’s best allies; his love of life and the pleasure he takes in living every day to its fullest mirrors Bond’s own, and his ultimate death is a manifestation of Bond’s fear that one day he will end up the same way. The section aboard the Orient Express is thrilling, from Bond’s almost missing the train to his final fight with Red Grant (although I liked this better in the movie). Bond and Kerim navigating Turkey and all the cloak and dagger hijinks they must go through are a lot of fun. I also like how SMERSH mirrors MI:6, down to the head of the organization going by his initial (G, as opposed to M). This was actually designed to be the last Bond book, and Bond’s fate is left open-ended in the finale, but luckily Fleming would bring back his hero many more times.
- Goodreads rating – 3.90
- REVIEW – Alex Gherzo