The 1st part describes our hero's mental prowess and the second tells of why he hates chicks. The film, in this case, is victorious over these primal sketches of the superstar 007. The novel is problematic, brief, misogynistic, and it bothers me just how everyone that surrounds our Main Man is grotesque in contrast with our uberhealthy fast-healing super spy, as though he's sucked in all surrounding goodness and/or beauty just by being awesome. But ce LA vie... At least here's to be found pretty good arguments in that antiquated (but always relevant) case of good versus evil. PLUS, the exact way to win... at BACCARAT!!

I snagged this to listen to as I drove through four states, and to help with one of my reading goals for the year - reading more spy books! I had never seen a James Bond film (not even Sean Connery) nor had I read a James Bond book, so this was my first experience. Of course I have some knowledge of him just in the general pop culture way, "shaken, not stirred," etc., and I knew to expect a certain perspective of women. I had also recently watched the BBC show Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, which is somewhat interesting about Ian Fleming's life up until he wrote this first novel.

If your only exposure to Casino Royale is the 1967 film with five directors, a Woody Allen "I'm so quirky and I'm JIMMMY BOND" character, and a retired James Bond, just strike it from your memory. This book is not that story. In the book version, James Bond has just become a "double-O" and is going on his first mission in that level. It's taking him to Monaco, for (I'm guessing his first) encounter with Le Chiffre and a Soviet organization called SMERSH. There are car chases and damsels in distress, agents from all over the world, double agents and intrigue. It was fun to listen to although I suspect James Bond should be a little smarter than he is with women. When I said that to my husband he said, "That's his weakness, that's the point," and well, okay, if we must. Apparently it's worked long enough for decades of novels and movies.

I was surprised near the last third of the book when Bond gets rather philosophical about violence and evil and power. It was pretty reflective, and he was thinking of retiring as the novel ends. (Perhaps this is repeated in future books as well?)

There were two audio versions of this book in Audible and I went with Simon Vance - he does a great Russian, spy-British, and French accent, but his American accent is a bit Texan-meets-Amish.

“Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.”

So three stars - decent book, entertaining, perhaps not all that memorable or much to recommend to others, wouldn't purchase to read again later.

My first James Bond novel which cements my opinion that Daniel Craig is the epitome of this steely MI man.
When one reads these pages one is struck by the description of the character and his actions; he's cold, aloof, calculating, isolated. He's not a swaggering, macho, seducing machine. Don't get me wrong! Bond likes the ladies, but they have their uses. They are props and they are there for an affair once the case is solved. He's probably the most attractive man in the room.
In Casino Royale Bond is after Le Chiffre, a money man for a communist organization who has embezzled. High stakes gambling ensues to recoup his losses. Bond challenges him at baccarat. This is a game I've never seen played. Bond's eventual capture and torture is spot-on the movie. There is also a Vesper, but her story follows a different trail.
I'm looking forward to reading all 13 of this series.

Ma che triste questo romanzo. :-(

Vabbè, partiamo dall’inizio. Non avevo mai letto nessun libro di Ian Fleming, nonostante il fatto di aver visto moltissimi film tratti dalla serie di “007”. La molla è scattata due giorni fa, quando una conoscente mi ha prestato il DVD di “Casino Royale”, nel quale il celebre agente è interpretato da Daniel Craig, che sarebbe questo qui:



Già un bel vedere di suo, direi. :-D
[Arwen, per favore, ricomponiti.]
(Ok, ok, come non detto.)

Dicevo … ho guardato “Casino Royale” e mi sono divertita una cifra. Era tanto tempo che non vedevo un film così genuinamente di svago, con situazioni esagerate e del tutto inverosimili, ma al contempo accattivanti. Avevo bisogno di tirare un po’ il fiato e non pensare.

Anche se, alla fine, mi sono sentita un po’ stremata io al posto James Bond, che:
1) va su di corsa dalle impalcature da far invidia a una scimmia;
2) salta da una trave all’altra meglio di un saltamartino;
3) si arrampica su una gru come neanche King Kong avrebbe saputo fare;
4) si catapulta giù da montacarichi, ascensori e scale tipo Tarzan;
5) scavalca siepi e recinzioni più agile di un canguro;
6) si scazzotta a ripetizione con chiunque, tanto che Cassius Clay gli fa un baffo, gli fa;
7) ammazza come minimo una ventina di persone, ma questo è ovvio, perché lui ha la licenza di uccidere;
8) viene avvelenato con la digitale, rianimato col defibrillatore e, fresco come una rosa, dopo dieci minuti torna a giocare a poker, puntando milioni di sterline, contro un delinquente che ha una espressione tanto serena e rassicurante quanto quella di una iena ridens;
9) viene torturato in parti, diciamo così, un tantino sensibili sia per il corpo in generale, sia per l’orgoglio propriamente maschile in particolare, eppure lui niente … riesce a fare un sorrisino di quelli che ti fanno sentire una vera merda anche se sei sicuro di avere il coltello dalla parte del manico;
10) nel bel mezzo di tutti questi casini, ha il tempo di “consolare” (eufemisticamente parlando) le belle di turno, in modo tale che a Casanova sarebbero venute le convulsioni per l’invidia.

