“The directors hoped that he would be playing again that evening. Ruthlessly so.Ĭasino Royale has very little dialogue and Fleming will often just detail what was discussed between characters rather make the reader privy to the conversation itself. That’s the word I would use to describe both Bond as an agent and Fleming as a writer: Efficient.

Using such documents is an efficient way to insert exposition which otherwise could easily clog chapter-after-chapter at the front end of the book. M notices this and calls out the writer in a funny moment, “What the hell does this word mean?” Fleming recognises that the realistic world he wants to convey, and the fact that he’s writing a novel that has to hit several entertaining and pulpy fictional notes, can often be in conflict and so balances them here with an almost meta joke, which was most unexpected. Therefore, the memorandum is oddly spicily written for an internal document from the stuffy rooms of the Intelligence Service. We the reader receive the information on Le Chiffre and the plan to stop him the same way the characters do: official documents and memorandums, Casino Royale becoming an epistolary novel for a few pages.įleming is clearly fully aware that this is an easy way to include exposition and create a sense of realism, but is also more than a little stale. His mission is to bankrupt the SMERSH paymaster Le Chiffre in a game of Chemin de far, which would result in the villain being targeted by his own people after he used their money for poor investments. We soon flashback to M giving Bond the assignment that leads him to the titular casino. A world the writer knew well considering his own experiences as an intelligence officer. In fact, the opening chapter and our introduction to Bond is all about how incredibly tired he is as he retreats to his hotel room to sleep.įleming’s Bond and the world he inhabits is one of bureaucracy. He’s thinking about how draining the atmosphere of such a place is. Yet not in a charming, suave manner, delighting in vices. Despite in medias res, the book doesn’t open with a gunfight or car chase but instead with Bond walking through a casino. Yet I have never read an Ian Fleming James Bond book until now, finally deciding to go to the source now that we’re in a lengthy break between films. The action the gadgets the maniacal villains the whole formula. I’ve loved the Bond films for as long as I can remember. Ian Fleming uses the technique in Casino Royale – the first James Bond novel – but launches the reader into anything but furor. ‘In medias res’ openings are often used to bypass exposition and skip straight to the action, picking up the narrative already in motion and within a flurry of excitement.

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