Almost finished reading "Goldfinger" by Ian Fleming, the 7th James Bond "adventure". Hoo boy, it is awful. Written in 1959, it is definitely an artifact of its time, but I think I had forgotten how rotten a time 1959 actually was. I thought Goldfinger was the 2nd book and that Fleming was taking his time getting up to speed, but no. It's racist and sexist, plotted by Magic 8 Ball, and the dialogue is goofy. The first half of the book is Bond trying to infiltrate Goldfinger's graces, and he does this through playing gin (cards) and golf. You get to read the entire golf game, hole by hole. Actually, "Hole By Hole" is a good Bond title. The Bond books are fecking dire.
Example 1: There's a character who doesn't want to sleep with Bond, and it's because she's a lesbian. Bond thinks about spanking her, and then when she dies, he says, "Poor little bitch. She didn't think much of men."
Example 2: About Koreans he says, "They are the cruelest, most ruthless people in the world." He has Goldfinger give a cat to Odd Job to eat for dinner.
Example 3: Pussy Galore's dialogue at the big planning meeting for the heist on Fort Knox:' "Wilco, Roger, over and out! My girls'll look sweet in starch. Whaddya say, Jacko?" She leant over and nudged Mr Strap in the ribs. '