The Spy Who Loved Me – Ian Fleming, 1962 ★★★½

 Living Dangerously

Writing popular fiction can be a dangerous art. Keep too close to a successful formula, and you risk becoming stale and predictable, and eventually less popular. Stray from what you typically do and you risk losing your audience even faster than by going stale.

In writing his ninth James Bond novel, Ian Fleming went with option #2.  He soon regretted it.

Both his regular readers and many critics were put off by a Bond book where 007 himself only appears in the last third. Who is this Vivienne Michel and why the concentration on the sordid details of her love life? And where did all the globetrotting spy stuff go?

As You Like It – William Shakespeare, c. 1599 ★★★

Love, Shakespearean Style

This play has divided critics and enthusiasts of Shakespeare for centuries; it has divided me, too. Some fifteen years ago I believed this not a comedy but a troll job by a bitter, disengaged author. Just this past week, though, I found myself chuckling along and enjoying it.

As You Like It’s playful spirit and pastoral setting have won over many critics; so too has one of Shakespeare’s most dynamic and voluble characters, Rosalind. Back then I was checked in my pleasure by a persistent undertone of betrayal and disappointment. Perhaps time has conditioned me to accept such bleaker notes now.

The narrative is still choppy and its finale a rushed, nonsensical mess. George Bernard Shaw described the title as a dig at an audience too easily pleased; it’s hard not to agree when much of the action involves offstage conversions and rescues.

The Making Of The President 1960 – Theodore H. White, 1961 ★★★★

Tarnished, But Still A Classic

Can a book’s credibility be hobbled by privileged access to its primary subject? Can that same access, used to its fullest degree, redeem the book’s faults and render it an enduring classic?

Yes, and yes. Here’s the proof.

Covering the 1960 Presidential election, Theodore White interviewed John F. Kennedy, flew with Kennedy, ate with Kennedy, gossiped with Kennedy. He did everything but sleep with Kennedy, though he does wind up in bed with the guy here, figuratively speaking.

It was for a good cause. This book remains not only a vital record of one of the country’s most charismatic politicians but a deep dive into how a presidency could be won. Even White later admitted he got carried away, but his invested narrative and sense of purpose pull you in.