"Casino Royale" Book Review

Well, I've finished "Casino Royale," the first of Ian Fleming's Bond novels.  It didn't take me very long to read it, really.  I appreciated that, since I often seem to gravitate to books that end up being long, and I'm not the world's fastest reader.  If the Bond novels tend to be on the shorter side as a rule, that'll be a plus!

My initial impression of "Casino Royale" is that it's very good.  There are aspects of it that are very strong, and the final third or so of the book verges on greatness.  But I'm not sure that overall it felt as seamless as it could have, or that Fleming communicates all the ideas he wants to convey as clearly as he intends.  It felt like I was reading a debut novel.  I don't mean that as too much of a criticism.  Fleming's natural talent for writing is clearly on display, but it seemed he wasn't yet in full command of his storytelling powers.  Still, for a first novel, it's pretty impressive.  I could even sense ambition in parts of the book, particularly in Fleming's efforts to create some complexity in his characterizations.

Regarding Fleming's writing style, on the plus side it felt lean and clear.  The tone also felt even throughout.  Fleming seems to be adept with language, and there is a certain precision to his word choices and descriptions that I admired.  On the negative end, the writing often comes across as bland.  Occasionally a sentence might contain a nice turn of phrase, but mostly the prose is straightforward and lacking much in the way of feeling.  There are some spots where Fleming gets a bit more reflective and philosophical, and I like those passages a lot.  

Most of the character work in the book impressed me.  Fleming seems to have a knack for writing believable and fairly engaging dialogue, and he did a good job conveying Bond's thoughts and internal experiences.

I was less enamored with the novel's plot, which didn't grab me right away.  To be honest, I wasn't very involved in the story at all until probably a third of the way through.  And even when I started to get more involved, it wasn't until the torture scene that the book finally became compelling enough to not want to put down.  From that point on, I basically loved the rest of the novel. 

I liked the book well enough, but a certain mild feeling of disappointment did color my reading experience.  The reason for this is because, more or less the whole time, I couldn't help but mentally compare what I was reading to the 2006 film adaptation.  It's hard to say how I'd have felt about the book without already being familiar with the movie.  To be honest, I think the film version is so much richer and more involving than the novel it's kind of astonishing.  The suspense, action, and even the romance all work substantially better in the movie.  This is definitely a case of a film being a significant improvement over its source material.



Still, that's not to say that the elements don't work fairly well in the novel.  They do.  It's all mostly persuasive, even if it doesn't have as much depth as I hoped for.  Perhaps my biggest wish for the novel is that Fleming would have devoted more focus to the relationship stuff.  It might have given the ending more of a punch. (This is where having seen the movie first poses a particular challenge.  Would the ending of the novel been more impactful had I not known what was going to happen?  I suppose it would have.) Fleming seems very interested in a variety of elements in the setting, background, and general plot, and so his focus is broad, and he spends a good amount of time exploring and explaining things that are less gripping to me than the action and romance.  For example, there were stretches of writing related to the story's gambling component that I struggled with.  I could sense that Fleming himself was fascinated by this, and enjoyed elaborating on it, but I'm not sure he did a great job persuading his audience to join in on whatever fun he was having.   

Regarding the character of Bond, I have read that Fleming wanted him to seem bland and uninteresting.  I don't know much about his reasoning for this; perhaps I'll try to research that more.  Regardless, if that was Fleming's intention, then he succeeded, because Bond is not a particularly intriguing or appealing character in this book.  Certainly he lacks the charm and likeability we've come to associate with him through the film series.  I will be very interested to see how Bond evolves over future novels.  Will there be, for example, more fun and humor in other books as the series progresses?  I wonder.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had been told that the Fleming novels are fairly serious and realistic.  I was happy to discover that "Casino Royale" felt that way to me.  Like I've said, I generally prefer my Bond to be dark, tough, and serious.  If those traits continue to be a hallmark of the Fleming novels, I'll be a happy fan indeed.

A Bit of History and Other Random Thoughts to Start With...

I wish I could recall when I first encountered James Bond.  I'm not sure what the first film I saw was. The most likely scenario is that I probably ended up watching parts of one with my father when it aired on TV.  I discovered a variety of movies that way growing up, lounging around on lazy weekend afternoons, watching whatever happened to come on.  What I do know is that by middle school age, I was pretty obsessed.  I have memories of watching the movies A LOT during the period of my adolescence and early teenage years.  Once I realized I liked them, my habit was to record them whenever they played on TV, and I can tell you, I wore those VHS tapes out!

One of my fondest and clearest memories is from when I was about to enter eighth grade.  One of the Roger Moore films was on TV the night before the first day of school.  I was allowed to watch about the first half hour or so before going to bed.  The whole next day, I couldn't wait to get home to finish the movie.