Ecco, il film è così, evidentemente poco credibile, come dicevo, ma comunque simpaticamente divertente. Perché lui è Bond … James Bond. E Daniel Craig è il primo “007” convincente dopo quello che è stato sicuramente il migliore, ossia Sean Connery, che sarebbe questo:



Anche lui, indubbiamente un bel vedere. ;-)
[Arwen, ancora?]
(Ok, ok, di nuovo come non detto.)

Tornando in carreggiata, stranamente solo stavolta, per la prima volta, mi sono chiesta come potessero essere originariamente i romanzi del “papà” del famoso agente britannico. Intendo dire, dietro tutte le “americanate” dei film c’era qualcosa di diverso?

Bé, in questo caso credo di sì. Gli altri non so come siano e quanto siano stati influenzati dal progressivo successo, ma il primo libro di Ian Fleming è molto amaro e percorso da un senso di struggente perdita. Non è che sia scritto particolarmente bene, ma si percepisce una specie di dolore di fondo che fa di questo Bond un essere molto più umano e molto meno supereroe di quanto si sia portati a pensare. E quel dolore deriva sicuramente da un disagio provato dal suo autore che, forse senza volerlo, lo ha comunicato lo stesso.

Ian Fleming, the most well-known name in all spy fiction, certainly and without any doubt. Fleming was progenitor of a vast empire of entertainment products --based on the surreal colonial adventures of his elite British troubleshooter -- which have outlived him and --unfortunately, if we speak frankly--overshadow all the original goals he began with. For each one of Fleming's thirteen novels [& nigh all his short stories] there have been major motion pictures derived (at least in name); and there have been video-games spun off; pinball machines, special-edition wristwatches; music albums; automobiles; toys; clothes.

One doesn't have to even have read the books to be familiar with Fleming's world-famous 'agent 007' character—nor 007's foes; his lovers; even his tiniest personality traits. Minor flourishes of Fleming's writing seep out--the way a drink is poured, the way a card is played--via a myriad of commercial channels to overwhelm worldwide popculture. Casual phrases muttered by Bond--the names of obscure henchmen--the car he drives--are bandied about, even by small children.

The campy, genre-parodying adaptations of Fleming's stories have really done disservice to the quality and the substance of what he penned. It was a lean, understated, calm, and confident narrative style which originally placed editions in the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave bathroom for an envious JFK--but are not the works which were translated to the big screen.

Fleming actually wrote with taut, clear-eyed, and un-showy faithfulness towards many elements from his life; his society; and the British military career which inspired his writing in the first place. What were those elements? Authenticity, for one thing. Fleming comes from the fraternity of energetic, upperclass schoolboys who populated Britain's intelligence services between 1890 and 1940; that-death-&-life-of-Colonel-Blimp-era which gave rise to stellar, capable figures like T.E. Lawrence, Maxwell Knight, William Stephenson, Basil Thomson, Robert Baden-Powell, William Robertson, John Cecil Masterman, Dennis Wheatley, Compton MacKenzie, John Godfrey, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, Millis Rowland Jefferis, Alexander Wilson, Stewart Menzies, Lionel Crabb, and Richard Meinertzhagen. These men not only shaped Fleming’s own personality but—-along with a host of other random cutthroats-of-the-era whom he became acquainted with through his service—the Bond character itself.

A multi-talented individual, Fleming began merely in an administrative capacity. Perhaps spurred on by the exploits of his famous elder brother Peter (whom no one today recalls) he very creatively influenced several aspects of Britain’s clandestine war work, eventually rising to supervise "specialized-units-of-men" --much as did his fictional spy-chief character, ‘M’. In that role, Fleming was a perfectionist.

After the war, there was no specific need for the wealthy Fleming to embark upon a lurid series of 1950s action novels. That he did so, suggests he had become perhaps too rooted in war-games and too fond of male camaraderie to settle easily into 'dull civilian routine'. Fleming was surely not the first of the ‘old boys’ to turn to popular literature; Wheatley, Lawrence, and even brother Peter had already done so.

