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CASINO_MUNDANE

                                      September 5, 2005

                                      Reading John Pearson's
While traveling through Lisbon,       "The Life of Ian Fleming" (1966)
Fleming and his boss Admiral          In the Bantam paperback edition
Godfrey visited a casino in the
Estoril hotel.

   They found it to be a gray-walled, melancholy-looking building
   along the estuary of the Tagus, but it holds a special place
   among the many casinos where Ian Fleming chanced his luck
   during his long and cautious career as a gambler.  It was here
   that he played out the scene which was to grow in his
   imagination for eleven years until it formed the plot of his
   first book "Casino Royale".  Fleming himself has described how
   it all happened: how he got the idea of James Bond's baccarat
   battle with Le Chiffre from a game he himself played here in
   deadly earnest against a group of Nazis.  According to this
   account he suddenly got the idea of striking a blow at Germany
   by winning as much money from his opponents as he could, but
   patriotism was not enough, and his gesture ended with a total
   casino victory for the Germans.

   The reality seems to have been rather different.  It was a
   decidedly dismal evening at the casino -- only a handful of
   Portuguese were present, the stakes were low, the croupiers
   were bored.  The Admiral was not impressed.

   Fleming, however, refused to submit to the depressing
   atmosphere.  This was his first visit to a casino since the
   beginning of the war, it was a treat to which he had been
   looking forward. He began to play with the careful
   concentration he always put into gambling, and Admiral Godfrey
   says that he noticed "a strange sort of glazed look" coming
   over his eyes.  The game progressed.  Then Fleming whispered
   to Godfrey, "Just suppose those fellows were German agents --
   what a coup it would be if we cleaned them out entirely!"

   It was not a thought that particularly appealed to the
   Admiral-- he found it impossible to translate those somber
   Portuguese in their dark suits into Nazi agents.  But Fleming
   liked the idea and played a long, unsuccessful game until he
   was completely cleaned out.    -- p. 101


                                       BONDED_TIGHTLY



          _Casino Royale_ is really an experiment 
          in the autobiography of dreams.    -- p. 183
 



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