Goldfinger

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Title Goldfinger

First edition cover - published by Jonathan Cape. Note gold coins.
Author	Ian Fleming
Cover artist	Richard Chopping (Jonathan Cape ed.)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	James Bond
Genre(s)	Spy novel
Publisher	Glidrose Productions
Released	23 March 1959
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Dr. No (novel)
Followed by	For Your Eyes Only (story collection)

Goldfinger is the seventh novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. First published by Jonathan Cape on March 23, 1959.

In 1964 it was adapted as the third film in the EON Productions James Bond series and was the third to star Sean Connery as British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond. See Goldfinger for discussion of the film.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Characters in Goldfinger 3 Subtexts and motifs 4 Pop culture 5 Trivia 6 Publication history 7 Film adaptation 8 Comic strip adaptation

[edit] Plot summary

The novel begins in a similar fashion to Moonraker with an acquaintance of Bond (Junius Du Pont from Casino Royale) meeting him in Miami and requesting that he observe a two-handed Canasta game between him and the eponymous villain of the novel, Auric Goldfinger. Du Pont suspects Goldfinger of cheating and offers to pay Bond to confirm his suspicions. It turns out that Goldfinger is indeed cheating and Bond forces him to admit his guilt and pay back Du Pont due compensation.

After Bond returns to London he inquires into the background of Goldfinger to find that he's the world's top gold smuggler, the richest man in England, and after further investigation Bond learns Goldfinger is a communist criminal working as the treasurer for the Soviet assassination agency SMERSH.

Bond is sent to contact Goldfinger to collect information, and they engage in a high-stakes game of golf, for money, in England. Again Goldfinger cheats by switching golf balls, but by switching the ball again, Bond forces Goldfinger to lose due to the cheating, without directly accusing him.

Bond is then sent on a mission to find Goldfinger's supply of gold that he has been smuggling, and bring it back to England. Bond manages to trace Goldfinger to a warehouse in Geneva where the white-gold armor of Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is regularly being melted into aircraft chair-frames, to be smuggled into India. Bond is then captured and tortured for information (being promised a slow death by buzz saw rather than a quick one, if he doesn't talk). This continues until Bond blacks out.

He then wakes up in New York and is taken to Goldfinger's warehouse, where he is told he and Tilly Masterton will be working for Goldfinger, essentially as secretaries and personnel managers. Bond had earlier offered his services, pretending to be a huckster, but had seemingly been refused and had expected to die.

Bond has observed Goldfinger making dead drops of gold bars in Europe, for SMERSH. Bond learns that Goldfinger intends to finance SMERSH's schemes by stealing fifteen billion USD worth of gold bullion from the American bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, an operation codenamed "Operation Grand Slam". Bond, along with Felix Leiter work to prevent the villain from executing his plan, which involves killing the soldiers of Fort Knox with water-borne nerve agent (GB, also called sarin) and then using a stolen U.S. tactical atomic bomb missile warhead to break into Fort Knox's impregnable vault. They do not succeed in stealing any of Fort Knox's gold, but they do manage to escape after failing the robbery when it becomes apparent the poisoning hasn't worked.

In the novel, Pussy Galore is the lesbian leader of an all-female criminal organisation from New York City called the Cement Mixers. They had previously been circus acrobats and cat-burglars. Her group, as well as various other mobs including the Mafia and the Spangled Mob from Diamonds Are Forever, have been employed to aid Goldfinger in the planning and execution of "Operation Grand Slam".

Martial arts expert Oddjob appears in the novel with a lethal metal-rimmed bowler hat, which he uses to kill Tilly at Fort Knox, and he is as seemingly invincible in the novel as in the movie. But he and Bond do not have the chance to fight, as in the novel it is a dozing Oddjob who is sucked to his death through the window of the airplane, after Bond penetrates it with a concealed knife. Goldfinger then dies as Bond strangles him, and their airplane, laden with Goldfinger's own personal hoard of gold, sinks quickly in the ocean after running out of fuel when Bond forces it off course to its intended goal in the Soviet Union. Only Bond and Pussy survive.

In terms of gadgets, this Fleming novel is closest to the Bond films technological underpinnings. The secret agent is issued a battleship grey Aston Martin DB Mark III with some accessories (though not the set of the film), as well as a homing device similar to that seen in the movie; however, Q is not in the book.

[edit] Characters in Goldfinger

• James Bond - British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond 007, is the protagonist of the story. He is sent to investigate a gold smuggling operation, and after doing so learns of Auric Goldfinger's plan to steal fifteen billion dollars worth of gold bullion from Fort Knox, Kentucky. Bond previously had a run in with Goldfinger in Miami, where Bond humiliated Goldfinger for his cheating in a game of Canasta.

• Auric Goldfinger - The richest man in England, Goldfinger is the treasurer for the Soviet counter-intelligence agency SMERSH. He intends to finance SMERSH's schemes by stealing fifteen billion dollars worth of gold bullion from the American bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, an operation codenamed "Operation Grand Slam."

• Pussy Galore - The head of a lesbian gang known as "The Cement Mixers." The gang is enlisted by Goldfinger to aid in "Operation Grand Slam."

• M - M orders Bond to investigate a gold smuggling operation from England to India. He is frequently helped by his secretary Miss Moneypenny and his Chief of Staff Bill Tanner.

• Oddjob - An expert in unarmed combat and with a bow, he is Auric Goldfinger's henchman as well as personal guard, driver, and manservant-- but not golf caddy. Oddjob wears a metal derby hat, which is also used as a weapon. He has a cleft palate, and can usually be understood only by Goldfinger.

• Felix Leiter - A long time agent of the CIA, Leiter was maimed by a shark in the previous adventure Live and Let Die. He is now working for Pinkertons Detective Agency.