Despite the 'schoolboy' aspect of what he undertook; there’s a side of Ian Fleming which was always shrewd, astute, sober—-very attentive to the world and its trends. The Bond 'romps' perhaps gave him the opportunity to express something new, something rich, and something uniquely his own. He was able to remain an 'effective participant' in the post-war era, even though his part in the game was effectively over.

Unlike the movie franchise, Fleming's prose is not fluff--its quite educated and dense; presenting finely-detailed observations about British life; the class system; colonialism; and professionalism. His eye and his pen roved across issues of status, privilege, gender; violence; and male relationships. Fleming loved travel and exotic-ness; physicality, good-living; but he also loved good taste, sound judgement; tradition, duty. Doing the correct thing.

What is missing from the cinematic Bond is this essential conservatism; this attention to manners and “knowing one’s place” (007 is not a gentleman himself, but knows how to fit in with them). Absent from the films is the James Bond who is weakly, helplessly (even psychotically) addicted to adrenalin, cruelty, and violence; and pathetically dependent--whenever lacking these—upon booze, gambling, sex, and cigarettes. Sanitized-out-of-the-films is Fleming's half-veiled suggestion that third-world peoples really don’t know how to govern themselves. Discernible in the films are paranoid insecurities about failing manhood: James Bond is always an 'Arthurian knight' riding out against fat, bloated, treasure-hoarding old trolls who can’t match his virility. Found in either novels or screenplays is Fleming's remarkable lack of political savvy: long after war's end, he is still painting the world in simple watercolors of 'good guy/bad guy'. Finally--happily shining through in both mediums--is James Bond’s father-relationship with ‘M’; and his energetic efforts to appear responsible, abstemious, and upright before the elder man. This is charming, for the truth is that this 'super hero' is that he is remarkably depraved, vicious, and even sadistic (you can see this in Sean Connery's marvelously unsavory portrayal).

Ultimately [pound-for-pound], the books win out. Unlike the films, the 13 novels possess a rich melange of competing, quirky, delights which can be evaluated on multiple levels at once, sensually absorbed with several faculties at once. Bond novels are read, inhaled, tasted. There's a heady mixture of the baroque with the unadorned, a combination of the straightforward with the surreal. [For an example of the latter, read particularly, 'Diamonds are Forever' to see 1950s America only bettered by that found in V. Nabokov's 'Lolita'].

Whether the bare plots alone of all these icy, man-to-man novels might ever have become watchable movies if handled frugally (in them, the entire free world is rarely at total risk: Bond resolves problems rather quietly) we’ll never know. Additional authors have been hired to keep the book series going after Fleming’s demise. Unfortunately, today's juvenile-minded public crave nothing else except gunbarrels, explosions, jiggling cleavage, and frolicking. Fleming's experiment--his careful, calculated exaggerations; his blending of the 'real' with the 'fantastic'; his real achievement as an author--is neglected.

The franchise--at this point--has so strongly influenced the entire espionage genre for so long with its quips and callousness and jingoism—spawned so many copies and imitations—it’s a phenomenon towards which just as much criticism can probably be leveled, as it can be praised.

But after-all-is-said-and-done, Ian Fleming just can't be beat for the furthering of fantasy and stereotype. There's both good and bad in this (depending on where you stand). One can always bear in mind that the over-the-top Bond ethos certainly had one welcome result: the resurgence of 'dry realism' in the 1960s spy novels heralded by John Le Carre and Len Deighton.

Ian Fleming introduced the world to James Bond; British Secret Service agent and womaniser out to keep the world safe, time after time. Casino Royale is the first in the huge 007 franchise where Bond’s adventures lead to a card game to bring down SMERSH agent Le Chiffre. But there is more at stake than just money.

This isn’t my first Bond book, I read Jeffery Deaver’s 007 novel Carte Blanche but this is my first Fleming book. So Fleming’s Bond is very different to the movies or Deaver’s secret agent. All the main elements are the same, the womanising and the witty comments but in Casino Royale it’s a lot different to the movie of the same name. There is less action adventure and more attempts at the espionage genre.

The first half of the book is set in the casino playing high-stakes baccarat; a game I know nothing about but was interested to learn. In the end the game is supposedly easy but I still have no idea how to play it. James Bond is trying to bankrupt Le Chiffre; the treasurer of a French union and a member of the Russian secret service. The idea is pretty simple; bankrupt Le Chiffre and prevent him funding any Russian missions. Which is well and good but once this part of the book ended, that’s when this book started going downhill.

