Just Finished the Novel CASINO ROYALE

For $10 iTunes has an unabridged audiobook version of Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel CASINO ROYALE, and I just finished listening to it.

I listened to it in almost a single sitting (about 5 hours) and I have this to say...

If you saw the new movie and thought that this new take on Bond is surprisingly realistic and hard-hitting compared to the Bond you've grown up with... You may not want to read the original novel.

One scene from the movie that seems to brutal that surely it must have been invented by a contemporary screenwriter is lifted DIRECTLY from the 1953 book! Moreover, it's more brutal in the book!

Also, the film's devistating ending? Easier to take than the novel's ending!

The film stuck very closely to the spirit of the novel... A SUPERB adaptation, actually! Makes JURASSIC PARK's transition from page to screen look clumbsy! (I say this only by way of comparison as I deeply admire and respect screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Spielberg. In fact, I believe Koepp is one of the GREAT unsung screenwriters today! If you doubt me, see THE SECRET WINDOW and STIR OF ECHOES... He adapted and directed both, and they are both GREAT films!)

My dad's attitude toward the Bond films always surprised me as a kid. He enjoyed them, but I got the vibe that he felt the Bond movies were sillier, more frivolous than the novels. As a teen when I started reading the Bond novels for myself, I found Fleming's take very dry and boring. I prefered John gardener's take, which carried the flavor of the movies, but added a hightened sense of realism and believeability, without loosing the action or the "cool". I figured that Dad's preference for the novels was simply a generation gap... He was older, and the Fleming novels spoke to him in a way that I couldn't understand because I wasn't alive at the time they originally came out. (CLEARLY -- to me -- Gardener's take was superior to the creator's take, lol.)

But I had never read CASINO ROYALE. It was the one novel that had not been translated to the screen (other than a TV movie that made Bond an American and was not available to me to watch) and it was also the book that introduced the character to the world. There were several Fleming novles that I started but could not finish -- I remember specifically DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER -- because they just bored me to tears. And I wasn't a Reader to begin with! I was and am a MOVIE guy! I LOVE movies! I love them so much I want to marry them, lol! (I mean that quite practically... I want to make them for the rest of my life. I want to wake up next to Gnomey, enjoy the company of her and our children in the morning, go make movies for 12 hours, come home to Gnomey and the kids, tuck the rugrats into bed and fall asleep with Wendy in my arms, and wake up the next day and do it all over again.) And my attitude toward reading hasn't changed that much... Some authors have engendered my slavish devotion because everything the write holds me in thrall the way no movie or TV show ever will be able to -- such as Crichton, Koontz and Adams (I am forever rereading Douglas Adams' work!) -- and some I trust enough to read IF the premise draws me -- such as King and Higgin Clark -- and most I will only sample grudgingly after someone I trust hounds me relentlessly for a very, very long time. (I FINALLY read THE DA VINCI CODE about a week before the movie came out simply because I wanted to experience the book first, and because I had a strong intuition I would enjoy both (and I did).) So as a teen, as now, I hate to not finish a novel, but if it allows me to put it down I am very unlikely to return to it. And because of my experiences with Fleming's novels I was reluctant to pick up CASINO ROYALE.

Now, I had gained a glimpse of the type of realism and depth Fleming's Bond stories offered from THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, a book of short stories. They were slow, but they were short, so I could wade through them and get a sampling. And I enjoyed the continuity of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. (I wanted to find out what really happened to Bond after he lost his only wife, and the films just didn't even touch on it really.)

But at the age of 36, I just don't think I was ready for Fleming's Bond. The Bond movies are to us what Westerns were to our parents... Safe Good vs. Evil morality tales that don't delve too deeply into the nature of either evil OR good. Bond's enemies might as well have been Storm Troopers: a dime a dozen and created to be disposed of.

