>‘An attempt might be made to put him away before he had a chance to pit himself against Le Chiffre at the tables. The Russians had no stupid prejudices about murder. And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. Women were for recreation. 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. One had to look out for them and take care of them.
‘Bitch’, said Bond, and then remembering the Muntzes, he said ‘bitch’ again more loudly and walked out of the room’
Ha, what a good read. Goes down easy too
This is the only Bond book I've read and I remember that I came away from it with the feeling that one doesn't want to be this Bond, his life kinda sucks, quite different from most of the movies.
I’ve heard Connery really brought the psychopathic badass nature to Bond, which is why I went and read this book. So far I agree, a lot of time is spent showing how the guy’s an alcoholic and pounds cigarettes until he gets sick and tired. Interesting character
Wait until you read Moonraker which reveals Bond only has a “cool” mission like once every two years. The rest of the time he can’t use the agency’s checkbook and has to eat as the cafeteria and listen to lectures about how to spot homosexuals. Meanwhile his gf has recently left him for a U.S. Marine and the girl he saves in the book ends up revealing a bf at the end and friendzoning Bond
I heard that one was the least popular and he didn’t even go to the moon!
He doesn’t even leave England. The book shows basically his life when he isn’t on a rare mission but some event still happens where a nuclear warhead gets launched by a madman but Bond diverts it so it just kills a few hundred Frenchmen which I guess some people found offensive. I actually liked it because it had a card scene for a big part of the action like Casino Royale except here it is bridge instead of Baccarat
>For England, James?
>No, for langostine and fine hotels
It really does change the character, doesn’t it
that does sound interesting, albeit a little boring. I always thought it was a bit unrealistic how Bond is proficient in so many foreign languages but we never actually see him studying any languages to retain his vocabulary.
He's honestly right and I say this as someone who DOESN'T hate women. I like women plenty, in many circumstances I do not mind their company. But in a job like Bond's, and in a lot of professions where you need high-tension competence with few distractions, it is bad to have them around.
We used to understand that in the West, I don't know what happened. Like somehow the whole women's rights thing was simultaneously paired with them trying to force us to forget that men are men, and men are how they are.
>He had imagined many hurdles before establishing a rapport, but now he felt he could get straight down to progressional details. He was quite honest to himself about the hypocrisy of his attitude towards her.
And he gets the big picture too, nice
How the frick are you supposed to bet on Baccarat? It seems like betting on a coin toss. Is there literally any strategy to it at all?
According to the book, just by playing a positive progressive game and believing M when he says you can win on purpose, lol. Man, Bond makes $200k francs on roulette on purpose just to introduce him, strange
I've always liked that it's basically explicit that Bond funds his expensive tastes with gambling. I think they state it outright in the books, and in the films it's pretty strongly hinted at.
Fleming spends a good page explaining ‘there is no way for someone to make this kind of money besides gambling’, not sure how true that is but I’ll take it
with a mountain of luck, and some skill, you get higher odds.
Baccarat is kind of a coin toss, same as trente et quarante. It's closer to twenty-one than anything, though.
Roulette, if not meddled with, can be studied to see in which general "area" the ball will land. Casinos nowadays changed that to make it truly random.
The only definite way of getting money gambling is with games that go farther in skill, against chance.
Those are usually just managed by the house, like poker, where they take a cut.
Basically minimizing the factor chance plays, and maximizing where skill can be applied.
If it isn't explicit, i'd say Bond made most of that on stuff like Poker.
Lastly, go read Dostoevsky's 'The Gambler', it's
great.
I was actually pretty impressed by Fleming’s lengthy explanation of how to actually play 1940’s Baccarat and Roulette to win, it convinced me
A 40s genuine roulette has awful odds, but still can be made a bit better.
Baccarat has a 1% house edge.
How did he explain them?
The book is 200 pages and I’m only at page 76, id you’re curious you should read it, I couldn’t possibly explain it in less words than him.
ah, fun.
My favorite for that sort of stuff is Forsyth; the method for getting a fake passport he details in Day of the Jackal was actually proper, and the govt. had to fix it.
researching for Dogs of War he nearly got involved in a plan to overthrow the government of Ecuador.
Fleming doesn’t go into extreeeeeme detail but I enjoy how the content of these books is actually realistic explanations of clandestine operations. Within the first few chapters you get a compelling explanation of how James Bond can launder his location from France to Jamaica using a paid telegram patsy
I think le carre is the best at this kind of stuff
Le Carre carefully avoided blowing any operational secrets in his books. But he still had trouble gaining permission from his superiors to publish them. As he said himself, "the problem was not that they were accurate, but that they were plausible."
Ian Fleming publications are removing these "problematic passages" from future editions.
oh so just like they made up the other ten thousand years of history then, quite right
My copy says it was already edited and I bought it today ;_; I wonder what I’ve missed
just some hilariously true passages about women behind the wheel.
Holy frick he's completely right about multiple women in a car, I've never felt more unsafe on the road.
I thought you were joking.
I fricking hate how certain people are defacing books and art, simply because blue hairs get triggered by them. At least the originals will remain, so when humanity gets some sense again all can be restored.
i have it next on my tbr. will get to it in about 5 days.