The second half of the book was pretty weak, especially when it came to Vesper. The suspense and tension end abruptly and falls flat on its face. There are a few incidences of adventure but it almost tries to turn into this romance but Fleming and the character are such huge misogynists that it doesn’t work at all. Bond is supposed to be very much in love with this woman but he knows there is something she is hiding; but it doesn’t get explored very well in the book.

Now let’s talk about that one phrase in the book that really sets people off; “sweet tang of rape”. I get what Ian Fleming is trying to say and do there, but really that phrase is not the best way to put it. All it does is just prove that Fleming is a sexist and that never really helps the book. I want to say that the idea of wanting to have sex with this woman even though it’s not the right move for Bond is a great idea but it could have been explore and worded differently.

After reading this book, I’m not sure whether I should read more of the series or just stick to the movies. I wanted to read this book to get a sense of what the book was about and also it’s on the ‘1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die’ list, but I really struggle to see how this book turned into a successful series let alone movie franchise. This is a simple case of ‘the movie is better than the book’ and it’s rare but it happens. Casino Royale may be very different, but it managed to keep the tension and explored the basic concept a whole lot better than this book ever did.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/...

Το όνομά του είναι Μποντ· Τζέιμς Μποντ. Οι εκδόσεις Διόπτρα αποφάσισαν να (ξανα)συστήσουν στο ελληνικό αναγνωστικό κοινό τον διασημότερο μυστικό πράκτορα της Βρετανίας, τον εμβληματικό 007. Και το «Καζίνο Ρουαγιάλ», το πρώτο βιβλίο της σειράς, αποτελεί τον καλύτερο τρόπο για μια πρώτη γνωριμία μαζί του.

Όλα ξεκινούν σε ένα καζίνο της Ρουαγιάλ-λεζ-Ο. Ο Τζέιμς Μποντ εργάζεται για τη Μυστική Υπηρεσία της Βρετανίας και βρίσκεται εκεί ινκόγκνιτο για να φέρει εις πέρας μια ειδική αποστολή: να νικήσει έναν Σοβιετικό πράκτορα, τον περιβόητο «Λε Σιφρ», στο τραπέζι του μπακαρά, εμποδίζοντάς τον έτσι να βρει τα χρήματα που χρειάζεται ώστε να καλύψει ένα τεράστιο χρηματικό ποσό που έχει καταχραστεί. Έχοντας τη συνδρομή της δικής του Υπηρεσίας, εκείνης της Γαλλίας και της CIA, ο Μποντ κινείται με χαρακτηριστική άνεση σε έναν κόσμο πολυτέλειας, καλοντυμένων ανθρώπων και συνεχόμενων ρίσκων, όπου τα χρήματα και τα πάθη ρέουν άφθονα.
Όταν το αφεντικό του Μποντ αποφασίζει να στείλει στη Γαλλία μία πράκτορα που θα παίξει τον ρόλο της συνοδού του, εκείνος αρχικά εκνευρίζεται, καθώς θεωρεί πως μια γυναίκα το μόνο που θα προκαλέσει θα είναι μπελάδες. Όταν όμως βλέπει τη Βέσπερ αναγκάζεται να παραδεχτεί πως πρόκειται για μια εκθαμβωτική παρουσία και για μια ικανή βοηθό. Δεν αργεί μάλιστα να παρασυρθεί κι ο ίδιος από τη γοητεία της, όμως δεν ξεχνά ούτε στιγμή τον στόχο του: να φέρει εις πέρας την αποστολή του.
Κι ενώ όλα φαίνονται να βαίνουν καλώς, το σχέδιο περιπλέκεται. Ο αντίπαλός του δεν φαίνεται πρόθυμος να αποδεχτεί την ήττα του και σχεδιάζει να εκβιάσει τον Μποντ, χρησιμοποιώντας τη Βέσπερ. Ο Μποντ θα πρέπει να χρησιμοποιήσει όλη του την εξυπνάδα και τη δεξιοτεχνία, προκειμένου να καταφέρει να γλιτώσει τη Βέσπερ και τον ίδιο από μια μοίρα που φαντάζει ίσως χειρότερη κι από τον θάνατο…



