Casino Royale - The Novel
Shaken
Posts: 1MI6 Agent
I finished reading “Casino Royale.” It clocked in at 144 pages, so it was a fairly quick read. I jumped out of order and read “Thunderball” first. (that review can be found in this forum as well) Hardyboy mentioned that I might find the CR Bond more rigid than the moodier, more brooding Bond of TB. He, of course, was correct. In CR, we are just being introduced to Bond, his talents and his habits. This novel begins to set up most of the staples we have come to know and love in the Bond series: The agent, the casino, M, Moneypenny, exotic location, Leiter, the baddie and the girl.
As I was reading CR, I was picturing Pierce Brosnan circa “GoldenEye” as Bond. Bond came across to me as a young agent who just fell into MI-6 after the war by default. In the beginning of the novel, he refers to his mission, as well as his career as an agent, as just a job. He isn’t even impressed with his 00 status. He shrugs it off as just something you get if you kill somebody in action.
A whole lot of shrugging goin’ on…just something I noticed. Fleming used the word “shrug” all over the place. Bond shrugged, Le Chiffre shrugged, Vesper shrugged everywhere a shrug, shrug. Get a thesaurus or get rid of the indifference!
On the Leiter side…it was nice to see my main man Felix Leiter was intact. We should all have someone in our life, who can give us an envelope with 32 million francs right when we need it most. I said it in my TB review and I’ll say it again and I’ll probably repeat it in the future. I wish Leiter was as important to the movie Bond as he is to the literary Bond. What a missed opportunity to show camaraderie, strategy and good ol’ “I got your back-ness” between equal agents. It’s wonderful to read it in the novels. I feel it heightens Bond’s humanity and therefore makes the mission more important and real.
I thought it interesting Bond was contemplating retirement. While the CR Bond is obviously less developed than future Bonds, the conversation with Mathis is where Bond begins to find his motivation to continue to battle evil. It is cemented more after the Vesper episode but now I have a better understanding of why Bond chooses a life as a 00 agent. Why sacrifice love, family and happiness? To get the guys that like to torture people of course…oh, now I see. shrug
The torture episode was horrific and terrific. Again, anything that makes Bond human grabs my attention. It would be too much to hope for to see CR become an official Bond movie and have that scene included.
Careless Vesper…everything with her seemed to be crammed in at the end. I would have liked to have seen the Bond/Vesper affair interwoven in the story a bit more. Bond’s viewpoint about women is severe and probably reflects the era, as well as, the character’s need to keep personal feelings at a distance. As a woman, initially it is distressing to read that our beloved hero has these views. But there’s that human element again, it shows that he isn’t perfect. And when he eventually warms up to a woman, it could mean many things, he’s manipulating, he’s being manipulated or he just wants sex – any which way…watch out!
He’s like Shrek…there are so many layers to the Bond and the Bond series. As I’m writing this, I’m smiling because there is so much history and analysis for me to unearth with every Bond book I read. Next up - "Live and Let Die."
"Casino Royale" is an important read to get to know the "how it all began" aspect of the Bond series.
A quick question: Was this written with a series in mind or did Fleming just start with a small stand alone adventure that grew into the series?
Shaken
As I was reading CR, I was picturing Pierce Brosnan circa “GoldenEye” as Bond. Bond came across to me as a young agent who just fell into MI-6 after the war by default. In the beginning of the novel, he refers to his mission, as well as his career as an agent, as just a job. He isn’t even impressed with his 00 status. He shrugs it off as just something you get if you kill somebody in action.
A whole lot of shrugging goin’ on…just something I noticed. Fleming used the word “shrug” all over the place. Bond shrugged, Le Chiffre shrugged, Vesper shrugged everywhere a shrug, shrug. Get a thesaurus or get rid of the indifference!
