Featured Article Summary #275

The Man with the Golden Gun is the last James Bond novel Ian Fleming wrote and was published in the UK on 1 April 1965, eight months after his death. Reviews were mixed because the book felt less detailed and polished than earlier ones, but it still became a best-seller. The story follows James Bond, who is believed dead after a mission in Japan, and returns to Britain through the Soviet Union after being brainwashed into killing M. Once Bond is de-programmed by MI6, he is sent to the Caribbean to track down and kill Francisco Scaramanga, the “Man with the Golden Gun.” Fleming’s final manuscript had already been drafted and edited after his death, and some later additions found in his other novels were missing. The book was later serialized in the 1960s and was loosely adapted into a 1974 James Bond film starring Roger Moore and Christopher Lee. A year after Bond’s final fight with Blofeld, a man who claims to be Bond arrives in London and M confirms it is the real Bond. But during his debrief, Bond tries to kill M, having been brainwashed and amnesiac after a head injury in Japan and later ordered by the Soviets to assassinate M. Now freed from control, Bond is sent to Jamaica to stop the assassin Scaramanga, the “Man with the Golden Gun,” who is planning to destabilise the Caribbean through drug smuggling, prostitution, and a casino scheme tied to American and KGB investors. Bond goes undercover as Scaramanga’s assistant with CIA help from Felix Leiter, stops the plot, and finally kills Scaramanga after a chase and a surprise shooting. By early 1964, Ian Fleming had already published many Bond books, and he wrote The Man with the Golden Gun at his Jamaica estate from January to early March. He struggled because of declining health and finished a first draft in March, but he kept rewriting and felt unhappy with the book, saying it was likely his last Bond novel; he died of a heart attack on 12 August 1964. Fleming’s publisher, Jonathan Cape, was worried the manuscript might not meet his usual standard, so they asked Kingsley Amis to review it, though his suggestions were not adopted. The novel was published posthumously eight months later, and later writers have placed its events in late 1963 to early 1964 based on clues from the series. Fleming drew on his own life for The Man with the Golden Gun, including a real accident in Austria in the 1930s where his car was hit by a train, which later led him to use trains as symbols of death in multiple Bond novels. He also borrowed names from people he knew, such as Alan Ross (linked to details about electroshock therapy), and others used for characters and places, including the villain Francisco Scaramanga. He also adapted ideas from earlier Bond films by adding more gadgets, including M’s attempted assassination with a poison gun based on a real defector’s testimony about using a poison-spray weapon. In the novel, James Bond starts out having been brainwashed by the Soviets but is later de-programmed by the Secret Service. Critics disagree about whether his personality becomes more mature, but they note he seems colder and less humorous than before, and they highlight his moral restraint—he chooses not to kill Scaramanga in cold blood. The book also introduces details about M and presents Scaramanga as a weaker, more ordinary villain, with some unusual traits that are hinted at early but do not play a major role later.