Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, with an introduction by Alan Judd
London: Vintage Books, 2012 (first published 1953) ISBN 9780099576853
My mother is a great one for crime books, spy books and horror books - her shelves bulge with Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and every writer of note in those three genres; shelves and shelves of them. One part of one of the shelves has, in order, the Bond novels, in their early Pan paperback guise. My mum wasn't much of a fan of those books, but she read them anyway. Not being much of a fan of genre novels myself, I never read them as a child, but of course like most my age, enjoyed the films immensely as they came out regularly during my younger years. Enjoying the films did not however lead me to the books, and it's only now, in the second half of my life, that I've picked up my first Bond book: the first to be written, Casino Royale.
It is interesting to come to the "paper" Bond from the "celluloid" Bond - on the page Bond is more human, less cock-sure, and less funny than he is portrayed on film. In fact at times in the book he is philosophical, which would be unheard of coming from Connery, Moore, or Craig.
The philosophy passes soon enough, as the reader is taken on a journey where Bond wins and loses at Baccarat, survives being blown up and tortured, and falls in love only to be betrayed. The book in some respects is of it's age, with casual racism and misogyny sprinkled throughout the text, but if the reader slips out of 21st century mindsets, the story is still a good one.
It is interesting to note that Fleming, even in this very first book, was employing what is now called "product placement" to try and establish just what sort of character Bond was. As Alan Judd points out in his short introduction, in 1953 England was still under rationing, so mention of Taittinger Champagne and Caviar was far more exotic to readers of the day than it might be to us. Personally, I enjoyed very much that Bond was driving his own personal car, a supercharged Bentley...there's something in this for all the boys.
And a boys book it is - guns, fighting, gambling, and beautiful women - in the end Bond doesn't get his girl, but he does eliminate the bad guy. And it's interesting to note that the bad guy doesn't own the world or have an army of henchmen or scientists, but is merely a Soviet agent gone rogue.
I enjoyed this book: it's not as badly written as some in the genre, but it is certainly not the best genre novel I've read. I'm not sure if I'll read another, but as my annual beach holiday beckons, just maybe I might grab another to keep me company on the sand.
Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell
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