History Literature / Goldfinger

* AuthorAppeal: Like the main villain, Fleming had a fascination with gold. He collected Spanish doubloons and commissioned a gold-plated typewriter from the Royal Typewriter Company, although he never actually used it; he wrote with a gold-tipped ballpoint pen and included the theft or obtaining of gold in several of his stories.

** When Bond goes to Royal St Marks golf course to play against Goldfinger, he thinks to himself about how he has never played there, even during "that accursed Literature/{{Moonraker}} business".

* InformedAttribute: During the golf game, Goldfinger is said to be caddied by an "''obsequious, talkative man called Foulks whom Bond had never liked''"; however, he has no listed dialogue. (In the movie, his role is played by [[TheSpeechless Oddjob]].)
* ItNeverGetsAnyEasier: The book opens with Bond at the Miami airport with a glass of whiskey in hand, thinking about the Mexican killer whom he was [[KillingInSelfDefense forced to kill in self-defence]], and attempting to rationalize about it by telling himself the dead man was very likely a very bad person. After his flight to New York gets cancelled, his initial big plan for the evening is to get himself drunk enough that he'll be able to stop thinking about it and his inevitable one-night stand will have to carry him into bed.

* ShownTheirWork: As part of his research, Ian Fleming sent a questionnaire to an expert at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths – one of the livery companies of the City of London who assay precious metals for purity – with a list of queries about gold, its properties and the background of the industry, including smuggling.

** Pussy Galore came from Mrs "Pussy" Deakin, formerly Livia Stela, an SOE agent and friend of Fleming's wife.

** Alfred Blacking was named after Alfred Whiting, the golf professional at Royal St George's Golf Club, Sandwich.

The novel became the basis for the [[Film/{{Goldfinger}} third]] ''Film/JamesBond'' film. One of the {{continuation}} novels, ''Literature/TriggerMortis'' by Creator/AnthonyHorowitz, takes place immediately after this one. It got a RadioDrama adaptation on BBC Radio 4 in 2010, with Creator/TobyStephens as Bond and Sir Creator/IanMcKellen as Auric Goldfinger.

The novel became the basis for the [[Film/{{Goldfinger}} third]] ''Film/JamesBond'' film. One of the {{continuation}} novels, ''Literature/TriggerMortis'' by Creator/AnthonyHorowitz, takes place immediately after this one. It got a RadioDrama adaptation on BBC Radio 4 in 2010, with Creator/TobyStephens as Bond.

The novel became the basis for the [[Film/{{Goldfinger}} third]] ''Film/JamesBond'' film. One of the {{continuation}} novels, ''Literature/TriggerMortis'' by Creator/AnthonyHorowitz, takes place immediately after this one.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: UsefulNotes{{Karate}} is described to be "a branch of UsefulNotes/{{Judo}}" and Oddjob is described "one of the three in the world who have achieved the Black Belt" in the discipline.

* TrademarkFavouriteFood: Common cats for Oddjob, who acquired the taste for them during a time of famine in his home country Korea.

* DiagnosisKnowingTooMuch: Bond wakes up in an airport medical ward in New York, were he and Tilly have been shanghaied by Goldfinger and company. When he tries to inform the attending physician that they've been drugged and brought there against there will, Goldfinger placidly tells the doctor that Bond is suffering from "nervous prostration combined with persecution mania" and that he's escorting him to special treatment at the Harkness Pavillion.[[note]]A real-life facility at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.[[/note]]

* ArtisticLicenceBiology: Jill Masterson suffocates to death after being completely covered in gold paint, leaving her skin unable to breathe. As anyone who has been scuba diving in a wetsuit knows, that's not how human respiration works. While having one's skin completely painted would be really uncomfortable and could produce ill-effects such as poisoning from the paint itself or overheating from being unable to sweat, it couldn't, by itself, asphyxiate someone, as humans don't obtain oxygen through their skin. "Letting your skin breathe" is just a figure of speech.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Karate is described to be "a branch of judo" and Oddjob is described "one of the three in the world who have achieved the Black Belt" in the discipline.

* DiabolicalMastermind: Goldfinger, who is referred to be comparable to Cellini and Einstein in his expertise in planning crime.

The seventh ''Literature/JamesBond'' novel by Creator/IanFleming, published in 1959.

* EarlyBirdCameo: While driving through Kent Bond gets stuck behind an irritatingly slow driver who later turns out to have been Oddjob.

* GreaterScopeVillain: Goldfinger is the "treasurer" for SMERSH, and Operation Grand Slam is intended at least in part as a means of financing their activities in the West.

* IdiotBall: After foiling Goldfinger's plot and being féted in Washington, Bond prepares to fly home, even though the villain – whom he knows to be a resourceful, relentless, egomaniac genius – is still at large. At the airport, an official tells Bond he will need a vaccination to fly. Rather than travelling incognito, resisting having a needle stuck into him, or just running for it and escaping the US some other way, Bond takes the needle... and regains consciousness in Goldfinger's plane.

* ArtisticLicenseMartialArts: Branching into InterchangeableAsianCultures. Karate, a Japanese martial art, is described to be "a branch of judo" with Chinese origins, and Oddjob is described "one of the three in the world who have achieved the Black Belt" in the discipline.

** Felix Leiter's Studillac, first introduced in ''Literature/DiamondsAreForever'', briefly pops up toward the end.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The man Bond is assigned to follow on his new case is the same man -- Goldfinger -- with whom he'd just tangled in Miami. Bond himself lampshades this by bursting out laughing when M mentions Goldfinger's name. It's even the basis of the three-part structure of the novel, based on an aphorism that's quoted by Goldfinger himself: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." Goldfinger encounters Bond, naturally, three times.

* ThrownFromTheZeppelin: One of the people attending the briefing for Operation Grand Slam decides to opt out. He and his bodyguard then have an "accident" on the stairs on their way to their car.

* GreaterScopeVillain: Goldfinger is the "treasurer" for SMERSH [[note]] the Soviet counterintelligence agency and Bond's original ArchEnemy in the novels [[/note]], and Operation Grand Slam is intended at least in part as a means of financing their activities in the West.

* GreaterScopeVillain: Goldfinger is the "treasurer" for SMERSH, and Operation Grand Slam is intended at least in part as a means of financing their activities in the West.

* WhatMeasureIsAMook: The very beginning of the book dwells on this -- see ItNeverGetsAnyEasier. Later, however, the villain makes it explicit that he doesn't see his own henchmen as anything but transient "extras" in a production.

** When Bond goes to St Marks golf course to play against Goldfinger, he thinks to himself about how he has never played there, even during "that accursed Literature/{{Moonraker}} business".

** When Bond goes to St. Marks golf course to play against Goldfinger, he thinks to himself about how he has never played there, even during "that accursed Literature/{{Moonraker}} business".