Julius No - Novel Biography

Novel Biography

Although the film and novel are similar in plot, the backgrounds for Julius No carry certain differences. An individual of Chinese-German cultural heritage, the novel's Dr. No was born in Peking to a German Methodist missionary and a Chinese girl, but was raised by his aunt. When older, he went to Shanghai, where he became involved with the Tongs, a Chinese crime syndicate. Later he was smuggled to the United States and settled in New York City, where he became a clerk and eventually Treasurer for a Tong in America, called the "Hip-Sings".

In the late 1920s, a mob war broke out in New York, forcing the police to crack down on them. No stole a million dollars in gold from the Tongs and disappeared. But the Tongs tracked him down and tortured him to find the location of the gold. When No did not tell them, the Tongs cut off his hands, shot him through the left side of the chest and left him for dead. No survived, due to a condition called dextrocardia, in which his heart was on the right side of the body.

No spent a long time in hospital, then enrolled in medical school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is unclear if he completed his studies, but he adopted the title of Doctor and changed his name (his birth name is unknown) to Julius No, symbolic of his rejection of his father, whose given name was Julius. As in the film, No fitted himself with metal manual prostheses, but the book describes them as simple pincers (apparently similar to those of Tee-Hee in Live and Let Die), and judging by the lack of descriptive detail, they presumably lack the articulation of human hands. In physical appearance Dr. No is tall and very thin. He is described as being at least 6 inches taller than Bond and Bond's height is stated as 6 feet. His head is said to be shaped like a "reverse oil drop" due to his round head pointed chin and the yellowish tinge of his skin. In the novel he wears a gunmetal coloured kimono, due to his inability to hold a bell he uses a walkie-talkie which he carries around his neck. He also wears one of the first ever pair of contact lenses and has had a lip slice cosmetic surgery and wears stocked shoes in order to make himself taller, all of these factors were employed by No to conceal his identity from the Tongs.

With the million dollars from the Tong, he purchased rare stamps in order to preserve his money against inflation; he later purchased the island of Crab Key, off the coast of Jamaica, where he restarted a defunct guano business as a cover for his proposed criminal operations. He employs Jamaican and Cuban labourers on good wages for the guano works, brutally supervised by Jamaican "Chigroes" (a portmanteau of 'Chinese' + 'Negroes', referring to their mixed ancestry). No one who comes to the island is allowed to leave.

No, with aid from the Soviets, sabotaged the nearby tests of American missiles by jamming their signals and making them land and explode on a different target than that planned. This forced the Americans to spend time and money redesigning their missiles. He also recovered missiles from the ocean and turned them over to the Russians.

Bond did not actually learn of No's devious plot until he and Quarrel — with Honey Rider, who would trespass to find exclusive shells — had infiltrated Crab Key and been captured. Bond had gone there after Commander Strangways had disappeared, murdered by Dr. No's henchmen. Bond eventually kills Dr. No by suffocating him in a mound of guano.