What's surprising is that this couldn't be further from the truth. As a consequence, we're left with the impression that Bond will henceforth be unfeeling, uncaring: a hater of women, even. And it's the revelation of that treachery and the letter that Vesper writes to him that drives Bond to tears and causes him to utter that last line. In Casino Royale he falls hard for Vesper he finds in her something which has eluded him in previous relationships, to the extent that he's on the verge of proposing to her before her treachery is finally revealed. Thing is, the Bond of these early books really isn't the unfeeling shagger of the movies. On top of that, Bond is really only reflecting the attitudes of his creator, Ian Fleming (which is why he's also such a snob for the more luxurious things in life): Fleming, at least in the early books, tends to write women as fairly simpering sorts (the Vesper of the Casino Royale novel isn't nearly so sassy as the Vesper of the 2006 movie). But it's worth remembering that these novels – at least the ones I'm considering – were written in the early- to mid-1950s, when chauvinism wasn't exactly out of the ordinary. Now, I don't want to be too much of an apologist here Bond's attitude towards women is frequently chauvinistic. At this juncture Bond is also seething over the fact that his cover's been blown and the Russians are on to him, and so his anger also gets directed at Vesper, who he thinks he'll have to protect. Yes, at this point in the very first novel, Bond has little regard for women, considering them essentially as little more than recreation. But the key phrase here is, 'before he's met her'. Much earlier, before he's even met her, he broods on how, having been told by Mathis he'll have a female number two on the mission to bankrupt Le Chiffre, he thinks she'll get in the way, closing out chapter four with a couple of hearty exclamations of 'bitch' to the four walls of his hotel room. What's worse is that this isn't the first time Bond refers to Vesper as a bitch in the book.

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