Ian Fleming has some poetry in his veins! I would never have guessed that. much of the prose in this spy thriller is basic and almost ostentatiously declarative. prose from and for a man's man, I suppose. but every so often, we have lines like: In his mind he fingered the necklace of the days to come.The moonlight shone through the half-closed shutters and lapped at the secret shadows in the snow of her body...Bond awoke in his own room at dawn and for a time he lay and stroked his memories.so Bond is the man, a man's man. he's not a nice man, nor an empathetic one, but he get's the job done. Don Draper Bond? Walter White Bond? if the shoe fits. but he's more than a compelling anti-hero. he's a broken vessel, one who has convinced himself that he's whole. poor Bond. he just needs love. and until he finds it, he's going to convince himself that that's exactly what he doesn't need.SPOILERS AHEADI was really surprised at how much this book is about how Bond relates to women. it is practically a romance novel for anti-romantic men, one that also includes a lot of gambling and enjoyment of the finer things in life. by the end of the novel, Bond - who has been experiencing some existential angst and is questioning whether or not he wants to continue with his chosen profession - decides to stick with his job as a secret agent because he has had his heart broken.so here's what we know:- Bond is an old school sort, and has strong chauvinistic tendencies in his professional work. he is unsurprisingly a gender essentialist. I'm not sure if I'd call him a misogynist.- he's a caveman in his outlook on romance. he wants to have rough, rapey ("rapey" not actual rape) sex with a woman who wants to be ravished.- at one point in his life, a relationship ended badly for him. maybe more than one relationship. love died but the relationship lingered on, the results of which have made him tell himself repeatedly throughout the novel that romance is not for him. he just wants to hit it and quit it. or so he says.- he sees himself as a cold, brutal sort. the key part of that phrase for me is he sees himself as. there's a lot in this book that implies that Bond is creating the man he wants to be, that he's purposely hardening himself to the world - and specifically to women - but he's not quite there yet.- Bond meets one Vesper Lynd and is immediately attracted to her. his feelings towards her are an interesting stew of irritation at having to deal with a colleague who is a woman, basic sexual attraction, and admiration for her cool composure combined with an equally cool supportiveness towards Bond.- Bond is captured, tortured, freed. during his lengthy convalescence he experiences a lot of existential doubt about "heroes" and "villains" and how the two roles are interchangeable. a colleague mocks him when he brings this up. Vesper visits him and treats him with kindness and empathy, and no mockery. he slowly falls for her. it was a genuinely moving thing to read.- Bond and Vesper go off on a romantic vacation together. Bond is a walking hard-on when he thinks about what's to come: She was thoughtful and full of consideration without being slavish and without compromising her arrogant spirit. And now he knew that she was profoundly, excitingly sensual, but that the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape. Loving her physically would each time be a thrilling voyage without the anticlimax of arrival. She would surrender herself avidly, he thought, and greedily enjoy all the intimacies of the bed without ever allowing herself to be possessed.- on the first night of their romantic getaway, Bond and Vesper finally hit it. it is just as amazing as he imagined it would be. Bond and Vesper are in love.- something weird and ambiguous comes between them and Bond becomes increasingly confused and depressed. he doesn't understand how and why the love of his life has become so strange and distant. he remains a gentleman throughout but assumes this affair will end like his past relationships... with a feeling of emptiness.- Vesper and Bond have a wonderful last night together full of drinks, lovemaking, and tears. she writes him a letter that describes how she is a double agent who has fallen in love with him. she kills herself.- Bond goes into a state of shock. then Bond goes into Efficient Agent Mode. Bond decides that he will remain a secret agent so he can destroy SMERSH (the agency that drove Vesper to kill herself). Bond cannot (or will not) process Vesper's complicated back story and the effect she has had on him, so he destroys the memory of his love for her. or at least he attempts to... Bond may be fooling himself but he hasn't fooled me. Vesper is a defining person in Bond's life, no matter how much he may want to discard his memory of her. the last sentence of the book is reserved for her, as is the actual last word... bitch. and so Bond degrades his memory of Vesper and compartmentalizes her away, and is one big step closer to becoming that cold, brutal man he's always envisioned himself to be. I guess that's what losing the love of your life can do to a person.this was an absorbing, surprising introduction into the world of 007. I'm not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn't this.
