Casino royale (novel)

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Casino Royale
Original title Casino Royale
German title Casino Royale
author Ian Fleming
translation to German Günter Eichel (1961), Stephanie Pannen and Anika Klüver (2012)
Subsequent novel Live and Let Die
protagonist James Bond

Casino Royale is the first book in the James Bond series by British author Ian Fleming . The novel was published in 1953 and is set in 1951.

action

The Soviet agent Le Chiffre is in mortal danger: he has lost an immense amount of money, which he received from SMERSCH , the forerunner of the KGB, to infiltrate French unions, through a failed underworld deal. In the casino in Royale-les-Eaux, he tries to win back the missing amount. James Bond is given the task of playing against Le Chiffre and thus putting him in the cold.

He is supported by Vesper Lynd, an attractive French agent from MI6, with whom Bond begins to flirt. With the financial support of CIA agents Felix Leiter and René Mathis from the Deuxième Bureau , Bond succeeds in ruining Le Chiffre financially in a risky baccarat game. Vesper is then kidnapped by Le Chiffre in front of Bond. Bond loses control of his car in the breakneck chase. Le Chiffre can easily drag the unconscious Bond to his villa.

There, Le Chiffre tries to use torture to force the money out of Bond. After hours of torture, Bond is exhausted and threatened with castration when a SMERSCH agent shows up. He is assigned to execute Le Chiffre for his money embezzlement, but leaves Bond alive as his assignment does not include eliminating enemy agents. However, he scratches the Cyrillic letter "Ш" (шпион, shpion, spy) on the back of Bond's hand with a knife . Bond should remain marked as a spy. As a result, Bond has had traces of a skin transplant on his hand since that incident. A short time later, Bond and Lynd are found by Mathis, and Bond remains under medical supervision for recovery. Here the reader learns about Bond's previous cases and the doubts he now has about his work. He intends to quit the service.

Afterwards, Bond recovers from torture with Vesper in a remote beach hotel. Die-hard bachelor Bond wants to propose to her. He is aware that he must quit his service so that they both have a future together and is ready to take this step too. But before he can carry out his plan, Vesper's opaque behavior upsets their relationship. A hotel guest appears to her as a man who had followed them before, and Bond notices that she was on the phone behind his back, but denies it. After an apparent reconciliation, Vesper suddenly commits suicide. From her farewell letter it emerges that she was commissioned as a double agent of the MWD to let Bond's plan fail. The entire kidnapping scene was staged, but since she fell in love with Bond, the torture that followed led her to give up her assignment. This made it a target for Soviet agents. Bitter Bond turns back to his work.

The plot of the novel takes place in the fictional location "Royale-les-Eaux", which Fleming localizes in Normandy . In parts of the novel In the Service of Her Majesty (James Bond) , "Royale-les-Eaux" is the setting for the action. The films based on these novels, however, use different locations: In James Bond 007 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service , the casino scenes are set in Portugal, while the casino in James Bond 007 - Casino Royale is located in Montenegro .

German version

The book was translated and published by Günther Eichel at Ullstein Taschenbuchverlag in 1960 . At the time, however, it was common practice to shorten the story so that it could be offered as a paperback at the then price of DM 2.20. Incidentally, anti-German passages were also removed and something incomprehensible for the time was bypassed. Critics also noted that much had been translated incorrectly. After three James Bond volumes at Ullstein, the rights went to Scherz Verlag .

In September 2012, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, Casino Royale was published by Cross Cult Verlag in a new translation by Stephanie Pannen and Anika Klüver . For the first time, the novel is available in Germany in an unabridged translation and with the original chapter sections and headings. In addition, all of Fleming's other Bond novels were re-published.

Film adaptations

Overview

Differences from the novel

At the end of the book it becomes clear that the bond on the canvas differs from Fleming's bond. The bond of the novels is much more sensitive and in Casino Royale even thinks about why he is actually on the right side and why the opponent should automatically be part of the wrong side. Even if the first film adaptations tried to stay close to the books, differences can be seen from the start. So the bond of the books gets by almost entirely without the gimmicks of Q. Even if Bond receives these gimmicks , it's never been exploding pens, armed cars, or watches with built-in lasers. At least in the first volume, there is no megalomaniac villain from whom Bond has to save the world, which is threatened by stolen nuclear warheads, for example.

The world that Ian Fleming draws is, by and large, more realistic than the world of Bond films, apart from a few exotic gadgets like giant octopuses. In the books it becomes clear that the tasks of an agent are brutal, exhausting and psychologically stressful. This job is also fun for Bond, but it doesn't leave him indifferent. The remake of 2006 tries to take all of this into account, and in this respect brings the film Bond closer to the literary model.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Conclusion by reference in the novel Goldfinger : When Bond meets in Miami with Mr. Du Pont - the person sitting next to him at the Royale Baccarat table - he dates the previous meeting to the year 1951.
  2. ↑ Publishing information about the new translation