Mi6 Cafe Book Club - Casino Royale (Chp 1 - 13 Discussion)

[mi6-cafe-mod.livejournal.com]

Welcome back to the MI6 Book Club!! Get your drinks, snacks and any notes you have and gather round for its Book Club time!

If you want any resources for the Casino Royale book, please find the link to the resources in the sidebar on the right! Please check the schedule to find out what we're discussing this week!

Book Club is designed to be a place where you can go beyond the Bond movies and delve into another medium with our favourite secret agent. There is no set discussions, if you have anything interesting you want to discuss about your reading experience, comments on the text, or even how reading the book might have changed your view on the characters in the movies then do share!

Some Questions to get us started!

1) What was your favourite scene? Why is this?
2) What have you found interesting about the book so far?

Don't limit yourself to just these questions - this is just to get your started! Post your views, thoughts and opinions on the book so far!

Please note - We will be discussing chapter 1-13 this week, so please keep your points to those chapters! We will be discussing the remainder of the book at the next Book Club!

Happy discussing!

Comments

Re: Castillon (response to isthisrubble's questions)

[(Anonymous)]

:D

Yeah, I suppose Bond was meant to be the expert in the situation--the pro gambler, pro assassin, etc. Actually, as a 00 he might have a higher rank than Leiter, and that does carry a little weight in some situations. Do we ever get more of an idea what Leiter does? Is he some kind of 00 equivalent, or more of a useful field agent type? When I first read the book, I thought Leiter was a little dull (certainly he lacks the French dramedy flair that Mathis has), but I'm now curious about him and his few words, and even more appreciative of fics that include him. Lord knows Bond needs some steady comrades.

It's only as I read Casino Royale that I realize that the station heads would all be in London, yeah--before that I assumed they'd have their boots on the ground, so to speak, coordinating the efforts from the area. But I guess they wouldn't want a station head actually in the vulnerable country. Makes sense, but tbh, that also makes me wonder how much friction there is between the far-off station head and the actual in-country coordinator. There's a lot of opportunity for resentment there if communication isn't good, and these spies of Fleming's naturally aren't known for their A+ open communication skills. (Even Bond talks about those judging--how did he put it-"few cold brains that make the whole show work.") And if the local spymaster is FROM the country being spied on, then there's even more potential for mistrust. Hmmm...all of this paints a picture of how important source reliability and loyalty are.

-Castillon

Re: Castillon (response to isthisrubble's questions)

[isthisrubble.livejournal.com]

I think Felix is supposed to be... actually, I'm not sure - he does field agent stuff, but also intelligence gathering stuff? idk, I'm pretty sure he's not a 00 equivalent, but besides that...

anyway, there's a bit of felix leiter backstory in live and let die!

on the subject of stations - of course the head of the ussr station couldn't be in the ussr - I doubt MI6 could even have anyone official in embassies at that time bc cold war. I think modern mI6 (aka craig!bond universe) might operate a little differently, more likely to have the heads of station actually in the country - take M, running the Hong Kong station, for example - she seems to have been in China at the time

Re: Castillon (response to isthisrubble's questions)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I was wondering about M in Hong Kong--that's a good point. *reminds self* WE HAVE INDEED FAST-FORWARDED DECADES AND OVER TWO DOZEN MOVIES INTO THE FUTURE FROM WHEN CASINO ROYALE WAS FIRST WRITTEN.

Looking forward to the Felix backstory!

-Castillon