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.
What do You think about Casino Royale (2002)?
James Bond is as much of a weapon as his Beretta 418, although he’s more of an agent by chance than by choice, a weapon as sleek as his 1933 Bentley convertible. He has his vices: gambling, martinis, cigarettes, and sex. Ian Fleming may not have painted women in the most favorable light, may have used a different writing style for a thriller than I’m accustomed to—the agency brief, plenty of inner dialogue and thoughts, and only a dusting of intense action sequences—but this was an enjoyable read for me from the first page to the last.Having watched and enjoyed all the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig James Bond films, along with a few other films from previous James Bond actors, I wanted to look at the man behind the mask, and I must say I’m rather glad I did. This was a quick read, although I wouldn’t necessarily call it light, and while I won’t rush to read the rest of the Ian Fleming novels, I do want to see how both his main character and writing style develop.Cross-posted at Robert's Reads
—Robert
I enjoyed these books greatly when I found them...in Jr. High School, I believe that's called "middle-school" now. In other words when I was around 13 years old. they hold up fairly well...better than the newer movies. Bond just doesn't ring true in some of the more PC adaptions of him lately, do you think?This is the first Bond book...he meets SMRESH, gets tortured, almost loses certain body parts that are very important to him (and most men), gambles for high stakes, takes a lover...you know, just another day at the office for 007.These are still pretty good reads, back then I would have rated them higher I suppose, but then at 13 I also read all the Man From UNCLE books.The first Bond novel, dated but enjoyable, better than the movies in some ways. And don't be too shocked that James isn't exactly the super agent in the books he is in the movies. He succeeds, but tends to get kicked around a lot.
—Mike (the Paladin)
Casino Royale was Ian Fleming's first James Bond book. It is remarkable in many ways. First, it has no techno-gadgets. A tire-shredding mesh thrown from the car of the leading bad guys is about as sophisticated as the mechanical tricks get. Bravo. Sorry, Q old man, this one shines brightly without you.In all his books, Fleming drew on the tradition of Graham Greene, as Le Carre has done since. And he essentially wrote what he knew, mostly described places he had visited. Granted he may have been basking on the beach and burning his all-too-white, easily freckled skin instead of blowing up missile silos or escaping on jet-powered watercraft. In this book, he trades on his experience at the baccarat table. And if you yearn to learn the game (not that I would advise it!), you will get a full tutorial here, including strategy on when to hold-em, when to fold-em. Nicely done, and a neat example for writers who wish to learn how to liven a narrative simply by adding lots of accurate detail.Interesting to me, as I had not realized it before, Casino Royale is set in the *north* coast of France, not far from Trouville, near the landing beaches of the Allied troops on D-Day. That region is the vacation home of Parisians during the hot months leading up to back-to-school. (I was there once in St. Malo in early September and I remember getting a great deal on a sweater at Monoprix because all the kids' mothers had already virtually cleaned out the store.) Casino Royale is *not*, as you might expect, in the acclaimed gambling region of the Cote d'Azur (French Riviera) and adjacent Monte Carlo, both of which are busiest in the winter and are much more famous for being the Las Vegas of Europe.As to sexual politics, of course this Fleming book fails dismally, all in retrospect. The female accomplice Vesper Lynd is the first in a long line of Bond bunkmates that give but don't get happy endings. At one point, Bond muses (in his mind, thankfully) that he would enjoy raping her. I'd say that's about as non-p.c. as you can get these days.But then Fifty Shades of Grey sold all those books -- to someone!
—Gerald
