Reading List: The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum

Hello readers and welcome back to another installment of the Reading List. As mentioned previously I have tried to work in more BIPOC and female authors on this list, but I also have a pretty big backlog of “old white dudes” sitting on bookshelves around my apartment that I need to read to round out the list. To that end, I decided to read an author I grabbed out of the mystery paperback section of the bookstore I used to work at that I thought (back then) would be a great genre read: Robert Ludlum and his 1980 spy thriller The Bourne Identity.

I won’t delve much into the plot of the novel as many of you have probably seen the 2002 epic film based on this novel. However suffice it to say it does begin with a man dumped overboard from a fishing boat who washes up on an island in the Mediterranean Sea with no memory of who he is or how he got there. The single clue to all of this resides in a strip of film that has been surgically implanted in him and leads to a bank in Zurich, Switzerland. It’s there when he tries to withdraw the money that people start trying to kill him. At this point in the book Bourne runs into the Canadian economist Marie St Jacques, who Bourne takes hostage but eventually treats as an equal in his escape plans (they of course become lovers during the tale). Then clues lead him to divert the money to Paris and to investigate that city as the home base of another killer, “Carlos” whom Bourne discovers is his rival. We also discover throughout the events that Bourne was a trained killer during the Vietnam War and was a man made to disappear. There is more uncovering of plot and motive that leads to a mass killing at the clandestine headquarters that was in control of Bourne up until the events of the novel, and then Bourne travels to New York for a final confrontation with Carlos.

While all of that might seem like a thrilling caper and indeed the novel is full of action beats the entire thing fell flat for me as the writing was about as staid as could be in its description. While I wouldn’t say Ludlum’s writing is as bad as say, The Firm, I still found it to be middling and plodding at best even during the most gripping passages. While I was initially excited to pick up this work at the bookstore, that excitement turned to dread as I had to slog through this book’s over five hundred pages to get to the end. While I don't doubt Ludlum did his research and wanted to portray a major mystery taking place over broad swathes of the European continent leading back to the US, the final result is less than stellar and I’d be hard pressed to recommend this novel to anyone other than adventure seekers who are looking for their next whodunnit to solve.

Thanks for joining me on this reading adventure these last months as we pored over (most of) the remaining old white dudes on the bookshelves of my apartment. From here on out I plan on getting back into reading more contemporary female and BIPOC authors, especially important given all the machinations happening at the federal level right now. Thanks for your patience as this one took me a while to read, and I’ll be back soon with another exciting update of the Reading List!​