Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
My Rating: 3/5
Sometimes it happens that the most anticipated books that I presume I am going to love do not work, at least not the way that I expected them to work in the first place. This was the first addition to that list in recent times. I am totally heartbroken by the way this book hasn’t worked for me at all, still, I cannot go below rating it a generous 3/5 for loving the James Bond character since I was first introduced to him by my dad, who too was a big fan of the man. I said that because after Sean Connery stopped playing the character in the movies, my dad just couldn’t like Pierce Brosnan, and for much of his annoyance, he actually hated Daniel Craig in the character. I loved Brosnan more than Craig, but even I feel that Sean Connery was the best Bond ever. Now this is the first book which started it all for us and in style but now that I read it for the first time, it turns out to be a very simple story of a spy at her Majesty's service who is more human than his screen counterpart who is a super human with his gadgets, money, suave and some amazing hot women to seduce. James Bond, code 007, gets an assignment to visit France and beat a Russian spy in a poker game with stakes as high as 40 million pounds, in the year 1953. The same money was supposed to fund a terrorist attack. Bond, being Bond, is paired with an intelligent and beautiful MI6 agent who has a dark secret. Now the book should have been a high-octane Poker game, Car chases and explosive actions, but I guess it hasn’t aged well since its been 70 odd years ago that it was written. I believe it was hard for me to accept James Bond as a human character who commits mistakes and even falls for someone that early, which didn’t work in its favour, but undoubtedly I enjoyed the story to an extent. Ian Fleming served in British Naval Intelligence during WWII. His experiences from his wartime services and later on in his career as a journalist, along with his wild imagination, created the much-loved character. We eagerly look forward to one more outing, which I believe is to come in the year 2026 on the big screen.
I am definitely going to get at least two more from him before giving up if in case they too do not work for me. Do let me know if you have read this one or any other from the original creator, or if you have a favourite from him. I would love to give it a try myself.
