Casino Royale is barely more than a novella in truth and seems to act as a planned precursor to greater adventures yet to come, in the same way that the film of Dr No went to great lengths to introduce peripheral characters who were expected to recur in the planned film series. The action opens in medias res and grabs the attention immediately. The writing style is spare and indeed sparse; descriptive without a flourish. The novel moves through a little backstory and then back to the action. The centre-piece of the whole thing is the casino showdown between Bond and Le Chiffre and this is gripping stuff indeed. Sadly, far more so than the dramatic events which follow and seem hugely anti-climactic and ill-conceived.
It is impossible, for me at least, to separate the books from the films and so in my mind's eye I see and hear Sean Connery as I read. But the Bond of this novel has none of Connery's self-assurance or wit (let's not discuss Roger fucking Moore, eh?). Here Bond is driven and dark, then haunted by the events of the book and finally steely and poised. It's not much of a character arc, and what there is of it is unconvincing- romance really isn't Fleming's bag- but that's hardly the point of the novel.
It is a page-turner, it is thrilling in parts, Bond is an engaging anti-hero (his fallibility is of far more interest than efficiency) but his chauvinism is supported and, indeed, reinforced by the author and it grates. In fact the poor section which follows the epic casino battle appears designed to do so. Apparently Fleming wrote this as he planned his own wedding; lucky girl. When Bond thinks aloud "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?" the action plays out in support of this. The girl is the cause of the problem, she does inerfere, is out of her depth and does lead to tragic (though sadly all-too-predictable) consequences. And there's the rub; to lend Bond a humanity and reality, Fleming resorts to flabby cliché. A shame.
I hope that now we've got through the preamble, Fleming can concentrate on what he's good at. When he's good, he's enjoyable and disposable; when he's bad, he's insulting.
