Dr. No

Dr. No was the sixth Bond novel, the first to have a large amount of negative criticism and the first to be adapted into a movie, apparently because it seemed the easiest to make and there were legal problems with Thunderball. Dr. No is OTT and as usual Bond is presented as a womanizer who survives on luck more than wit, the woman, Honeychile Rider, is a lot like the movie version of Tiffany Case in that she wavers between brilliance and idiocy, switching between being helpful and hindering.

I don't know why it had such large scale criticism compared to its predecessors when it simply follows the basic formula the previous five novels established, following a cold, confident, womanizer secret agent as he struggles against larger than life villains and woos women who are usually presented as virtuous, virgin like and naive with grains of brassiness mixed in with their vulnerability and a streak of bravery and boldness. Honeychile Rider is naive and almost innocent to the world like Solitare but she has also been hardened to it thanks to a rape like Tiffany Case, though unlike Tiffany, this has not turned her cold to men. As with Tatiana Romanova she does try to aid Bond but is largely still a damsel in distress, and there is always the overarching feeling that Bond knows this girl is just a dalliance and will never be anything more.


Dr. No is a Fu Manchu inspired villain, creepy, insane and rich with metal pincers for hands, he caused himself misfortune by betraying members of a Chinese Tong gang he was in and survived only because his heart is on the right side and not the left, though he lost his hands for being a thief but kept the million he stole. He runs a secretive base on the island Crab Key with Chinese/Negro minions who have their own settlement here, and seem to have forgotten the outside world in a way. Dr. No is a typical madman villain, his goals are lofty and destructive and rather than kill Bond and Honey outright he instead sets Bond through a rigorous course to see how much the human body can withstand and leaves Honey to be feasted upon by crabs. I don't think he was any more ridiculous than Sir Hugo Drax or Mr. Big, Drax wanted to destroy London with a rocket, Dr. No sabotages American missiles and threatens to turn them on the world, and naturally both are working for the Soviets.

The movie followed it closely although they of course changed some things, leaving out some of the more fantastical elements and adding more womanizing to establish Bond as a ladies' man who is a flirt and will have sex even with the enemy (in the book Miss Taro is a very minor character and has no interaction with Bond, whilst in the movie she is the first Bond girl effectively as Bond does not sleep with Sylvia).

One reviewer called the book 'Sex, Snobbery and Sadism', which sounds more like Fleming as far as one newspaper article would have you believe, making Fleming out to be a misogynist who liked it rough basically, if true it would certainly explain some of his writing. In saying that, there's really not that much sex and despite the numerous descriptions of Honey, her continuous flirting, the temptation she presents with her naivety and the fact that she arrives on scene in the nude like 'Botticelli's Venus from behind', she and Bond do not get together until the end of the novel. As for the snobbery, Bond is a classy gentleman with a palette for food and wine and he always has been, this is nothing new to the series, it's just a part of Bond's character and whether a likeable trait or not it adds a dimension to his character. Sadism, well Dr. No is a sadistic character but he is the villain of the story so why not? He comes across as a twisted maniac prompting Bond to wonder if he is bad or just mad. It makes a memorable villain even if he is not that believable.

Honeychile Rider wavered between likeable and annoying, at times she comes across as clever and experienced, knowing everything about the nature of the land and mentioning that she has read the encyclopedias. She is brave although at times it is implied this is purely because she does not grasp the gravity of the situation she is in. Having spent her life being rared by her nanny in a basement and then alone, she knows about Jamaica but she knows little of the world and would obviously been out of place in a town or city, or anywhere other than this island on which she hunts for shells. She was not as annoying as Vesper and her movie persona is pretty close to her fictional counterpart, which was a plus, but sometimes her naivety and her obssession with bedding Bond began to grate. She is a character good for the novel she is in but she will not be missed.

I will say though that I prefer the movie, perhaps because Bond is more confident and humorous, granted in the novel he is bleak because he feels he is being punished for letting his guard down against Rosa Klebb, you see more characters, and Dr. No is slightly more believable in an excellent portrayal by the late Joseph Wiseman.