Love and Let Die

 Love and Let Die by John Higgs (2022 Weidenfeld & Nicolson hardcover 515pp)

 

First of all, because of pesky real life getting in the way it’s been almost a month since I finished reading this book. Some of the certain spell it cast on me at the time has dissipated, so this review really is of the parts of the text that have remained with me.

John Higgs has made a career of writing amazing non-fiction works that map the conjunction of high-art, popular culture and history. I have several of his previous books and when this one came available, I got hold of a copy without hesitation. I was not disappointed.

Higgs sets the scene with a fantastic introduction that recounts the particular day in 1962 (5^th of October) that both the first Beatles record was released and the first James Bond film started screening. From there we go back and time and get histories of the early lives of each of the Beatles – more eventful than you might expect, and then the life of Bond’s creator the author Ian Fleming.

Higgs doesn’t waste much time getting to his general thesis: The Beatles represent (at least initially) the ordinary Briton and a broad idea of “Love” while the character of James Bond represents a certain part of the UK establishment and mostly deals with Death.

So, from there on we follow the career of the Beatles and the many book and film incarnations of Bond with the thesis in mind. Sounds dull but I found it most fascinating as Higgs followed the many varied tangents of both stories. For the Beatles we meet the many diverse people who came into their orbit and how they altered the trajectory of the “Fab Four” and the UK itself. With Bond we learn the many behind the scenes stories of the books and films and how they became massively popular and led to many imitators.

Half way through the book The Beatles break-up and Ian Fleming dies, leading to a long section titled “Aftermath”. The Bond films go on with assorted new actors and tenuous connection to the books while the Beatles start bad-mouthing each other and launch solo careers of varying success.

Much is made of what each show about the British psyche and masculinity etc. Higgs draws a long bow with some of his points but whatever he speculates is always interesting and thought-provoking.

At certain points in the text, the James Bond material recedes and we are pretty much in just a well-research history of The Beatles for several chapters. Bond reappears towards the end as Higgs speculates on what [SPOILERS] Bond’s death in “No Time to Die” (2021) really means for the character and all of us.

Its clear that Higgs has more respect for some of the people he writes about than others. He doesn’t find Fleming a particularly worthy human being and John Lennon doesn’t look good from his late Beatles period onward, although there’s a very sympathetic chapter on his death.

I found this book most enjoyable. Even though I’ve always enjoyed a lot of The Beatles music I’ve only really absorbed a broad idea of their story from popular culture during my lifetime. So, it was great to read such a concise and incisive history of their lives before, during and after the height of their fame. The Bond story I was more familiar with but there’s still a lot in here that I didn’t know or hadn’t thought much about before.

While reading this book I found myself playing Beatles playlists from streaming services and my own collection, I didn’t feel the urge to watch any Bond movies.