The literary debut of James Bond is now 70 years old and it's still a great read.
Casino Royale is one of my favourite novels. Ian Fleming's 1953 007 debut is a superb piece of writing, full of believable & well rounded characters. There are beautifully detailed descriptions of meals, places & other minutiae that Fleming does so well. The plot is well constructed & the characters (from major to minor) reek of authenticity.
Secret agent James Bond may be partly the "blunt instrument" that Fleming created, but here he is also a human being who gets angry, cries & falls in love.
An undeniable classic.

Line from the book I wish they could have somehow kept in the movie-"He is very good-looking. He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael..."

I'm planning to read more of Fleming's Bond books and re-watch the movies they are based on. I realize the books and the movies are very different animals when you are dealing with Bond.

A good book to accompany one on such a task is "The Man with the Golden Touch: How The Bond Films Conquered the World," by Sinclair McKay.

It is hard to analyze Ian Fleming. He's gets points for impact, imagination, style, etc., but I wasn't thrilled with CR. The movie was actually better.

The first James Bond novel. Probably 3.5 stars. The excitement is in the first two thirds of the novel. I read Goldfinger and OHMSS years ago. I enjoyed those more.

Every legend has a beginning. For Agent 007, that came in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale.



Now, I’ve been a fan of the various Bond movies for years, but I’d never tackled one of the novels until now. Casino Royale is the first of 14 Bond novels and story collections that Fleming produced, and it’s a little rough around the edges (as one might expect from a rookie novelist). The prose is not bad by any means, but it’s nothing fancy. More puzzling is the structure. I remember watching the movie version of this story and wondering why it was put together the way it was; as it turns out, the movie was pretty faithful to its source material. In a nutshell, the action in the casino and the faceoff with the villain all take place in the second third of the book, leaving the final third to a rather meandering final act that felt a bit anticlimactic. I didn’t hate this, but it definitely felt a little “off,” and I can easily see it bothering some readers. Speaking of bothering readers, it will be no surprise to most that James is not a card-carrying member of NOW, but the 1950s version takes things uncomfortably far:

“These blithering women who thought 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?”

Say it ain’t so, James. So, with all of this nitpicking, why the four-star grade?

In one word: style. I thought this book was as cool as a chilled martini, and found it great fun to read. The clothes…the booze…the cars…the caviar…all fantastic. It reminded me a bit of the show Mad Men in this respect. The scenes at the baccarat table were suspenseful and well crafted, and Fleming does a great job of explaining what for many readers will be an obscure game (in the film, they changed it to Texas Hold ‘Em) so the action at the table is easy to follow. Le Chiffre is a good, sinister villain, and Bond (ice cold in his original incarnation) is a compelling hero.

Overall this was a very fun spy thriller with some great moments. At under 200 pages this is a quick breezy read, and fans of the movies will be interested to see how 007 was portrayed 60 years ago when he first hit the scene. As I noted above (and other reviewers have pointed out before me), this is a cold, almost cruel 007, from his pontifications on the role of the modern woman to the book’s gut-punch of a final line: "The bitch is dead now" Oof. Maybe not the man you’d want dating your sister, but he’s a hell of a lot of fun to read about. 4 stars, recommended!

I know next to nothing about James Bond. I have seen a few of the films, but none of the recent ones, and I don’t think I’ve ever read any of the original books. My interest and expectations were low, but this series of audiobooks, each volume read by a different actor, piqued my interest (and even then, honestly, only because book three is read by Bill Nighy).

This first entry, Casino Royale, is quite different from what I expected of Bond. The main surprise is that Bond, though he believes himself to be the Sherlock Holmes of international super-spies, is actually not very good at anything. He doesn’t notice that Mathis has gone through his room; he doesn’t figure out on his own that other people in the hotel know he’s a spy; he nearly loses the card game that’s his entire mission objective; he runs hotheadedly right into the enemy’s trap instead of coolly planning a rescue or ransom. He doesn’t seem to understand his job even as well as the non-spy reader does. For example, after defeating his opponent, he thinks it’s a great idea to stick around and take a woman out to dinner, in public, in broad daylight, in the very location in which he brought his enemy to utter ruin. ??? Dude...

But by far his worst moment is that he doesn’t figure out that Vesper is a double agent who’s been working against him the whole time. Like, come on, seriously?? How could you possibly not see all the clues that were completely obvious to everyone but you? Anyway.

