So after all these years of watching James Bond movies, I finally decided to give the novels a try. I don't know why I waited so long!

I had a feeling that I would be let down by the books after enjoying the movies so much, but I was pleasantly surprised. Casino Royale is the first in the series, but this was by no means my favorite of the bond stories. However, it was enjoyable and well written, and I will be continuing with the series.

I did see one of the main flaws of the character people tend to point out, which is how Bond views women. If he's not a misogynist as he's been accused of, he's definitely a chauvinist. I suppose he was in the films to a degree, but it was toned down a bit compared to the books. Now, keep in mind this book was released in 1953, so some of that was a sign of the times. Still, it paints the character as a little less likable than the suave spy we've come to know and love.

That being said, overall it was still a good read and I'll be sure to continue the series. If you are a fan of the films, I say give the books a try.

I watch a lot of the James Bond movies but I never actually read any of the novels. So I’m rectified that by reading Casino Royale. It’s the first of the original Fleming James Bond series of novels, pretty much an origin story and where the plot haven’t reach to such grandiose heights.

The plot is simple, James Bond is sent to play baccarat in northern France against Le Chiffre, the paymaster of Russian counter intelligence organization in the titular Casino Royale. Bond here is brash, confident and smug but by the end of the novel, he is truly humbled by what transpired during this particular mission. His opponents overwhelm him effortlessly, he's rescued not by his own efforts but by the intervention of a SMERSH assassin and the woman he has finally tumbled for is revealed to have been a double agent all along.

Fleming’s writing is simple, even compared to the pulp/thriller writing but a that is not a knock toward Fleming at all. It’s not Greene or Le Carre but it is serviceable enough with description that features passionate intensity that makes it easy to follow, even if you've never heard of baccarat. There's sex and violence, both pretty lurid for 1953. Bond is tortured in a graphic sequence that is still pretty hard to take today, but there are no prolonged shoot-outs or duels. Although he does carry out his mission to take Le Chiffre's money, Bond makes a poor showing in the actual combat. He's saved only when a SMERSH hitman interrupts to execute Le Chiffre.

Overall, it was fine and I really enjoy the journey. All the way up through the shocking ending, Casino Royale delivers a great story with the naivete of a young Fleming. Perhaps my only dislike about the book is it’s pace. While some scenes flew by, others had me dozing off while I read. But as a whole, a great start.

My first Fleming/Bond novel and it's far more interesting than I expected. Sure, it's 1950s pulp but Bond himself is portrayed as both super-cool and as more emotionally and psychologically vulnerable than we might expect. After an explosion, for example, which he dodges, 'Bond felt himself starting to vomit', so sickened is he by the bloody fragments of flesh surrounding him. It's fascinating, too, to witness his inner thoughts during that torture scene.

There are, of course, objectionable moments but they, arguably, are attributed to Bond rather than necessarily to Fleming. For example, 'the conquest of her body... would each time have the sweet tang of rape' sounds hideous to modern ears, but Bond's inner monologue goes on to clarify that this feeling stems from Vesper's ultimate unpossessability: 'she would surrender herself avidly, he thought, and greedily enjoy all the intimacies of the bed without ever allowing herself to be possessed.'

That it's Bond who falls in love and plans to propose after resigning from the service, while Vesper (admittedly also in love) is playing him made this book less misogynistic than I had expected. (She does, though, cry an awful lot!) It also feels like a kind of prologue to the rest of the series, giving us a backstory to what I presume will be Bond's psychological armour against women and emotional involvement. He's not, as one of his colleagues claims at the end, 'a machine'.

Fleming keeps the whole plot sharp and short, no faffing about, and the casino scenes are genuinely tense. I found this a surprisingly engaging read and will certainly read on.

James Bond, known by his code number 007, is one of the most famous characters in literature. In Ian Fleming’s first novel, "Casino Royale," Bond takes on a dangerous mission that leads him into the glamorous yet risky world of spies and international intrigue. He’s called upon by MI6, Britain’s secret intelligence agency, to stop a clever financier named Le Chiffre, who is connected to a feared Russian organization known as SMERSH, known for its ruthless tactics.



This thrilling mission requires Bond to participate in an intense game of baccarat at the luxurious Casino Royale, located in the beautiful French countryside. The stakes are incredibly high: millions of British pounds are on the line, and a loss could mean not just personal failure for Bond but serious consequences for British intelligence and the nation’s safety. The pressure is intense as Bond must deal not only with the challenging game but also with the seductive charm and hidden dangers around him, where everyone he meets might not be what they seem.

In the novel, Fleming paints a vivid picture of Bond as someone cold and tough, driven by a strong sense of duty mixed with the thrill of gambling. This version of Bond is quite different from the modern interpretations of the character; it highlights his rough edges, complicated morals, and complex relationships with women. Fleming skillfully tells a rich story filled with danger, deception, and brief moments of romance, creating a compelling tale that not only defines Bond’s character but also sets the stage for his many future adventures.

To: M

From : Jane Moneypenny

Subject: An assessment of Agent 007's conduct during operation “Casino Royale”

Dear Sir,

I am aware of concerns raised by certain members of the Service regarding Agent 007’s performance during the abovementioned operation. Therefore, I would like to offer my personal assessment, based on the debriefing reports and my own long familiarity with the subject.