Had I read CASINO ROYALE as a teen I would have HATED Fleming! Fleming was writing a literate novel in that he could give his hero great rewards, but only at great expense. Bond isn't some melodramatic Greek god or demigod he's a human being, and Fleming would not give more than he was willing to take away.

It's a tough read.

Made even more tough by the romance, which I will not describe or spoil, but which hit me where I live. The language he used, in particular, made me think of Wendy and the way we talk to each other and feel about each other, and made the ending all the more tragic.

If you've seen the film, you have some preparation for the brutality of Fleming's novel... But maybe not as much as you think. If you feel like you have truly known love, this book will hurt you. Badly.

Which is it's genius. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to shine a negative light on the book. If anything I feel MY medium has, until now, diluted and failed Fleming's source material! Like Edgar Rice Burroughs before him, Fleming was trying to convey a thoughtful analysis of what it is to be human, and the movies took a dynamic character and stripped him of his "importance", replacing morality and philosopy with action and spectacle.

Reading CASINO ROYALE finally, after having seen how faithfully the movie has preserved the spirit of Fleming's original work, makes me excited to see the next Bond flick! If Hollywood can control itself and continue to stay faithful, we're in for some eye-opening -- and ridiculously exciting and provoking -- new Bond films! A franchise that was once a punchline that characterized superficially entertaining storytelling will become the model of how to tell a great story and still be entertaining! (Like the Spider-Man movies, if you think about it for a moment and are honest with yourself.)

Is it just me, or do you too see a very possitive trend in screenwriting lately?

I mean, yeah, you've got PLENTY of your Bret-Ratner type movies out there... There are an EMBARRASSING number of movies that cater to the idiot audiences Hollywood believes we are.

But in the New Mellinium there have arrisen a number of screenwriters and directors who seem to realize that quality counts! Consider the superhero movies of the 1980s & 1990s compared to the superhero movies we have now. The first 4 Batman films started out as pretty good, then good, then degenerated into NOTHING. Then Nolan picked up Batman and finally delivered an experience true to what we perceived when we read the best of the comics. Consider SUPERMANs II-IV:THE QUEST FOR PEACE as compared to SUPERMAN RETURNS.

And look at the original KING KONG, then the 1970s remake, then the current remake!

Actually, the Bond series itself offers a superb illustration! Timothy Dalton was a FANTASTIC Bond, but the filmmakers didn't do him justice! The first script was written for Moore, then sort of (weakly) re-taylored for Dalton, and the second movie was so incredibly poorly directed that the script and Dalton's performance were just straight-up LOST. Then Brosnan comes along and someone, somehow had the brilliance to hire Campbell (a filmmaker who cares as much about what he's shooting (the screenplay) as he does about how he shoots it) and all of a sudden Bond is BACK. But then the very next film -- TOMORROW NEVER DIES -- sees a bit of the old Bond Baggage seep in, and it's somehow not as fulfilling as GOLDENEYE. The THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH comes along and Brosnan might as well be Moore. (No offense to Roger Moore... He's a GREAT comedic actor, but Bond was simply never designed nor intended to be a comedic character.) Luckily for Brosnan and us DIE ANOTHER DAY seems to have been written and directed by people who had read Fleming's original novels and were interested in balancing the cinematic traditons of Bond with the literary traditions.

But NOW...! Daniel craig should experience the most successful run as Bond ever! The filmmakers seem to have finally committed to translating the original work for contemporary audiences!

And it may simply be a matter fo now we're ready for it. In this age of GRAND THEFT AUTO and FEAR FACTOR our toleance for violence must be at an all-tim high. So the only way to shock a contemporary audience with violence is to make it REAL again... show them the damage to our very Humanity that violence inflicts! Not only on the victims, but on the assailant! (Witness THE TEXTAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING.)

Blah.

Okay, I'm going off now, lol.

Let me guess, your eyes have glazed over by now and my words sound like so many clicks and buzzes, lol.

Anyway... CASINO ROYLAE, both the book and the movie, well worth your time and emotional investment... If you're ready for them. ;)