You Only Live Twice (You Only Live Twice)
First Edition: Glidrose, 1964
First Italian edition, Garzanti, 1965
translation: Enrico Cicogna
" You only live twice: once when are born and once when you look death in the face ."
Appalled by the loss of his beloved wife Tracy (who was killed by Blofeld in the final Secret Service) James Bond has fallen into a deep depression. It has no more stimulation at work and the latest missions have been transformed because of him in two failures. M MI6 thinks about him to resign but the psychiatrist Sir James Molony should give him one last chance. In his view should be hired for a mission impossible, perhaps this will stimulate his ego and he will awaken from the lethargy in which emotional crashes. M decides to follow the advice of the eminent luminary to 007 and gives a delicate task: he must travel to Japan to try to convince the Japanese to give intelligence to the United Kingdom on cryptography Magic 44, can read all the dispatches of encrypted 'Soviet Union. Bond agrees and travels to Japan, where he finds waiting for him Dikke Henderson of the Australian Secret Service. This makes him the host, trying to introduce it in the complex eastern mentality, quite different from English. Through the noisy Dikke Bond gets in touch with Tiger Tanaka, the head of the Japanese secret service. Between the two body immediately even if the spark of friendship soon emerge different world views, thereby creating a conflict of attitudes. Tiger is very shrewd and has no intention of selling his 44 England Magic unless Bond is not willing to accept a mission for the Japanese government. Tanaka said his government agent who recently gave a residence of ten years at the Swiss Guntram Shatterhand and his wife Frau Emmy. This is a wealthy botanist, willing to spend not less than one million pounds to create an exotic park which has a priceless collection of transplanting trees from all over the world. He built his Eden near the island Kyushu, near Fukuoka. The problem is that the garden is is immediately turned into an infernal machine of death, being the rarest and most deadly poisonous plants animals on the planet. Thus, the park is now half of all suicides in Japan and started to claim victims by more than five hundred deaths a year. Tanaka explains to Bond that suicide in his country is not considered a disgrace, far from it, but the growing number of victims has embarrassed his country can not afford to eliminate Dr. Shatterhand, worth a serious diplomatic crisis. Tigre therefore proposes a deal to Bond: if it will eliminate the botanist, in exchange will receive the Magic 44. 007 accepted. Thus began the transformation of Bond in Bondo-san, a Japanese man of humble origins, deaf and dumb, who will enter the "Garden of Earthly Delights" and then kill Shatterhand. After a quick tour de force in Japanese customs and traditions (which provide, among other booze-based sake and carousing with compliant Japanese girl), Bond travels the country in the company of a direct Tanaka Fukuoka. During the trip
Bond realizes that a mysterious man is following them. After a car chase Tanaka caught the individual who died during the scuffle. He was a Black Dragon, one of the bodyguards of Dr. Shatterhand. But the surprises are not over: When Bond is shown a picture of the scientist is great because you recognize his disbelief Blofeld! 007 but not Tanaka reveals the discovery for fear that they would broaden the investigation to the CIA, thereby preventing him accomplish his revenge. Tiger decides that Bond must stop a few days in a small island just opposite the island of Kyushu in order to study the best way to enter and delete (with only the help of a ninja chain and a small knife) scientist. The island is inhabited by the likes community that is conducive to host Bondo-san. Here Bond to the beautiful Kissy Suzuki, known as the Greta Garbo of the East, because of its short past as an actress in Hollywood. The girl, disgusted by the environment of the cinema, he preferred to return to the island by his family to fish awabi (a result of fine sea) and asks Bond to accompany her to work.
The night of the third day the secret agent takes action. With the help of Kissy gets to swim in the island and enters the castle. In the park, in a surreal scene, lit only by moonlight, he witnesses the suicide of two men. One flows into the lake inhabited by piranhas, the other (dressed in a dark suit with bowler hat and umbrella) is launched in the fumarole and burned alive.
