From Russia with Love (novel)

Infobox Book
name = From Russia with Love
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = First edition cover.
author = Ian Fleming
illustrator =
cover_artist = Richard Chopping Devised by Fleming
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series = James Bond
genre = Spy novel
publisher = Jonathan Cape
release_date = 8 April 1957
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Diamonds Are Forever
followed_by = Dr. No

"From Russia with Love", published in 1957, is the fifth James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming and is considered to be one of the best in the series—the 1963 film version has been often cited by several film critics as the best of the movie franchise. Its biggest boost came four years after "From Russia with Love" was published from an article in "Life Magazine" on March 17, 1961 in which U.S. President John F. Kennedy included it in a list of his favorite books; the James Bond novel was the only work of fiction in the list of ten.

The title of the book sometimes is printed with a comma, as "From Russia, with Love", depending upon the publisher. It is more commonly printed without the punctuation.

Plot summary

"From Russia with Love" differs from Fleming's previous Bond novels in that the first one third of the novel revolves around SMERSH executioner Red Grant, as well as the organization, SMERSH itself. (Bond himself is not mentioned by name until the end of Chapter 5, and does not actually make an appearance until Part 2 of the novel commences with Chapter 11.)

The novel is a series of elaborate plots and counterplots, between the British and the Russian intelligence agencies. It begins with SMERSH, the Soviet assassination agency, seeking to redeem itself from a series of failures that have made some within the Soviet government begin to criticize the organization. SMERSH plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, SMERSH has targeted British secret service agent, Commander James Bond. Due in part to his role in the defeat of Le Chiffre, Mr. Big, and Hugo Drax, Bond has been listed as an enemy of the Soviet state and a "death warrant" has been issued for him.

He is to be not just killed, but "killed with ignominy"—his death precipitating a major juicy sex scandal which will run through the world press for months and leave his reputation and that of his entire service in tatters.

Mainly through the agency of Kronsteen, the chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, SMERSH lays a trap for Bond, by setting pretty young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to pretend to defect from her post in Istanbul, claiming to have fallen in love with Bond, after a glimpse from his file photograph. As an added incentive, Tatiana will provide the British agent with a Spektor decoder, a prize much coveted by MI6. The ultimate goal is to set up James Bond for assassination and cause a scandal.

After all the actors on the Soviet side are introduced and the hatching of the plot against Bond (but not the details of the plot itself) is described in detail, Bond comes to the center of the stage and sets off to Istanbul where much of the book takes place. There follow many action-packed chapters, where Bond gets a secret peek into the inner sanctum of the Soviet Consulate, followed by bouts of intensive fighting against various Soviet agents and lovemaking with the beautiful Tatiana, takes part in the exotic rituals of a Gypsy tribe interspersed with more fighting, and forms an instant and firm comradeship with the engaging bon vivant Darko Kerim Bey, head of the British Service's agency in Turkey (which would be sadly cut short by an MGB agent killing Darko on board the Orient Express).

The reader (and Bond himself) get the satisfying feeling that Bond is taking the initiative and getting back at his enemies. As seen later, this was a complete illusion, and the entire Istanbul section turns out to have been a giant bunch of red herrings: all the Soviet agents which Bond had fought and killed were worthless pawns, completely expendable for their side.

After all the fighting, Bond (as well as his superiors up to M. in London) unwittingly play the precise role predicted and defined in the plan devised by chess-master Kronsteen. Bond boards the Orient Express on the journey from Istanbul to Paris—and heads directly into the Soviet "Killing Bottle". He unhesitatingly accepts Red Grant's bona fides as a fellow MI6 agent (not least, because Grant dresses and talks like a fellow member of the British ruling class) and goes to sleep under Grant's watchful eye, after having obligingly handed Grant his gun.

However, there was one flaw—which turns out to be fatal—in Kronsteen's fiendishly clever design: having very accurately predicted the responses of Bond and his fellow Brits to the carefully selected stimuli, the chess master did not take into account that the SMERSH ace executioner Grant was not only a homicidal psychopath who enjoyed killing for its own sake, but also an Irish Catholic from Northern Ireland—in no sense religious or a coherent holder of any nationalist ideology, but evidently sharing the anti-British attitudes prevalent in the society where he grew up. (In Grant's biography in the early part of the book, it is mentioned that he had been marginally involved with the IRA.)Instead of killing Bond without further ado, as Kronsteen's plan called for, Grant cannot resist the temptation to crow at the top British agent, humiliate him and engage in a long boastful conversation. Growing careless and overconfident, Grant gives Bond the chance to improvise a desperate small ploy which works against all odds—with the result that Grant loses his life and the entire careful Soviet scheme falls into ruin.

Later, after successfully delivering Tatiana to his superiors, Bond has a final encounter with Rosa Klebb—which leaves her captured but 007 poisoned and seemingly dead from the final kick of her poisoned toe, though he would recover in time for his next adventure. Tatiana, who has no further place in the Bond saga, has successfully defected to the West, entirely at the initiative and instigation of SMERSH (since for herself, she had been quite content to live out her life in Moscow).

Ian Fleming in Istanbul

Ian Fleming happened to be in Istanbul on September 1955—covering the International Police Conference for the London "Sunday Times"—when the Istanbul Pogrom broke out, with the city's Greek community brutally assaulted by mobs with the tacit consent of the Turkish government of the day. Fleming's account, entitled "The Great Riot of Istanbul", appeared in that paper on 11 September, 1955.

Quite soon afterwards, Fleming started work on a fictional James Bond novel of which a large portion is set in Istanbul, which became "From Russia with Love". The book makes no mention of the city's Greek community. However, Fleming does make the point of depicting the Turkish police and security services as completely passive and uninterfering in the fictional private war conducted in Istanbul between British and Soviet agents—just as they did not interfere in the actual anti-Greek pogrom which Fleming personally witnessed.

According to William F. Nolan, Fleming based Tatiana Romanova of "From Russia With Love" on Christine Granville. ["FILMFAX Magazine" Oct 2003-Jan 2004]

Adaptations

Film

The cinematic "From Russia, with Love" was released in 1963, produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, and directed by Terence Young. It was the second James Bond film in the official EON Productions series, and the second to star Sean Connery as the suave and sophisticated British Secret Service agent James Bond.

The main villains change from SMERSH (a division of Soviet Intelligence) to SPECTRE (a fictional terrorist organisation). Rene Mathis (from "Casino Royale") appeared in the book, but not the movie. The story stayed true to the novel, except action sequences such as the boat chase were added.

Comic strip

Fleming's novel was adapted as a daily comic strip published in the British "Daily Express" newspaper, and syndicated worldwide. The adaptation ran from February 3 to May 21, 1960, and was written by Henry Gammidge, and illustrated by John McLusky. The James Bond 007 Fan Club published a reprinting of the strip in 1981. "From Russia with Love" was reprinted again in 2005 by Titan Books in the "Dr. No" collection, which in addition to "Dr. No", also included "Diamonds Are Forever".

Video game

In 2005 it was adapted into a video game by Electronic Arts and featured all new voice work by Sean Connery as well as his likeness and the likeness of a number of the supporting cast from the film. This game adhered to the basic plot of the movie but with changes made for better game-play such as the addition of the jet-pack from "Thunderball" and the Aston Martin DB5.

References

External links

* [http://www.goldeneyebooks.com/ Ian Fleming Bibliography] of James Bond 1st Editions
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057076/ From Russia with Love] at the Internet Movie Database.