Matthew Merkovich reviewed The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (Jason Bourne, #1)
Review of 'The Bourne Identity' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I found this book to be a little too dry for my tastes.
Paperback, 576 pages
Published March 22, 2005 by Orion.
4 stars
(111 reviews)
Who is Jason Bourne? Is he an assassin, a terrorist, a thief? Why has he got four million dollars in a Swiss bank account? Why has someone tried to murder him?...
Jason Bourne does not know the answer to any of these questions. Suffering from amnesia, he does not even know that he is Jason Bourne. What manner of man is he? What are his secrets? Who has he killed?
Tom Goetz reviewed The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (Jason Bourne, #1)
Review of 'The Bourne Identity' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Review and dates are for most recent reading.
jellybeyreads reviewed The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (Jason Bourne, #1)
Review of 'The Bourne Identity' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
I tried, I really did; I kept reading even as my impatience for this book increased. I got 3/4 of the way through and I finally couldn't take it anymore (that's saying a lot, given that this book is well over 500 pages). My gripe list:
1. It's so long. For no good reason. The plot isn't that complicated. The characters aren't that interesting. The writing isn't that gripping (original, lyrical, stark, poetic, etc). Nothing justifies the length of this book.
2. Nothing justifies the enduring relationship between Jason Bourne and Marie. Eventually Marie is forced to stick it out with Jason because she's implicated as his partner in crime, but until that point, there's no good reason for her to stay with him: despite their (and the narrator's) frequent assertions that they love each other deeply, there's nothing about their actions or interactions that would suggest they actually care …
I tried, I really did; I kept reading even as my impatience for this book increased. I got 3/4 of the way through and I finally couldn't take it anymore (that's saying a lot, given that this book is well over 500 pages). My gripe list:
1. It's so long. For no good reason. The plot isn't that complicated. The characters aren't that interesting. The writing isn't that gripping (original, lyrical, stark, poetic, etc). Nothing justifies the length of this book.
2. Nothing justifies the enduring relationship between Jason Bourne and Marie. Eventually Marie is forced to stick it out with Jason because she's implicated as his partner in crime, but until that point, there's no good reason for her to stay with him: despite their (and the narrator's) frequent assertions that they love each other deeply, there's nothing about their actions or interactions that would suggest they actually care about each other one way or the other, and there's nothing to suggest that Marie is such a good person that she'd give up her entire life to try to help a dangerous man of questionable origins who violently kidnapped her just because it's "the right thing to do." It's like Stockholm Syndrome, except that Bourne tries to get rid of her! He insists repeatedly that he's dangerous and she should leave him because to stay with him is to ruin her life. Plus, Stockholm Syndrome would require emotional and psychological complexity on the part of Marie, which we know she's lacking (see gripe (3)).
3. In the early stages of the novel, Marie is brutally gang raped. Pretty traumatic, right? Nope. A few pages later she doesn't seem to care, it's not really addressed again, and she easily falls into a (spectacular, apparently) sexual relationship with Bourne. No evidence of trauma! No flashbacks! And it's not like she's so emotionally damaged that she's buried it because she doesn't want to deal with it, or that she has amnesia surrounding the event -- nope, she acknowledges it happened but just doesn't care. She doesn't forget -- the novel forgets, because her brutal gang rape is not an emotionally charged event but rather just a plot device to get Marie and Bourne together again. So that they can have life alteringly spectacular sex and profess to love each other. (See gripe (2)).
3. Dialogue is atrocious. I don't care whether it's so stilted that it's unrealistic. Sometimes I really like stilted dialogue -- if I wanted authentic dialogue, I'd have a conversation with a real person instead of reading a book. Rather, my objection is that conversations can be pages long without any evidence of who said what. Apparently a well-placed "Bourne said" would detract from the flow? Readers can't even assume that the person asking the questions is Bourne -- you know, the guy with amnesia, who you might think would be the one asking questions -- because (a) Bourne has some sort of superhuman ability to accurately guess what other people know and what's going on and (b) there are no stylistic differences between characters' speech. So why bother with dialogue at all? Its sole purpose here is to explicate for the reader. Exactly like explicative narration. The only difference is the presence of quote marks.
4. This book is littered with gems like this one: "The old man nodded the way old men do when repeating words that have stunned them to the point of disbelief." Is this supposed to be something that old men do on a regular basis? Is this a normal reaction we are supposed to recognize as familiar? I am fairly confident it is supposed to sound profound, but it's just profoundly stupid.
5. The action sequences are fairly engaging. Which just makes it sad, really, that there are so few action sequences compared to the fantastically dull explicative non-action sequences.
6. Up until Bourne leaves the alcoholic doctor, this is a tight, interesting little mystery. It really is unfortunate that the rest of it is so... not tight, not interesting, and not mysterious.
Mark Anderson reviewed The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (Jason Bourne, #1)
Review of 'The Bourne Identity' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Fun spy thriller. I did get over the constant use of italics and exclamation points by the end, however. Especially the whole "Cain is for Carlos, and Delta is for Cain!" thing. It was like, alright already, we get it, he's got memories. Tam Quan.
I think this may be the first book of all time where I enjoyed the movie more than the book!
Wolfie reviewed The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (Jason Bourne, #1)
Review of 'The Bourne Identity (Read a Great Movie)' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Engaging and complex mystery, much more layered than the film
Subjects
- Crime & mystery
- Mystery/Suspense