It is true that Agent 007 had somewhat compromised the operation by letting himself getting caught by the Target, otherwise known as “Le Chiffre”. It is also undoubtedly true that he might have compromised the integrity of the valuable intelligence that we gathered by becoming an intimate of No. 3030, a.k.a. Vesper Lynd. However, despite all of that, he had managed to accomplish all of our objectives in the operation, as well as unmasking a potentially dangerous double agent.

I can personally vouch that the ‘errors’ that Agent 007 had allegedly committed stemmed not from gross negligence or willful disobedience, but strictly from certain aspects of his character, which are regrettable but perfectly understandable in a man of his persuasion. The most obvious of these is his antipathy toward female operatives, best illustrated by these quotes from the debriefing report:

“And there was this pest of a girl. Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them.”

And also:

“These blithering women who thought that they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men.”

Isn’t it patently obvious, sir, that such preconceived notions caused him to fall for the Target’s devious trap? However, he had subsequently paid dearly for such deplorable misogyny by suffering the worst kind of torture known to the male of the species --- a ghastly affair that involved a cane chair with cut out seat, a 3 foot long carpet beater and Agent 007’s naked nether regions --- the details of which is available in the medical report attached to Head of S’s memorandum.

Further on, his psychological condition during the long convalescence led him to develop certain feelings for Miss Lynd, to the extent that he was prepared to propose marriage to her. I can assure you that such feelings were genuine (even though he later rather callously repudiated them) and that he truly had honorable intentions toward her. It is obvious from Miss Lynd’s unfortunate reaction that the feeling was mutual.

Based on the aforementioned reasons, I propose that we keep Agent 007 in active duty as he had proved that he was able to overcome his personal weaknesses for the good of the Service. Besides, we now have incontrovertible proof that Agent 007 is irresistible to enemy females, a quality that might come handy in future missions that might require such ability.


Signed: Second Officer Jane Moneypenny, WRNS.


P.S. : Please disregard any insinuation from certain members of the Service (you know who they are, sir) that I have a ‘crush’ on James Agent 007.

(A-) 80% | Very Good
Notes: James Bond, embittered professional killer, gambles on humanity and love, while we learn the intricacies of baccarat.

Whenever I read a book, it always takes time to adjust to an author’s writing style. This took longer than expected for Ian Fleming.

I knew that this novel was published in the 1950s, so I obviously overlooked the misogyny and racism, along with the overwhelming info dump at the beginning of the book. Although I cannot definitively state that Fleming is a favored author for me (he isn’t), I do recognize the important role that his books had on both future writing and the publishing industry.

I watched the film prior to reading the novel and (no surprises here) could definitely tell how Hollywood had altered Fleming’s work. Generally, I can’t say this, but I must admit that regarding this particular novel, that I prefer Hollywood’s version.

I recognize that my lack of interest in gambling probably has something to do with my general dislike of the novel. Fleming discussed the “art” of Bond’s gambling in extreme detail and really explained well how to play the traditional casino-style games. I do love spy novels, but so much focus on the mechanics of gambling, along with the-then socially acceptable macho behaviors of the day was a bit much for me.

n  ***2018 Summer of Spies***n

Two things about this book surprised me—first that Fleming was a pretty good writer, second that the book was so short! I’ve never attempted any of Fleming’s fiction before, partly because I saw some of the films of these works back about 30 years ago. You can’t live in a co-ed residence in university without at least having some of these movies on the lounge television set and I think I may have been dragged to the movie theatre as well (back when a movie only cost $5 and a person could afford to go).

Bond in the book is much less charming than Bond on the screen. He’s rougher around the edges and the racism & misogyny of earlier times are very apparent. It’s difficult for me to judge—how much of this is the fictional character, how much is just the zeitgeist of the 1950s, and how much of this is Ian Fleming himself?

I’ve requested a biography of Fleming from the library, to help me try to sort this matter. I’m also intrigued by how much he was influenced by the work of Agatha Christie. One of the very first scenes in Casino Royale involves Bond checking to see if his room has been searched, using exactly the same stratagem as a character in Christie’s They Came to Baghdad (the use of precisely placed, unobtrusive hairs). Undoubtedly Fleming read Christie, so I’m interested in that angle as well.

One can’t claim to have read spy fiction without reading Fleming, so I will pick up Live and Let Die in the near future and continue on during my Summer of Spies.

The beginning of the James Bond stories.

And what an odd beginning.

Yes, we are introduced to Bond and provided some backstory, we know that his 00 nomenclature is because he has killed and is licensed to kill again in his service to Queen and country. We learn that he is a spy and a gambler, a heavy smoker and likes his vodka martini (shaken not stirred).

But this is almost more of a romance. Fleming describes a decidedly more vulnerable and human Bond than has been portrayed in films. Fleming, then a 45-year-old first time writer, drew from his experience as a British naval intelligence officer during WWII and journalist to color his narrative about a secret agent. I imagined Fleming writing in the early 50s, the war with Germany still fresh on his mind and the paradigm shift to the cold war with communism ongoing, before the films and the popular success.

