Casino Royale...Or How To Stop Worrying and Learn To Play Baccarat

Having watched the movie, I had very high expectations from the book. But I must say that I was let down. This is probably due to the early chapters which focus more on Baccarat and gambling instructions than anything interesting, like moving the plot forward. So the early chapters do get very boring and start feeling like a chore.
Another thing that let me down is the sexism. From the first chapter to the last, there is a bit of sexist remarks and dialogues thrown around.

The book also has some positive things though. After the Baccarat lessons, the book really picks up on the plot and things get exciting. There is a certain scene where Bond is captured and the dialogue by the Villain, Le Chiffre is written in an amazing manner. And that's about everything positive about the book.

As a final verdict, the stone cold spy with a license to kill, gets a very weak debut novel that makes the readers doubt whether to continue reading the novels or rather shift to the more action-packed and interesting movies.

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!!

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.

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.