His flaws make him more interesting as a character, and I enjoyed his moments of self-doubt, and his questioning whether we can really know who’s an enemy, and whether we ever have the right to eliminate someone. This monologue is immediately ridiculed by Mathis, and it seems like the reader is meant to accept Mathis’s view as the more correct one. I doubt things were so neat and tidy in 1953, and they certainly aren’t now. But the book raises thoughtful points, perhaps in spite of itself.

There are also some intriguing points in the second half of the novel in which Bond struggles with his identity as a man, and what the torture he’s endured might mean for his idea of who he is. Again, the book shows us his unbelievable chauvinism but also invites us to question all of it and wonder whether to go along with what Bond thinks relationships are like, or if perhaps there’s something more that he’s missing out on.

Overall, I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would, and more than the first half of the story led me to believe I would; the second half goes much deeper than I expected, becoming surprisingly introspective. The audio version is narrated by Dan Stevens, who does a great job distinguishing all the characters with different voices (though I found it distracting that his Le Chiffre sounds exactly like Alfred Hitchcock).

Extra points, of course, for this line: “Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them came from Texas.”

I forgot how much Fleming’s Bond differs from the movie version. I haven’t read any of the original novels in many, many years. He isn’t the infallible, larger than life, super agent of the films. Fleming created a character that is flawed, more human and struggles to overcome the opposition. The writing is superb- who would think that essentially a story of two people gambling could be so interesting and engaging?

Popsugar Challenge 2021 - A book that has a heart, diamond, club or spade on the cover

In all my forty years I've had zero exposure to 007 so when I saw this book in the kindle sale, I thought now is the time to see what all the fuss is about.

I fully admit I went into this with preconceived ideas on Bond. I assumed I'd be in a maze of misogyny,  pumped up males at every turn saving us damsels in distress however I wasn't entirely right on those ideas.

Yes there a lot of misogyny here but having gone into the book expecting it, it didn't bother me half as much and honestly it was written in 1953, if I was written more recently I'd be mad but 1953, I'm not here to fight the battles of the past.

You can very much tell that not only are the male characters misogynistic,  the authorial voice is also. One particular scene made me howl with laughter. When Bond takes a woman back to his hotel room, Bond mentions that he has some things to lock in the safe in another room and Vesper (the woman he met that night) says ..... she will tidy up while she waits. Tidy up! What a line!

And yes there are a lot of pumped up males here blowing their own trumpets.

HOWEVER I did not expect Bond to be such an air head. He's a pretty boy, easily fooled and totally unaware that a female could out smart him. I guess I expected him to be smarter, more savvy, more aware (I mean he's a spy right!).

This is book one in a thirteen (?) book series so I'm looking forward to see how Bond's character grows.

This book hasn't aged well but I think if you go into it knowing that you may enjoy it more and I do appreciate what this author did for the spy genre overall.

Three stars.

(third read) so casino royale is the one bond book that even non-bond fans admire. it’s no wonder that raymond chandler loved it as well. far and above my favorite bond book of the bunch, it almost feels like fleming later went in a different more mainstream and hollywood-minded direction with the sequels. none of the other books feel this grounded again, nor have the cigarette-soaked atmosphere of the casino and the mysterious spies in this story.

while not as witty, nor as gritty as chandler’s marlowe books, the storytelling here is smoother and the powerful ending packs one helluva punch. tbh, the ending takes this book to another level, and for my mind, gives you an insight into james that you carry into every other bond adventure to come after casino royale.

by the end of this intense story you come to understand bonds coldness, and boy, is there a good reason for it that is as hardboiled as any noir novel that preceded 007.

it’s clear fleming stands on the shoulders of chandler, hammett, conan doyle, and the whole detective fiction / pulp genre — but here he elevates the stakes to an international scope, while still telling a very intimate noir story set in this atmospheric casino.

let’s just say casino royale is a crime classic that happened to spawn some pretty fun books as sequels, but it stands completely on its own as a towering one-off crime story.

as good as the big sleep, red harvest, kiss me deadly, and miles above most of the spy paperback cottage industry that it spawned.

i know i haven’t mentioned the movies, but after consuming casino royale you’ll see hollywood went off on a very different tangent than the original novels and almost created familair archetypal superhero, ala mike hammer or batman even.

while the movies are a wholly different and fun beast, the bond of the novels is much more of a blunt operative and that’s what makes casino royale special.