On the Leiter side…it was nice to see my main man Felix Leiter was intact. We should all have someone in our life, who can give us an envelope with 32 million francs right when we need it most. I said it in my TB review and I’ll say it again and I’ll probably repeat it in the future. I wish Leiter was as important to the movie Bond as he is to the literary Bond. What a missed opportunity to show camaraderie, strategy and good ol’ “I got your back-ness” between equal agents. It’s wonderful to read it in the novels. I feel it heightens Bond’s humanity and therefore makes the mission more important and real.
I thought it interesting Bond was contemplating retirement. While the CR Bond is obviously less developed than future Bonds, the conversation with Mathis is where Bond begins to find his motivation to continue to battle evil. It is cemented more after the Vesper episode but now I have a better understanding of why Bond chooses a life as a 00 agent. Why sacrifice love, family and happiness? To get the guys that like to torture people of course…oh, now I see. shrug
The torture episode was horrific and terrific. Again, anything that makes Bond human grabs my attention. It would be too much to hope for to see CR become an official Bond movie and have that scene included.
Careless Vesper…everything with her seemed to be crammed in at the end. I would have liked to have seen the Bond/Vesper affair interwoven in the story a bit more. Bond’s viewpoint about women is severe and probably reflects the era, as well as, the character’s need to keep personal feelings at a distance. As a woman, initially it is distressing to read that our beloved hero has these views. But there’s that human element again, it shows that he isn’t perfect. And when he eventually warms up to a woman, it could mean many things, he’s manipulating, he’s being manipulated or he just wants sex – any which way…watch out!
He’s like Shrek…there are so many layers to the Bond and the Bond series. As I’m writing this, I’m smiling because there is so much history and analysis for me to unearth with every Bond book I read. Next up - "Live and Let Die."
"Casino Royale" is an important read to get to know the "how it all began" aspect of the Bond series.
A quick question: Was this written with a series in mind or did Fleming just start with a small stand alone adventure that grew into the series?
Shaken
Comments
What I really admire about your post, Shaken, is your identification of how important friendship is to Bond. The films touch on it, but only in the novels can you really understand how Bond values loyalty, honesty, and decency: I think it's those qualities that he sees in the UK (and, to a lesser degree, in the US and in the NATO countries), and allows us to understand why he hates the Soviet Union so much.
To answer your question, Fleming did have a series in mind. His original idea was to make Bond completely devoid of a personality (he even said that he chose the name James Bond because it was the most boring one he could find): he wanted the plots and situations to be more memorable than the main character. It didn't work--you've already seen that Bond is a flesh-and-blood character in Thunderball, and he only grows and develops in the novels Fleming wrote after CR.
Keep the great posts coming, Shaken. . .and why not take part in the fan fic novel? You've got what it takes!
And yes--Casino Royale was always intended to be the first in a series of adventure novels.In fact,with James Bond, Ian Fleming was not only writing about his own fictitious alter-ego but also intentionally creating an updated version of the heroes in the thrillers he'd enjoyed reading as a boy.
While James Bond is loosely modeled on Ian Fleming,his inspiration also uses themes and styles established by--among others-- John Buchan's Richard Hannay,H.C.MacNeile's Captain Hugh"Bulldog" Drummond,Berkeley Gray's Norman Conquest and Leslie Charteris' Simon Templar(The Saint)--all popular characters from the period following World War I.
All of these adventurers are men of the world.Many of them are well-travelled.Some of them work for British Intelligence(Richard Hannay's boss in the secret service is a crusty old admiral.Hmm...).Most of these heroes are tall dark and handsome(Drummond's the exception-he's ugly).And at some point they each find themselves combating evil organizations lead by foreign born criminals bent on world domination....
Fleming wanted to bring this kind of storytelling back--simple,straightforward entertainment.And did he ever.
Casino Royale is the first book in the epic James Bond saga, and certainly one of the best. As well as some wonderful tense scenes, and a superbly defined and more realistic James Bond, the plot is really clever, but also astoundingly simple.
by the end of it we already feel like we have known him for years. Bond is a gourmet and drink-lover, whose vices also include smoking and women, with whom he is happy to make love. Bond is probably in his late thirties, but in excellent physical condition. He can be a cold-blooded killer, but prefers not to be. In this sense, and others, Bond is more realistic than in some later books. Also, he has a condescending attitude towards women, and he does consider leaving the service. The Bond of Casino Royale is the most believable, but in many ways the cruellest, ending the book with the words ‘the bitch is dead’.
