Sunday, September 23, 2007

Casino Royale - Ian Flemming


Having found the film particularly bad I wonddered whether Ian Flemming could really have done such a bad job with his first Bond story. So I decided it was time to read my first Bond and see for myself. Now, you have to allow for the fact that I am in the mood for devouring books, having not read a lot recently. Even so, considering all the family things I should be doing, just over 24 hours to read it all would indicate that I had problems putting it down.

Unlike the film there was a good plot-line to the book. The characters draw you in and the atmosphere is palpable. Bond here really doesn't survive by using gadgets, he survives through a mix of some skill and some luck. He only has his wits to pit against the enemy. But the thing is, in the film there was no need to have the poisoning scene, had they stuck to the book it would have been all the more believable.

Politically not correct, it is obviously written in a different age. Bond is cold, he isn't a typical hero, but he is also a marked chauvanist. He admires women as things of beauty, things that can get the heart pumping, but does not respect them and certainly does not understand them. Interestingly he himself does not see his status as one to look up to, "to become a 00 is easy, it simply indicates you can kill in cold blood". And at the end he shows how capable he is of being cold.

Summary - bad film, great book.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Maybe I won't read it then...