Την εποχή που γράφτηκε το βιβλίο, το 1953, ο Β’ Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος δεν ήταν μια μακρινή ανάμνηση, αλλά το πρόσφατο παρελθόν. Η Ευρώπη προσπαθούσε ακόμη να επουλώσει τις πληγές της και να ξανασταθεί στα πόδια της, ενώ οι σχέσεις της με τη Σοβιετική Ένωση ήταν συνεχώς τεταμένες, με την προοπτική μιας νέας πολεμικής σύρραξης να κρέμεται συνεχώς σαν απειλή πάνω από τα κεφάλια τους. Η εποχή ήταν ιδανική για να ανθίσει ξανά το είδος του κατασκοπευτικού θ��ίλερ. Ένας μυστικός πράκτορας που μεριμνεί πάνω απ’ όλα για την προστασία της πατρίδας από τον εχθρό, έχει πρόσβαση παντού, υποδύεται διαφορετικά πρόσωπα και περιβάλλεται πάντα από μια αύρα μυστηρίου, οπωσδήποτε θα κέντριζε το ενδιαφέρον των αναγνωστών, που «πεινούσαν» για τέτοιες ιστορίες.
Ο Ίαν Φλέμινγκ, λοιπόν, δημιούργησε τον ήρωα που ικανοποιούσε πλήρως τις αναγνωστικές προσδοκίες εκείνης της εποχής. Ο Τζέιμς Μποντ είναι γοητευτικός, καλοφτιαγμένος. Ταξιδεύει σε μέρη κοσμοπολίτικα, συγχρωτίζεται με πλούσιους και σημαντικούς ανθρώπους, συνοδεύεται από ωραίες γυναίκες και ξέρει να απολαμβάνει τις πολυτέλειες της ζωής -ένα τσιγάρο, ένα ακριβό μπουκάλι σαμπάνιας, ένα εκλεκτό γεύμα- σε μια εποχή που ο μέσος άνθρωπος αγωνιζόταν να τα βγάλει πέρα, δεν είχε ταξιδέψει σχεδόν πουθενά και πολλές φορές στερούνταν ακόμα και τα απαραίτητα. Ο Μποντ, όμως, είναι πάνω απ’ όλα πατριώτης: ένας πράκτορας ικανός, εκπαιδευμένος να ρισκάρει, να σκοτώνει αν είναι απαραίτητο, να διακινδυνεύει τη ζωή του συνεχώς, να βάζει πάνω απ’ όλα το καθήκον. Ταυτόχρονα, όμως, είναι και άνθρωπος· έχει και εκείνος να αντιμετωπίσει τις αδύναμες στιγμές του, τους φόβους, τα διλήμματά του.
Κι αν όλα τα προσόντα που αποκόμισε από την εκπαίδευσή του τον κάνουν ιδανικό πράκτορα, τα συναισθήματα και οι αδυναμίες του τον κάνουν πιο ανθρώπινο, αληθινό, προσιτό, ρεαλιστικό ως χαρακτήρα. Και ο Φλέμινγκ τον έχει σκιαγραφήσει τόσο πετυχημένα και ολοκληρωμένα, που τον έκανε έναν χαρακτήρα διαχρονικό, που ξεπερνά τα χωροχρονικά πλαίσια και μετατρέπεται σε μια Ιδέα. Είναι ο τύπος που όλοι θα ήθελαν για σύμμαχο και κανείς για εχθρό του· ο τύπος που οι γυναίκες ονειρεύονται και κοιτάζουν απροκάλυπτα κι οι άντρες θαυμάζουν αντί να φθονούν· ο τύπος που τη μία στιγμή συμπεριφέρεται σαν εκλεπτυσμένος γόης και την επόμενη σαν αδίστακτος δολοφόνος. Μια πολύπλοκη προσωπικότητα, που όμως ακριβώς σ’ αυτό στηρίζει τη γοητεία της. Σ’ αυτό, και στο ότι δεν προσπαθεί ποτέ να γοητεύσει κανέναν, αλλά το καταφέρνει αβίαστα.



