I’ve not read a lot of thrillers over the years, but I really enjoy the thriller movie. You don’t expect a lot of plot consistency, but there are usually lots of guns, explosions, kick-ass fights, and eye candy galore. I figured I would get all of that in The Bourne Identity, minus the obvious visual aspect of the eye candy. I was right.
A man wakes up under a doctor’s care in a small fishing village on the Mediterranean coast. He has no memory of who he is, but there are a couple of clues. One of which is a microfilm embedded in his skin with a Swiss bank account number. It’s also quickly apparent that he has skills normal people don’t have. The bank account belongs to a man named Jason Bourne, an identity the amnesiac quickly assumes and believes to be himself despite his memory loss. Using only seemingly innate bullshitting skills and brief flashes of remembered scenes he cleans out the bank account and runs when gunman begin shooting at him before he leaves the moneyed institution. From that point the chase is on. He has to figure out who Jason Bourne is, why these people are after him, and what kind of man instinctively knows how to handle himself in an unexpected gunfight.
The amnesia device let’s Ludlum withhold lots of information from the reader. So there’s lots and lots of tension. I’ve seen the movie already though I can’t recall most of it. One thing I seem to recall though was the movie version of Jason Bourne was a lot more sure of himself than the book version. The original is a complete bad-ass, but he’s mentally conflicted. No memory means he doesn’t understand the right thing to do most of the time. Whenever he stops to think about something he tends to tie himself up in knots. When he acts without thinking he knows what to do.
I do wish the book were a bit shorter. I expected plot holes, but at 535 pages there’s a lot of room for them to develop. In addition, a lot of scenes seem repetitive, particularly Bourne’s conversations with the Marie St. Jacques, a hostage turned love interest. Over and over Jason Bourne tells Marie he can’t involve her and she has to go back to Canada, and over and over she tells him she believes in him more than he believes in himself. The scene takes place a little too often for my taste.
I don’t read enough sex scenes written by female authors, so I don’t know if what I suspect is true. I notice quite often than male authors write magic communication
sex scenes. This is where there’s all sorts of supposed unsaid longing between the man and the woman. Then suddenly without prior discussion the woman will start removing clothing and semi-seduce the man. Occasionally the man takes the lead, but the same lack of communication prevails. The actors never risk rejection by vocalizing their attraction. I suppose they risk more by just stripping, but there’s never any doubt of rejection. In my own not so extensive experience, neither I nor my partners have ever initiated first contact without any discussion whatsoever. There’s always some sort of Hey, I kind of like you
said first. (I’m talking about the first consummation in the relationship here.) I suspect there’s some sort of male fantasy behind this scene appearing so often, and it’s related to fear of rejection that I think a lot of men, even the suave confident ones, have.
Title: The Bourne identity
Author: Robert Ludlum
Series: Jason Bourne; 1
Imprint / publisher: Bantam Books / Random House
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 535 p.
Publication date: September 207 (originally March 1980)
ISBN-10: 0-553-26011-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-553-26011-3
Subject: Carlos, the Jackal — Fiction
Subject: United States. Central Intelligence Agency — Fiction
Subject: Bourne, Jason (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Terrorists — Fiction
LC classification: PS3562.U26
