Casino Royale (1953)

…in which James Bond survives a bomb explosion and a car crash, is brutally tortured, looses millions at the card table and in all seriousness uses the words "will you marry me?".

It's an odd, but interesting thing to read about a character that has been portrayed in so many movies. You expect a page-turner and a lot of action - and you get just that - but also some very well-written suspenseful scenes, like when Bond looses big - and then winning again at baccarat in Casino Royal. You also get some of Bond's rigid thoughts on woman and sex and life in general - well, not that many thoughts because there's a man in a dark suit with a gun that has just stopped 007.....

It's hard to take the last part of the novel serious - Bond falling in love and crying? Come on, let's not kid ourselves here. His last word in the novel are more in line with his character: "Bitch"!

Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. ( )

It is hard for me to be objective when it comes to agent 007, but I will try. Casino Royale does read quite a bit like an origin story, with all the good, and bad that brings with it. There is not nearly so much action as one might expect coming from the film franchise to the books. Additionally there is the pull of the known ending, which I can't blame entirely on having watched the movies. Vesper's cagey and wildly inconsistant behavior is suspicious from nearly the beginning and you want to scream at the elite secret agent. Taking the book on its own merits: It works in the sense of an origin story, Bond, a business minded double-O completes a mission at the Casino Royale, but is waylaid by a double agent. He was not duped by a femme fatale, but genuinely found a loving partner, who just happened to have been turned by the Russians. It adds a dash of righteous indignation and an emotional chill that makes Bond such a legendary character, but you'll have to wait until...JAMES BOND RETURNS IN Live and Let Die ( )

Like many people, I suspect, I've come to Fleming's James Bond after seeing the films. This is not the "Bond. James Bond" who likes his drinks "shaken, not stirred", rather he prefers: "A dry martini. ... In a deep champagne goblet. ... 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?" Can't imagine why they didn't go with that as his catchphrase in the movies!

This novel is far darker in tone than the 'original' films and much closer in style to the 'new' version of Bond played by Daniel Craig in the 2006 adaptation of this novel, which is pretty close to the source material. 21st century Bond is somewhat more enlightened: he works for a female M, whereas the Bond of the novel is annoyed by "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." In other words, each version is very much of his time.

Bond comes across as a bit of an idiot in places - he blames Vesper for getting caught in an obvious trap that he, the spy, didn't realise was a trap until after she had been captured. It shows that he's human, not a perfect 'superhero' spy which makes it easier to identify with him, even if you don't agree with his views.

Most importantly, perhaps, I've now learnt the rules of baccarat...

( )

I give Casino Royale a low rating because it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination compulsive. I sort of enjoyed it, but I could live without it. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to read the other Bond books -- I am, at least a few, because Bond is this huge cultural thing that I've absorbed by osmosis, but only to some extent. The books are actually my first direct encounter with Bond.

(Yes, I lived to the age of twenty-two years and two days before I ever had a direct encounter with James Bond. Seriously.)

It's misogynistic and melodramatic, and the number of monologues is ridiculous, but there's something compelling about Bond and the world he inhabits. Part of it is trying to see what so many have seen before me. ( )

The real James Bond is brutal, cold-hearted, and not a guy you would want to go have drinks with. The character was far more interesting than the one(s) in the movies. The story was surprising - and surprisingly interesting, considering about half of it takes place in a casino. Looking forward to reading more books! The people here who don't like the character's views on females are probably the same people who gave Uncle Tom's Cabin a bad rating for being racist. Times change, literature shouldn't. ( )