Το βιβλίο αυτό οπωσδήποτε δεν προσδοκά να εντυπωσιάσει τον αναγνώστη στηριζόμενο αποκλειστικά στην πλοκή του. Οι περισσότεροι τη γνωρίζουν, άλλωστε· κι αν όχι, και πάλι ξέρουν πως ο περιβόητος 007 θα τη… σκαπουλάρει στο τέλος. Το στόρυ του, επίσης, από μόνο του δεν είναι κάτι που δεν έχουμε συναντήσει ξανά σε άλλα βιβλία του είδους. Όμως αυτό τελικά δεν έχει καμία σημασία, γιατί διαθέτει δύο ισχυρούς άσους στο μανίκι του – για να μιλάμε και με την ορολογία ενός καζίνο. Και αυτοί δεν είναι άλλοι από τον ίδιο τον πρωταγωνιστή και την πένα του ταλαντούχου, ευφυούς δημιουργού του. Ο Φλέμινγκ περιγράφει με γλαφυρές και απολαυστικές λεπτομέρειες τα πάντα -από τα πανέμορφα τοπία και την κοσμοπολίτικη αύρα του καζίνο μέχρι ένα ρούχο, ένα εστιατόριο, μια απλή, αυθόρμητη κίνηση- προσδίδοντας ζηλευτή αληθοφάνεια και παλμό σε καθένα από αυτά ξεχωριστά. Η ακρίβεια και η πιστότητα των περιγραφών αποτελούν ένα επιπλέον ατού του βιβλίου, που κάνει ακόμα και τον αναγνώστη που ξέρει τι θα συμβεί παρακάτω να το διαβάζει με την ίδια αφοσίωση και προσήλωση που θα το κάνει και εκείνος που εισέρχεται για πρώτη φορά στο σύμπαν του Τζέιμς Μποντ.
Καθίστε αναπαυτικά κι αφήστε το «Καζίνο Ρουαγιάλ» να σας ταξιδέψει στον χρόνο και τον χώρο, με μια αύρα συναρπαστική και κοσμοπολίτικη και με συντροφιά έναν από τους χαρισματικότερους λογοτεχνικούς ήρωες όλων των εποχών.



H κριτική μου για το βιβλίο και στο site "Book City" και τον παρακάτω σύνδεσμο: Casino Royale

If you came here to Casino Royale (James Bond (Original Series) Book 1) Kindle Edition by Ian Fleming expecting the slick movie gimcrack glitz and glamor. That is the stuff of most of the movies. The earliest James Bond Movies tended to be rather like the books and Danial Craig is almost the original Bond. For the rest, Fleming hated what had been done to his books and only licensed the titles after Goldfinger. This is the original James Bond. Unencumbered with hi tech gadgets, nursing along his 20 odd year old supercharged 1930 Bentley coupe. This is a Bond soured on being a double O and aware that survival in this job is a matter of odds, and sooner or later the odds are against.

In some respects, Fleming’s James Bond begins in the same mental space as John Le Carre’s Alec Leamas from that author’s first spy novel, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Both are Cold War undercover operatives. Neither is fully convinced that their side is all that perfect and that the typical operative is much better than a cold-blooded calculating human for hire. Their jobs leave them exposed, expendable and on borrowed time.

The end of chapter 1 of Casino Royal has James Bond seriously considering his job, his motives and his life. He does however take this assignment. Seek out an over extended, profligate Russian Spy, and ruin him financially. The Russian, Le Chiffreis, a man of some importance to Russian operations, but he is dipping into the company till to fund brothels. Changes in French law has him on the verge of bankruptcy. Knowing he will place his last money on high stakes Baccarat at the French casino in Royale-les-Eaux the stage is set to publicly ruin Moscow’s Man in France.

Bond is extended a large line of credit, and dispatched to literally beat the Russian at hisown game. Along the way Fleming introduces allied operatives from the French Deuxième Bureau (French Secret Service) American CIA Operative Felix Lighter and, intended to be friendly arm candy, a relatively low ranking British secret service employee, Vesper.

Bond feels the weight of the various risks he is taking . Professional standing and life threatening, he is aware that luck, when it comes, it comes in runs and ends with very little clue. It is Bond’s sensitivity to those clues that has placed him into this job. For him the woman is a distraction and something to add to his job of figuring the odds.

Is it a spoiler alert to remind you that this is book one of a series? We should dispatch our concern over how this will end, and focus on how we get there. On this there are a few points.

Ian Fleming had experience in espionage. He had been an Officer in British Naval Intelligence during World War II. He had insider knowledge of operations and people that would appear as fiction in his books. While the basic plot of Casino Royal is thin and unlikely, it was inspired by a high stakes Baccarat games involving Nazi money, that Fleming observed. The Bond character is an amalgam of several people Fleming knew or knew of, including the so-called Ace of Spies, Sidney Reilly, and Serbian double agent, Dusko Popov. There are several books and some made for television material on, or based on both.

The Bond books follow a tradition of hard-boiled detectives and various secret agent stories. To Fleming must go the credit for introducing the modern, human secret agent. However slick on the outside, the inner man is one with whom any man can identify. As for his only in the movie’s reputation as a ladies’ man; the Bond OF Casino Royal never makes assumptions about Vesper as an entertainment object. He rejects some of her offers, and against his better judgement develops sincere feeling for her. In this case, who seduces who?