The first Bond film I saw was very likely one of Sean Connery's, because he's the actor I initially thought of as the true "James Bond."  I've never been much a fan of Moore's, but I think that has more to do with the films he was in than his performances.  As I mentioned previously, I really liked Timothy Dalton as Bond.  For a time as a teenager, both of his films were among my absolute favorites.  And I still think Licence to Kill is one of the best, most underrated Bond films. 

Initially, I really liked Pierce Brosnan too.  A major milestone, and very happy memory, in my Bond fandom was seeing GoldenEye.  That was the first Bond film I saw in a theater.  I was fourteen at the time (which is a great age for enjoying Bond), and I loved it.

I really enjoyed Brosnan in the role, and I think GoldenEye is the best of the movies he starred in.  I wish Brosnan had been given better movies during his tenure as Bond, as I think his talents were not well served by the generally silly and occasionally preposterous elements of the films he ended up in.  At the time, I could accept him as Bond very easily.  He had the look, for sure, and was a capable enough action hero.

These days, I consider Daniel Craig to be my favorite Bond, and perhaps the "essential" Bond.  Craig possesses just the right mix of intelligence, attitude, toughness, charm, and vulnerability to be totally convincing.  The films of his era do more to convey Bond's human-ness than pretty much any other Bond films have, but a big part of that is due to how Craig plays him.  I buy him as Bond, completely.  I will be sad to see him go.

As I mentioned, the Bond films I've always been most drawn to are those darker and more serious in tone.  So when Casino Royale (2006) came out, instantly I was a huge fan.  It is hard to overstate how much that film reinvigorated the Bond franchise.  The movie made it startling clear just how stale the series had become.  It served as a kind of reboot of the series, and on that level it delivered: the movie was fresh, exciting, and didn't follow the predictable formula.  But perhaps what was most surprising, and appealing, was the amount of feeling in it.  The story had real stakes, and I found myself caring in ways I hadn't been accustomed to with the majority of Bond films.  The climax of the movie wasn't just an obligatory action set piece; it was something tragic and genuinely emotional.

I've loved all the Craig era films.  I like them all so much, in fact, that I'm a little surprised when I hear Bond fans criticizing them.  The filmmaking in the Craig era has been of an uncharacteristically high order.  The acting and production values are excellent; certainly among the best the Bond series has ever showcased.  Recently, I've discovered that lots of fans apparently do not like Spectre, but I like even that one quite a bit.  The personal connection between Bond and Blofeld, and the fact that the filmmakers try to tie all of the Craig films together, seemed to rub a lot of fans the wrong way.  Me?  I can acknowledge that the "brothers" connection was unnecessary, and perhaps even (as some protest) a slap in the face to the preceding films and to Ian Fleming especially.  But...I kind of like that they tried to invest the series with a deeper sense of meaning and pathos.  Whatever missteps story-wise the Craig era films have made are far outweighed for me by what those films do well. 

It's really cool to think that I've been a fan of Bond for something like 30 years.  Even cooler, perhaps, is the fact that Bond is still as fresh and relevant today as he ever was.  It's truly amazing to think that the series hasn't died off after all these years.  Over the course of five-plus decades, the Bond film series has been mostly good, occasionally great, and sometimes pretty bad, but somehow the producers have always done a good job of resetting things when needed in order to keep the franchise alive.  I'm so grateful for that, because it gives me hope that Bond will be around for a long time to come.

Welcome to...my Blog. My James Bond Blog

Hello, fellow Bond fans!

I've been a fan of the world's most famous secret agent for most of my life.  As is probably true for many others, I fell in love with the Bond movies as a kid, and have remained an avid and committed fan to this very day. 

          

Up to now, my exposure to Bond has been limited to the film series.  I knew the movies were based on books, but I never read them.  It's a curious thing, given that I was a big enough James Bond fan that I made a point to watch all of the films growing up.  I guess maybe I just hadn't heard many people talk about the books, and therefore never felt compelled to seek them out.  That's changed, however, in recent years.  Thanks to online articles and James Bond-themed YouTube videos, I've heard more about the books, and been persuaded to believe they might be worth checking out.  My interest in this really became piqued when I learned that some of the Bond films are more faithful and closer in tone to the Fleming novels than others, and the ones I hear mentioned most frequently happen to be among my favorites.


My favorite Bond films are the more serious ones.  When I was younger, I was especially partial to the Timothy Dalton pictures.  And I love On Her Majesty's Secret Service and all the movies in the Daniel Craig series. 


I feel it's time to finally give the Fleming novels a look.

I don't know if I'll read the books in published order, but I am starting with "Casino Royale," the first Fleming book.  As it happens, I started the book a couple of weeks ago and am almost finished, so I  should be posting my thoughts about it soon!

This blog will serve as a place for me to ramble about the experience of reading the novels, as well as post other random thoughts--reflections on the movies, Bond news, stuff like that.

Thanks for checking it out!