007

I love the James Bond movies. I've seen every single one of them. Most of them I've seen twice. Some even more than that. When I lived in Germantown my roommates and I even watched all the movies in order. All four of us worked at Blockbuster so it was easy enough to get our hands on all the movies. When Goldeneye for the N64 game out, I quickly became a master. I don't say that to boost my own ego, but when you play against people, and you're the one playing upside down, and drunk, and still winning the majority of the time. Well, I think I may have spent too much time playing that game. Anyway...

Up until now I've never read one of the Ian Fleming novels. I've already read most of the books that I own a couple of times, so awhile back I was at Barnes & Noble and decided to pick up one of the books. They happened to have several, and after looking through a couple I found Casino Royale. I found out that this was the first Bond book, and I knew that it was being made into a movie that would come out this summer, so that's the one I bought. Its very different reading through the thoughts of a character that you've seen on screen a hundred times. But that wasn't the most interesting thing. There is a line that I thought still held some truth today. Just remember that this was first published in 1953. Here's the quote:

'Of course,' he added, as Mathis started to expostulate, 'patriotism comes along and makes it seem fairly all right, but this country-right-or-wrong business is getting a little out-of-date. Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I'd been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communisn and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villians keep on changing parts.' (p. 135)

Fleming, I. (2002). Casino Royale (Penguin Books). New York: New York. (Original work published 1953)