As will be in all the James Bond Books, Casino Royal I short. I find the writing much above the assumed hack work automatically associated with action figure novels. Later when Fleming speaks of his much beloved Jamaica, his writing can be lyrical. In this book, he tends to be tense, focused and very successful in matching descriptions to the mood and mind of his protagonist. This is at least my second read of this book. How many or how soon I will get back to this shelf, well stay tuned. Fleming wrote them one a year, maybe I will read them at that rate.

Never before have I thought of myself specifically as a fan of the James Bond movies, although I did watch 13 out of overall 24 Bond films. However, along with the recent release date of "Spectre" (which I haven't seen yet), I wanted to discover how Ian Fleming's works influenced the successful movie adaptions and whether or not those movies lived up to the novel's expectations. "Casino Royale" has been one of the first Bond movies I thorougly enjoyed watching, so my expectations as to my reading experience with this first Bond novel were pretty high. Too high, I guess.



Some amazing artwork originating from the movie can be found out there on the internet, and doesn't Casino Royale already sound pretty cool? Sexy double agents in suits with attractive girls surrounding them and villainous gangsters trying to take over the world who will probably end up being defeated after some sort of showdown - it's always the same procedure used in every film, yet all most of them become a huge success. In contrast to many other Bond movies, I can understand how this success came about since the adaption of "Casino Royale" was pretty well done, but after reading Ian Fleming's original, I am nothing but bored by even hearing the name James Bond. But who is this James Bond in the novel?

Raymond Chandler once said that "James Bond is what every man would like to be, and what every woman would like between her sheets". So, if every man would like to be sexy, but tending to brutal, rapey behaviour, and protective with women, but degrading them, thinking of himself as superior to the other gender, and murdering numerous other people as a 'hobby' ... then I definitely don't want to be such a man. Never before did I encounter a character so unlikeable and abhorrent, and neither do I understand why people like those seem to have so much success with women. I'm not opposed to unlikeable characters - some of the most interesting protagonists I've read about are anything but likeable - but the image of men and women depicted by Fleming is simply unbearable.

Ian Fleming's writing is certainly not awful. He included some interesting sections reflecting Bond's behaviour, giving his character time to think over his situation, but it did nothing to transform Bond into a character with depth. The double agent with a strong leaning towards sex with as many women as possible remains the only characteristic James Bond is allowed to have. But apart from that, the plot itself did not improve the novel's quality. Quite the contrary, the story of Casino Royale was boring. Yes, it was boring as hell. I caught myself skimming through the last chapters, being more annoyed by this book with every new sentence, and constantly struggling not to put it aside. (There's one advantage, however: I could use this as a bedtime story and thus avoid any potential problems with falling asleep.)

This was definitely the last Fleming novel I've read. In conclusion, I can recommend watching the movie and just skipping the novels in order to not waste any time with this. It isn't worth the expenditure of time.

So, I received an Amazon voucher/coupon which stated that the Ian Fleming James Bond books were on sale: 14 books (Fleming’s entire run) for .98 cents each. I grabbed them and decided to include them as one of the series I intend to start and complete in the same year (2021). Casino Royale is the first of the series, introducing the readers to a James Bond, distinct from the cinematic version. Sure, he is arrogant, but he is also debonair. Misogynistic? OK, but he is noble, too. Ultimately, he is tortured and requires assistance which demonstrates how drastically the cinematic version distinguishes itself from the literary version. In this oddly paced novel, there are chapters where 007 is enrapt in a strategic card game. I can see the genesis of our intrepid hero in this historic, ground-breaking work published circa 1953. SMERSH? What, no SPECTRE? Aww! Still, my nostalgia goggles were fogging crazily, going nuts, so I have to temper my joy with a middle of the road rating. Yeah, folks not the same guy we are used to, but it was intriguing to observe the relic in historical context and resolve him with the emotional Daniel Craig 007.

Originally published in 1953, the first book in the James Bond series, the one made famous cinematically in the 1970s and 1980s because it did not star Sean Connery or Roger Moore! …David Niven anyone? Actually quite an interesting book, for its darkness, for an introduction to Bond's trademark dark-ish manner and also for being a caper where Jame Bond mayn not necessary emerge victorious! Another very dated, but rip roaring adventure. 6 out of 12

Spoilers

This will be a review of not just Casino Royale, but of the James Bond books in general. I think that there is a good argument to be made, that the Bond books are the most misunderstood books of all prominent books, because the very subtext that accounts for their enduring appeal is buried so deeply that it just passes most people by.