8/10
Like Hardyboy and Willie say, check out the fan fiction novel we're writing, we are always on the look out for new talent.
with the news that the longawaited film is presenting this as a type of secret origin, I had to reread the series in sequence
turns out it is just that, maybe a bit more like the pilot in a TV series, but hes definitely a newbie, never had to work with a woman before and doesnt know what to do, makes a big mistake, nearly gets castrated and when he recovers makes his big mission statement, pledging himself to always fight SMERSH
(also in Goldfinger he does say at one point hes had this job for 6 years now, meaning Casino Royale would have happened soon after his promotion)
odd thing is he doesnt actually kill anybody in episode 1, though he twice refers to the men hes killed in the past earning him the promotion
and the whole arc of the storys about his balls, just like we knew all along: 007s secret superpower is his prowess with the ladies
even as hes recovering in the hospital hes plotting to seduce Vesper, not cuz he likes her so much but to test out his damaged equipment
even wackier, the reason he got into that jam with Le Chiffre and the carpetbeater at all was because he was thinking with his nads whenever he was alone with vesper
as he says at the start, hes never had to work with a lady before and he totally blows his cool
at the end he still hasnt clued in shes with the enemy til he reads her suicide note
I think this begins a very long character arc that runs through all the books up and culminates in OHMSS, but is not even referred to in the films
>a secret agent cant enjoy normal human relationships<
it comes up many times in flemings books, particularly in Moonraker with all the material on Leola Ponsonby at the beginning being wedded to The Service, the double standard that men in the Service are expected to have affairs but for women the same behaviourd be a security risk, and the final surprise that bond doesnt get the girl this time cuz shes already engaged: his 2nd time working with a female agent, and shes chosen a normal healthy realworld relationship over a life as a spy
I learned elsewhere in this forum that for the soundtrack of the film theyre not going to use the classic Monty Norman theme til the end (like with The Imperial March in Revenge of the Sith?) but will be basing the bulk of it round a variant of OHMSS: this makes sense to me, with the similar tragic ending and the emphasis on a spys relationship issues
other notable thang is 007s crisis of faith in the hospital: Bond spends a chapter telling Mathis he no longer believes in good guys and bad guys, that hes not cut out for this line of work
it reads almost like a parody of what the Repugs now call "moral relativism", as if fleming himself cant quite see the wussy leftist logic hes trying to put in bonds head
but notably this weakness of resolve to do his job and save the world comes when hes still worrying his nads arent going to heal!
anyway, I also read Dr No a few weeks later and now see some scenes and characters in that film arent from that book, but are from this here one they didnt have the rights to: Sean Connery first appears in a casino scene, he examines minute hairs he left in his hotel room, and then Leiter is assigned to work with him
The fact that the plot was very simple made the story so much better. Fleming could put much more attention into the characters and description without having to use a complicated storyline.
A very different type of book to From Russia With Love for example, where the plot is complex and weaving.
CR as a book is one of the greatest explorations and establishments of characacters I've ever read.
I hope CR the film can emphasise or replicate the excellent entrance to the series. And establish James Bond as the character he was at the start of the series,
In other words, I hope Fleming's job of explaining and describing James Bond as a human can be shown as well through the new film as they were through Fleming's opening book.
but I was absolutely pleased with the ones I've read so far: FRWL, TMWTGG, YOLT... and most of all with CR...
I'm about to start For your eyes only.
Casino Royale was the first bond novel I read, wanting to start reading the bond novels before CR came out at the cinema.
The Bond I picture is purely literary, He seems to be a merge of Dalton, Brosnan and Craig. with aspects of Fleming's only drawing of the character.
Casino Royale is my favourite novel. followed by From Russia With Love, Dr No and Moonraker.