A half-century of Bond . . . James Bond

How time flies when we're having fun: James Bond is 50. He first saw the light of day on April 13, 1953, when "Casino Royale," the first "Bond book," was published in England.

Bond's prenatal history is intriguing. He was conceived, apparently, around the middle of January 1952 at Goldeneye, the Jamaican retreat of his creator, Ian Fleming. The gestation was amazingly short -- Fleming completed the manuscript in eight weeks, or maybe as few as four -- though the delivery was long, more than a year later and thousands of miles away. Fittingly heroic obstetrics for one of the most durable heroes of our time.

Like all proud papas, Fleming had high hopes for his offspring, and helped make its way into the world by getting involved in all aspects of its publication and promotion, including lining up potentially helpful reviewers. But he never foresaw the immense worldwide phenomenon it would become -- especially after 1961, when President Kennedy said he liked the books -- or would remain for more than 40 years.

Many Bond book fans consider "Casino Royale" to be the best Bond novel, just as Bond movie fans consider "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969) to be the best film version. (The book "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was published in 1963, the 11th in the series of 14.)

Interestingly, "Casino Royale" is the only Bond novel that has never been "properly" filmed, if such a term can be attached to the usual process by which Hollywood makes hash of literary properties. It was filmed in 1967 as a comedy spoof starring David Niven, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and a host of others, and bears even less resemblance to the printed original than do the other Bond movies.

Actually, "Casino Royale" provided the first non-print appearance of Bond 13 years before that, on Oct. 21, 1954, in a live, hourlong TV adaptation on CBS's "Climax!" starring Barry Nelson and Peter Lorre. Naturally, liberties were taken here, too -- Bond was transformed into an American agent, and Felix Leiter, his American CIA comrade in the book, became British.

On one thing all fans would agree: The Bond that sprang from Fleming's typewriter in the early 1950s was not the one that leaped onto the silver screen in the early 1960s. Here, Bond is not the charming, witty sophisticate that several actors, from Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan, have made him. "Casino Royale" is noticeably lacking in humor, and Bond is equally noticeably cold and ruthless, yet at the same time a romantic susceptible to love's pangs. In fact, the novel is as much a love story -- with a sad ending -- as an espionage thriller.

Fleming said he saw Bond as being in the tradition of such "romantic tough guys" as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. Fleming particularly admired Raymond Chandler, and Chandler returned the favor.

This is not your stereotypical spy tale of furtive meetings in dark alleys and intrigue in high places, though there is some of that. Basically, the novel revolves around a high-stakes, high- tension baccarat game in a French casino between Bond and an enemy agent known only as Le Chiffre (The Cipher), who works for SMERSH, the Soviet anti-spy agency.

Le Chiffre is gambling in a desperate attempt to make money to repay debts he owes SMERSH. The British secret service, using its best gambler, Bond, hopes to out-gamble Le Chiffre, and thus destroy him in the eyes of his employer.

Bond wins, and along the way takes up with a beautiful woman named Vesper Lynd. He is then captured and tortured by Le Chiffre, but eventually gets free, albeit severely injured. Bond fears the torture may have left him impotent, "and a scar had been left on his mind that could only be healed by experience." He need not have feared; Vesper was happy to provide that healing experience.

The rest should remain unexplained, so as not to spoil the ending for those who haven't read the book. Suffice it to say that all of this peaks early, and the remaining 50 pages, in which Bond has a torrid affair with Vesper, begin to seem anticlimactic -- until a shocking final twist.

"Casino Royale" is quite a well-made book, though its English is not always the king's. "As a woman, he wanted to sleep with her," Fleming writes, dangling a modifier. And, " 'Shtop,' had said the voice, quietly," which a backward manner of writing is.

Like the others, the book reflects the time in which it was written, just as the movies did that were made from them in a different time. There is, of course, the sexist attitude toward women, a complaint that has been made against what we might call the whole "Bond industry." "Women were for recreation," Bond thinks, when he is told he must work with Vesper. "On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around."

Similar complaints have been made about representations of violence and snobbery, the first of which is in considerable evidence here, the second less so than in later books. It also reflects the moral ambiguity of the postwar world, exemplified by traitors like Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.

In the concluding section, beset by his own moral confusion, Bond questions his job and the nature of evil and decides to resign. At the end, though, he realizes how sophistic his reasoning has been. He determines to "take on SMERSH and hunt it down." Which he has done -- to SMERSH and its successors -- in 13 further Fleming books, and in several by other writers who joined the franchise, as well as 22 movies. And counting.

Roger K. Miller, a newspaperman for many years, is a free-lance writer and reviewer for several publications, is a frequent contributor to the Deseret News.

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