The best way to understand the James Bond books is to understand the heroines of the books. These heroines are often characterized as being glamorous women who it is Bond's role to save. This is completely and totally wrong. The whole key is that these women ALWAYS have short unpainted nails. They are actors and present an existential challenge to James Bond. In fact the best way to understand Bond is as a kind of existential literature.

Fleming was a writer who had a message that he seemed not to be fully and consciously aware of. He says the same message in every book, and he says it in the same way (with the exceptions of The Spy Who Loved Me and the short story Quantum of Solace, where the same themes are approached from alternative directions).

Fleming is often compared to Le Carre, almost always negatively. This is an unfair comparison in two ways. First of all, Fleming is a great writer and is, along with Lovecraft, one of the two greatest writers of Pulp in history, whereas Le Carre is merely a very good writer. Second, Fleming is not really writing spy literature, he is really writing fantasy in which the hero happens to have the occupation of a spy. As such, criticisms of a lack of realism are about as out of place as they would be for The Lord of the Rings or Alice in Wonderland. I would have thought, that the Bond books wear their status as fantasy more clearly than, say, the Latin American Magical Realists, but this point appears to pass people by.

The next thing to notice about James Bond is that he is pretty clearly a broken person. The thing that I most love about Daniel Craig's interpretation of Bond is that he conveys this point clearly and repetitively in a way that has not been done before. Bond is a kind of broken Nietzchean superhero who has in a way arbitrarily and for what appear to be purely aesthetic reasons, taken on a specific set of values that we are meant to recognize intuitively as a priori superior to competing values. In this he is exactly the same as both the James Bond heroines and villains.

If you read the Bond books critically, one of the things that is most striking about them is how similar in personality Bond is to both the heroines (with a few exceptions) and the villains (also with a few exceptions). Fleming will distinguish Bond from the villains not so much by their actions, which are often quite similar, but instead by things such as the cut of their suit or their taste in luxury watches. These aesthetic choices are meant to be inherently preferable, just as Bond's belief system and set of values is never defended as superior to communism or, ironically, to the vast accumulation of wealth and power that other figures such as Goldfinger are bent on accumulating, e.g. the values of capitalism.

Bond, the villains, and the heroines of the books all have in common that they do not in any way feel bound by conventional morays, rules of decorum or value judgments. All of the major characters have in fact chosen a belief system and a set of values through force of their personal will alone. The other characters have not and this is why those characters are kinds of ghosts within the books and are in some sort of way not worthy of interacting with Bond.

The villains have in fact chosen the wrong values. They are every bit as ruthlessly dedicated to them as Bond, and they will not in any way compromise them just as Bond will not. The women have either chosen the same set of values as Bond or at least a set of values that are not diametrically opposed. They are then worthy romantic interests (this goes only for the main female character in every book). However, Fleming is clear that the heroines Nietzchean superman status means that they are too independent to make the kind of long term bonds necessary for stable relationships. They are not in the next book and presumably, they, like Bond, have moved on unchanged. This is clearest in Casino Royale where the doomed nature of the genuine love that Bond has for Vesper Lynd is clearly spelled out in the events leading up to and following her death.

Also, in this book, Bond fails in his mission in a way that he will not do so spectacularly again, but in staying true to the values that characterize him even at the expense of rejecting a genuine love, he maintains his status as a Nietzschean superhero. A status that Fleming clearly means to be a kind of idealization of how to live one's life and not an actually fully achievable ideal. It is by setting Bond in a fantastic world and not in a world where mundane limits can intrude on this ideal that Fleming can over and over again put forth this ideal in its pure form.

Again, it is a world where the choice of a man's luggage is meant to say as much about him as the choice of his political ideals. It is a morality justified by its aesthete and not vice versa.

But even though it is a fantasy world, it is still a world in which it is not possible to simply always force one's will onto that world. Bond may fail to save the woman, he may fail to stop the villain from getting away, his wife might die, his friend's legs might be eaten by a shark, he may be captured, he may be emotionally devastated by events. But it is still a world in which his maintenance of his own values and beliefs can be specifically maintained through every hardship and peril. In pretty much all the Fleming books, Bond is distracted by doubts, or by emotional weaknesses, and in every book Bond overcomes these by simply pushing them away.

In other words the Bond books represent a kind of practical existential ideal. It is not an implausible solution to the practical problems of our world that Fleming is unconsciously advocating and it appears to be what he attempted to practice in real life. But it is a difficult solution that he advocates none-the-less.