007 as he was first conceived.

low key, blunt, noir — here bond is a shrewd operator in the form of a government spy that pays a serious price for his lifestyle and vocation.

one of the great noir books imho.

I give the book 4* and the movie 5. The first of Fleming's novels, this one did not become a movie until 2006 because Fleming didn't believe the public was ready for an assassin like James Bond character which Daniel Craig played to perfection. Craig was 40 when he made the movie and now he's the longest running 007. I tried the weight training regime DC used to get in shape for the film, and it nearly killed me, but I was ripped for like 3 months! :/

This is a surprise read.

Written in 1953, when pulp fiction and cold war were trending, this first James Bond book could surprise many. Not only for breaking the ultra-macho image of the secret service agent played on screen, but also for it's almost nihilistic beliefs of the favourite hero.

British secret service decides to destroy Russia's chief agent in France who has lost the entire union fund and making a desperate bid at the casino. They choose a recent double O agent, James Bond, who is good at the gambling table to win and in the process expose the villain to Russian SMERSH agents. They also send Vesper, an attractive partner to work with him (who is primarily a distraction) in addition to the French contact and the CIA agent. With such a flimsy premise the book manages to keep you hooked, till the 60% stage.

What movies didn't show was what was going through the head of an authorised killer and a seduction artist. Ian Fleming's James Bond, is more human, than machine, with self doubt, vulnerability and emotions to go with a chauvinistic mindset. In fact his only claim to fame in the entire book is that he has a stroke of luck at the table. He allows himself to become complacent, he lets his guard down and falls for the oldest trick. He even contemplates who is the villain and thinks about quitting. (What then are the movies?!)

If I were to be honest, had i read the book before watching the movies, I would have been underwhelmed. But after becoming a fan of the over the top movies, the book seems a fresh view on the psyche of the secret agent. Might read a few more!

3★
“CHAPTER 1
THE SECRET AGENT
The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling—a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension—becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.”

It's 1953, and what a start to a brand new series and probably new genre of spy fiction! I read and enjoyed many of the Bond books in my youth, as did a lot of people. I suspect Ian Fleming brought a lot of people to reading in much the same way that J. K. Rowling has with Harry Potter.

And if Fleming did nothing else, at least most Americans learned how to pronounce Ian and Sean correctly!

Back in the day, my dad was flying somewhere, reading the latest Bond, and he looked at his neighbour and across the aisle, and every one of them was reading a Bond mystery! That’s how popular they were. I was considering re-reading the Bonds for fun, but after this exercise, I’ll leave my memories undisturbed.

I remembered Bond as a smart, daring, sophisticated man of action, but with dangerously rough edges. I’m pretty sure that’s how he would have seemed at the time in this now-dated novel, but it’s the films that have kept ‘him’ up-to-date, not Fleming’s writing.

He is described as looking like Hoagy Carmichael, a well-known singer (also ‘back in the day’), whose photo I looked up, since I knew the name but not the face.

Photo of singer Hoagy Carmichael

While I’ve enjoyed several Bonds in films, the real one is Sean Connery.

Photo of Bond, James Bond, as played by Sean Connery

The first half of the book – yes half – is devoted mostly to gambling, the rules, the odds, the chips, the millions of francs, the nerves, the rules, the odds, repeat. Perhaps in 1953 this was such a novel idea for a spy thriller that people were engrossed learning how to play.

There is a fair bit of French tossed around, fancy foods and vintage wine, but no trademark “shaken, not stirred” martini yet, just this unique concoction, which he later names.

“‘A dry martini,’ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet.’
‘Oui, monsieur.’
‘Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?’ ”

We are introduced to the obligatory beautiful woman, but she is mostly a background figure until much later in the book.

“And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. 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.”

Later, we have this.

“He gazed for a moment into the mirror and wondered about Vesper’s morals. He wanted her cold and arrogant body. He wanted to see tears and desire in her remote blue eyes and to take the ropes of her black hair in his hands and bend her long body back under his. Bond’s eyes narrowed and his face in the mirror looked back at him with hunger.”

Might have been hot stuff in 1953, but not so much in the era of #MeToo. In fact, the whole book seems pretty juvenile. The very last part, the interaction with the bad guys and the physical danger, is the kind of thing today’s heroes are still suffering, but it’s also the part I least enjoy.

All in all, outdated and outwritten by today’s talented authors. I’ll leave you with a line from the opening of the book.

“Bond undressed and took a cold shower. Then he lit his seventieth cigarette of the day.”

Blech.