A review by zeph64
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

1.5

It is difficult to know how to rate this book. It is a fascinating read. The misogynistic, nationalist, reprehensible views of the author shine through on every page. As entertainment, it is lacking in both message and technique. It is unbelievably boring for an action novel; Bond had two action sequences in the entire book and each of them are very brief. He personally accomplishes nothing besides

not giving up state secrets under torture

, and he doesn't even

escape the torture himself, instead being saved by a plot contrivance when a random other guy shows up and shoots his torturer.

The long sequence at the end of

Bond discovering that Vesper is a double agent at a snail's pace

dragged out for chapter after chapter and felt tacked-on, obvious, and extraneous to the plot.

As a commentary on the culture of heterosexual masculinity in the 1950s, Casino Royale is unbelievably riveting. Bond's misogyny poignantly prevent him from making real human connections with women (or anyone else) throughout the novel. Fleming's shockingly sensuous, lovingly rendered descriptions of

Bond's sweaty, writhing, energetic reaction to having his cock and balls whipped by another man

or the

tension of an agent wedging a gun into the cleft between Bond's buttocks

contrast starkly with his awkward, taciturn comments on Vesper's "protuberances" and reveal a deep, powerful river of deeply kinky homosexual desire, barely repressed under a paper-thin veneer of hardly-believable heterosexuality. With subtle changes, this book could be a sharp cultural commentary and a fantastic satire of its own genre. However, knowing that it was written in apparent sincerity by Fleming, it left an extremely bad taste in my mouth as it is difficult to read it without thinking about how the women in Fleming's life must have suffered or, at best, been overlooked.