The short novel is fairly straightforward. Bond, a talented card player, is sent to beat and discredit a rogue Russian spy in a high stakes baccarat game. He is accompanied and supported by a beautiful English operative and Felix Leiter, an American CIA agent.

A good beginning, not what I expected, but entertaining and drawing the reader on to more Bond adventures.

I have come across a few audiobooks and I thought well lets finally give these 007 books a try then.

I love the movies and can still watch the re-runs without getting bored so I am curious as to how the books are actually written.

Casino Royal the movie is definitely >>>> than the book version and I have a feeling it will be the same for all the movie version of the books . The narration by Simon Vance made it a lot more fun and quick to listen to the audiobook.

Book: ⭐⭐⭐
Narration:

I’d never read any James Bond before, and I did so now as a kind of tribute to John LeCarre after his recent death.

I have long thought of LeCarre’s characters as the anti-Bonds. They don’t glamorize the violence. They don’t reduce the conflict to a two-dimensional game of good guys (who can kill with impunity and indifference) and bad guys (who are bad because, well, because they’re bad). And they don’t get to walk away from their work without personal suffering.

When I realized that I knew Bond only from the movies, I figured I ought to take a look at how he began.

This isn’t just any Bond book, though. It’s the first. And, for a time as I read, I felt the correlation between the book and the subsequent films was something like the one for Shrek. There, the book is slim, merely suggestive of the character who gets fleshed out in the films.

By the end, though, I realized the connection is tighter. The Bond of this book is much more vulnerable than Sean Connery and his successors – he gets nervous before the turn of a card, and he is badly beaten up and rescued only by chance – but he is ultimately every bit as arrogant and entitled. We get what feels like a throwaway scene where he contemplates quitting the service because he’s been wounded enough to question the good/bad work he’s undertaken, but that all passes quickly. He resolves at the end to remain the Bond of the book and the Bond of the movies.

Instead, there are a few moments of genuine suspense and intrigue, but there’s much more to offend. The plot is more straightforward than most of the movies, but that’s not hard. (I have always found the movies hard to follow, but that’s part of the point. Bond gets to be in one tense situation after another, and the parts linking those scenes are designed to fly by without our thinking much of them except as they amplify the white-man-savior/all-the-women-want-him qualities that define him.)

Here, Bond is trying to stop a man named “Le Chiffre” (the Cipher) from winning enough at the casino to bankroll a new operation. Le Chiffre has tried to break away from the Soviet secret service, Smersh, and he needs the money to secure himself. MI-6 figures they can possibly flip him if they prevent his winning or at least that they can have a valuable Soviet agent killed.

To give Fleming his props, it’s a thrilling scene when Bond has to flip the cards that will tell the climax of the scene. And it’s not easy to make card-playing thrilling. Beyond that, though? Not so much.

Le Chiffre, it turns out, is unambiguously Jewish, a fact that Fleming reminds us of two or three times. He’s a survivor of Dachau, he appears to be of “Jewish blood,” and he has other “Jewish mannerisms” sufficient to prove the point.

I get the impression that, for Fleming, it’s the old genteel anti-Semitism. I’m sure some of his best friends were… and all that, but in the instance of Le Chiffre it’s a sign of difference that implies his fundamental bad-guy-ness.

Just as offensive (or maybe more) is the straight-out misogyny. We meet the beguiling Vesper Lynd as a British agent who also happens to be drop-dead gorgeous. (Filled out in front and in back, we are assured, and seemingly just as desirable as the elegant sports car that Bond wrecks during a chase scene.)

Bond determines to sleep with her, of course, but then he decides she’s worth more than a one-night stand. (He even reflects on the boring experience of first kiss, first aroused kiss, the nights of great sex, and then the inevitable break-up. This will be different, he decides.) She’s so mysterious and sensual that loving her will always come with what he calls “the tang of rape.” (Yup. I actually replayed that part of the audiobook to make certain I wasn’t mishearing it.)

He determines to offer her the ultimate compliment: he will ask her to marry him.

When Vesper learns that she could have been ‘the one,’ it breaks her. She commits suicide and leaves a note explaining that she has actually been a double agent. It was instigated for good cause – an earlier lover of hers was captured, and she’s been compromised and manipulated ever since. But, still, she’s be-shmershed.

The implication is clear: she could live with herself until she realized what might have been as Mrs. Bond. After that, life was no longer worth living.

Bond is upset, which is fair, but her betrayal and death harden him. In a kind of origin-story moment, he proceeds to call his superiors and report, “The bitch is dead.” Cue end-credits. We have a superhero secret agent re-committed to killing without mercy for the good of his own smudgingly corrupt government. After all, the other guys (here, still, the Soviets) are worse.

I end where I started. LeCarre supposedly started his writing career to check the glamorous, two-dimensional morality behind Fleming. I’m glad he did because there is much here to be offended by.

this is nothing but a pathetic man‘s self-indulgent dream of a more exciting life because in reality he has nothing to live for and no one who loves him. add to that a few handfuls of sexism and, voilà, you have the abomination that is casino royale.