I knew that the James Bond of Ian Fleming’s novels wouldn’t be the James Bond of the films, not even the thuggish Daniel Craig version from the last two installments of the franchise. The spare writing and plotting in Casino Royale are superb. But the Ian Fleming version in Casino Royale under-ceeded anything I thought it might be. I’m coining the word under-ceeded
in case someone else hasn’t already done so. Bond’s characterization is beyond misogynist, and both he and Bond girl
Vesper Lynd, fail to make much sense in relation to each other. I won’t be going out of my way to read any more James Bond novels.
Warning: spoilers ahead!
The setup: a Soviet agent has taken money earmarked for funding a Communist union and it’s associated anti-capitalist activities and invested in a chain of brothels, which more or less immediately went under. To make up this money, this agent Le Chiffre plans to make it all back gambling at the Casino Royale. The British would rather Le Chiffre lose the money and disgrace the union than just simply take him out. That’s Bond’s job: go to Casino Royale and out-gamble the Communist in baccarat.
The book has only three scenes of action: Bond nearly gets assassinated by a bomb, one of Le Chiffre’s henchmen puts a gun to Bond’s back during the baccarat game, and Le Chiffre and Bond have a car chase and subsequent torture session after the gambling. I was expecting a more human kind of James Bond rather than an invincible Bond. The Fleming version doesn’t actually do a lot. The bomb? Bond doesn’t do anything; he survives by luck. The henchman? Bond shoves his own chair backward so that he falls over. The car chase? Drive, catch up, hit spikes, crash. Done.
Frankly, I like this James Bond, so far as the action goes. Simple and effective plotting. I’m sure a movie version of this that was true to the book wouldn’t sell well, but I’d go. I don’t want complicated. Complicated is hard to pull off in real life.
On the other hand, the misogyny exceeded my expectations. I expected a fuck her and leave her James Bond, and early on it looked like that’s what I was going to get. Emotionally distant, using women for sex, that I can understand. Sometimes a person just needs a little sexual release.
But then Bond goes on to not liking women agents at all. They distract him. Rather than seeing that as his own failing, he puts the blame on women. See, it’s their fault his cock stands at attention when he has work to do. Women aren’t any good and should keep their concerns to which frocks they will wear. Ouch. But still not something beyond the pale in a character (in a real person it would be).
Still it got worse. After all the action, the final third of the novel is Bond having a love affair
with Vesper Lynd. The book is mostly done with the spy stuff, and now what’s important is the sex. Lynd, despite being a spy herself, acts like a flighty schoolgirl with a crush. She doesn’t get to be the calm, cool, super-competent Bond girl of the movies. Now it’s all about her crushes on men. Ugh. I had hoped while I read these scenes that Vesper would turn out to be playing Bond. I wouldn’t be so lucky.
So Vesper, though supposedly a spy but lacking any spy skills, has only her body going for her. Bond, schooled in the ability to discard women like Vogue fashions, falls in love in quick order. Why? It’s not even that she really returns his attention. Miss Lynd goes cold in the first few intimate scenes and James doesn’t get what he’s looking for. Every touchy-feely scene proves difficult for the Bond girl and James knows something is wrong.
So what attracts his so-called loved? Is it some sort of possession thing? Some sort of control issue? I don’t know and I don’t know if Fleming knew his own characters enough for it to be intentional. But when I read the following I was pretty disgusted:
He found her companionship easy and unexacting. There was something enigmatic about her which was a constant stimulus. She gave little of her real personality away and he felt that however long they were together there would always be a private room inside her which he could never invade. 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.
That’s the basis of his love? He’s all ready to give up being a spy for that, and when that is taken away from him that’s when he decides to be the scourge of the Soviets? Forgive me for not being interested in reading more about a man who wants to keep the world safe for the domination of women.
I don’t care if standards were different then. What I read now has to live up to my views now, or at least attempt to do so, aside from reading for the purpose of opposition research
. Even by the standards of the 1950s, the segment of people who thought that rape had a sweet tang
can’t have been mainstream. I’m scared to look though, because I don’t really want to know that people really were that ugly then.
Title: Casino Royale
Author: Ian Fleming
Cover creator: Roseanne Serra and Richie Fahey (designers) / Richey Fahey (artist)
Series: James Bond; 1
Imprint / publisher: Penguin
Format: Paperback
Length: 181 p.
Publication date: 2002 (originally 1953)
ISBN-13: 978-0-14-200202-5
Subject: Bond, James (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: British — France — Fiction
Subject: France — Fiction
LC classification: PR6056.