• Jill Masterton - Jill is Auric Goldfinger's secretary. She helps him in Miami cheat Mr. Dupont in a game of Canasta. When she betrays Goldfinger by helping Bond, Goldfinger retaliates by painting her entire body with gold paint suffocating her. Tilly Masterton is her sister. (Note, this is a fictious method of murder. Humans can not be killed merely by covering the entire body with paint. [1])

• Tilly Masterton - Jill's sister, she tries to get revenge on Goldfinger, but is prevented from doing so by James Bond.

[edit] Subtexts and motifs

• Goldfinger's first name, Auric, is a reference to the Latin word for gold (aurum). [The chemical symbol for gold is Au].

• In the novel Goldfinger wears yellow briefs to suntan in, has a yellow-jacketed pornographic book and gold-painted prostitutes, a yellow-painted car, a blonde secretary, and even a ginger-colored cat (which is eaten by Oddjob for dinner after Bond uses it in a ruse). He employs Korean servants who are repeatedly referred to as "yellow-faced." The film keeps the color of auto and secretary’s hair, but not the other insensitive material, and adds other gold motifs (see film discussion). A bit of Goldfinger's homage to gold ("I love its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness.") is one of few dialogue lines from the novel to be kept relatively intact in the film.

• In the novel, Goldfinger appears even to eat and drink gold. At his house, Goldfinger and Bond dine on cheese soufflé, and curry (which in pre-1970 Britain referred to a dish colored yellow with turmeric; see British section in curry), and they drink Piesporter Goldtröpfchen wine (named for town and vineyard, but like all white wines, gold in color).

• Illiberalisms and stereotypes of the novel's time (none of which survive to the film): Du Pont remarks casually that the hotel of which he is part owner (the fictional Floridiana) has a restriction against Jews. Koreans are negatively characterized as a group in the novel, as are homosexuals. Although Pussy Galore has many skills, Goldfinger includes her group of female criminals primarily because he needs a group of women to impersonate Red Cross nurses for the covert attack on poison-stricken Fort Knox.

• Cat references in the novel: Pussy's acrobatic circus group is called Pussy Galore and the Abrocats. They become cat burglars, headed by Pussy, who dislikes men because she was abused by an uncle. Goldfinger's yellow cat is framed by Bond for ruining Goldfinger's surveillance film, and Goldfinger gives it to Oddjob to eat. "Curiosity killed the cat" remarks Goldfinger. Oddjob demonstrates his lethal derby for Bond while holding this cat with the other arm.

• Amazon (cat)women in the 50's: Bond's encounter with Pussy Galore and the Abrocats is in the tradition of a 1950's science fiction sub-genre in which groups of isolated women (often on other planets) "have no use for men" until a real man in the form of an adventurer teaches them the error of their ways. For examples see Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Queen of Outer Space (1957), and Missile to the Moon (1958).

[edit] Pop culture

American financier Michael Sheehan, a man linked to the controversial practice of purchasing third-world country debt on the cheap and pressing to collect, jokingly referred to himself as Goldfinger. [2]

[edit] Trivia

• The villain's name was borrowed from Fleming's neighbor, architect Ernő Goldfinger, and his character bears some resemblance. Erno Goldfinger consulted his lawyers when the book was published, prompting Fleming to suggest renaming the character "Goldprick", but eventually settled out of court in return for his costs, six copies of the book, and an agreement that the characters' first name Auric would always be used.

• Goldfinger is typically a German-Jewish name, and the protagonists of the novel Goldfinger know this, but neither Bond nor Du Pont think Goldfinger is Jewish. Instead Bond pegs the red-haired blue-eyed man as a Balt, and indeed Goldfinger proves to be an expatriate Latvian.

• Ian Fleming himself liked the color of gold enough to own a gold-plated typewriter, on which he wrote some Bond novels. In the mid-1990s this machine was purchased by the 5th official Bond actor, Pierce Brosnan, in Jamaica.[3]

• Goldfinger plans to poison all of the Fort Knox water supply with 3 pints of GB/sarin. This far over-estimates the potency of nerve agents (as does even the film).

• In the novel the Aston Martin DB III merely has switchable tail-lights, reinforced bumpers for ramming (Bond simply backs up into and rams Tilly), a receiver for the homing device, and hidden compartments for a large pistol and other contraband. Bond simply draws it from the motor "pool" where he has a choice between it and a Jag. Q branch also is referred in the novel but not Q himself. The smaller homer tracking device is missing in the novel (the other one uses a vacuum tube).

• In the novel, Bond does not learn of Jill's death by gold painting until after his golf match with Goldfinger. Jill has been painted, then cleaned, but dies later in a hospital anyway, apparently of clogged pores. She tells her sister Tilly what happened before she dies. (N.B see above: clogged pores cannot kill a human being [4]).

• Dialog left out of movie: Bond to Goldfinger, while being tortured by Oddjob and about to be sawn in half: (politely) "Then you can go and --- yourself." Goldfinger to Bond, with good humor: "Even I am not capable of that, Mr. Bond."

[edit] Publication history

[edit] Film adaptation

Main article: Goldfinger (film)

In 1964, Goldfinger became the third entry in the James Bond film series. Sean Connery returned as Bond, while German actor Gert Fröbe played Auric Goldfinger.

[edit] Comic strip adaptation

Main article: James Bond comic strips

Fleming's original novel was adapted as a daily comic strip which was published in the British Daily Express newspaper and syndicated around the world. The adaptation ran from October 3, 1960 to April 1, 1961. The adaptation was written by Henry Gammidge and illustrated by John McLusky. It was reprinted by Titan Books in 2004.