Book Review: ‘Casino Royale’

Summary

'Casino Royale' is written by Ian Fleming. The novel is set during the cCold wWar. James Bond has to defeat a Russian agent, known as Le Chiffre, in a poker game. Bond is accompanied withby a beautiful lady, named Vesper Lynd. Eventually, Bond wins the poker game called 'baccarat'. This puts Le Chiffre in a difficult position because he just lost all his money. However, it’s not his money. The hard cash belongs to his communistic Soviet bosses. As a consequence, the Soviet spy agency SMERSH will do anything to kill him. Le Chiffre has a lot of anger and he wants revenge. He is going to set up Bond, by kidnapping Lynd. Bond pursues her, but he crashes in his expensive Bentley. Bond gets captured, and Le Chiffre tortures him heavily. Will James Bond survive? Is Lynd trustworthy?


Background iInformation

'Casino Royale' is the first-ever book written by Ian Fleming. It was published in 1953 and became a great success. The book has been made into a movie. As a result, the movie iwas nominated 39 times! It’s also the first 007 movie for Daniel Craig.


Opinion

My perspective of the book is that it is very vivacious. Just when you think Bond will die, he eventually wdoesn’t. This is very misleading, but also makes you also more curious. This curiosity makes me want to read the whole book at once.

Secondly, the book is not only about 1one theme, but rather it has multiple themes. I noticed that the book wasn’t only about betrayal and revenge. Themes such as love and honesty are also really important. For example, the relationship between Bond &and Lynd. And the fact that she is keeping a secret. This makes the book appropriate for almost everyone appropriate to read.


Recommendation

I would absolutely recommend this book. Once you harve identified with the main characters the book is quiet easy to read. However, you should read the book first and then watch the movie. I did it the other way around and that made me reading the book very boring. The fact that the book and the movie are almost identical made everything predictable. Besides that, the storyline is really good and just when you thought you’ved collected all the puzzle pieces together, you find out that you missed something out!