The next morning the agent, hidden in a shed, witnessing the daily patrols of the garden by Blofeld and his men. In the evening, finally, 007 entered the castle. While searching the bedroom of his enemy Bond falls into a trap, hidden under the floor, and is taken prisoner. The agent is now recognized by Blofeld and Irma who undergo cruel tortures. Bond resists and hires a deadly duel with his nemesis that ends with the death of Blofeld, strangled with bare hands. After a daring escape, by means of a balloon, was rescued by Bond Kissy Suzuki. He does not remember anything, in the throes of total amnesia. Kissy in love with him, conceals Tanaka agents that damage missing. Even MI6 thinks that Bond is dead during the mission and M released his epitaph. In fact Bond, dressed now Todoroki-san, he lives a spartan life as a fisherman beside his Kissy, until a newspaper clipping that does not speak of Vladivostok emerge in him a vague memory of Russia. In search of his past Bond decides to travel to the Soviet Union and abandoned to his fate Kissy ... The birth of
You Only Live Twice stems from a trip to the East a few years before writing the novel for Fleming makes his Sunday Times. The new owner of the newspaper Roy Thomson, on the recommendation of the literary editor Leonard Russell, had authorized the reportage around the world that were just made by Fleming. The trip to Hong Kong would have been the first chapter of a series of news reports that would then also appeared in a volume entitled The city of thrill. In Hong Kong Fleming ties immediately with Richard Hughes, a giant Australian former heavyweight, who since Korea is the newspaper in the East. With him was Fleming's first contact with the world yellow. Hughes is the man of action who has always dreamed of being Fleming and the East, which describes in his books is largely the East of Hughes. He then inspired the character of Dikke Henderson. Three years after Fleming's travels to Japan, she meets her new Australian friend, and he travels within the country that provides the trace of the novel. With them there is also Tora "Tiger" Saito (already chosen by Fleming for that part of Tiger Tanaka), architect, editor, great war correspondent, and a great friend Hughes. All expenses paid by the Company Glidrose, the three are a 12-day tour of Japan. The simplicity of the Japanese, their quirks, their obsession with death strike the imagination of the writer. His enthusiasm for the Nipponese customs and traditions are evident in the book, the first part looks like a travel guide. The story, in fact, kicks off the second half of the novel, precisely the moment when Bond goes into action. Here Fleming unfolds his special talent in describing an action full of tension and assorted cruelties. Blofeld now been turned into a sadistic madman. While Thunderball and Secret Service he works in the service of SPECTRE to destabilize the criminal world with its plan, now works only for his sadistic pleasure and for his disgust towards the human race. He considers himself a genius and the creation of exotic park with its deadly traps of death shall have the sole purpose of eliminating people as possible, " ... has developed in me a kind of mental weakness, a disregard for humanity and for its future, an absolute boredom for the affairs of men ... So Mister Bond, I created this project useful and at the same time humanitarian: I offer free death to those who wish to free themselves from the burden of existence. "
The beautiful fish Kissy Suzuki is the girl in which Bond finds a momentary relief from the pain of his soul. She is very beautiful and Fleming described her as a girl of great moral depth. After a short stay in Hollywood has decided to abandon the vacuous existence, populated by vile people, except for David Niven, not surprisingly personal friend of Fleming.
The other interesting aspect is the obituary for the M Times through this article because Fleming puts us aware of the history of Bond. As always, the personal biography of the author is confused with that of his hero. So we know that Bond was the son of a Scottish father and Swiss mother and that her parents died in a mountaineering accident on the Aiguilles Rouges above Chamonix. His education was at the very least incomplete: he left Eton, then enrolled at Fettes, where he excelled only by its performance in a sport, then worked at the Ministry of Defence during the war.
As you can see the history of Bond is a photocopy of one of his fictional almighty.
The closure of the novel is enigmatic. Bond party to Vladivostok with no memory of his past into an unknown future. Fleming to pull out of this mess will cost a lot 'of trouble.
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