The spy fiction thriller, The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum, takes place in the late 1980s in various parts of Europe and briefly in the United States. The main character, Jason Bourne, is a CIA assassin/black ops officer, who is suffering from severe amnesia. Early in the story, Bourne discovers the information of a bank account in Zurich, a European city, that contains millions of dollars in various currencies as well as multiple passports for him all under different names. Bourne captures Marie St. Jacques, an economist in the Canadian Government who was in Zurich on a business trip, as a hostage so that he wouldn’t look suspicious walking by himself in crowds and they end up falling in love with each other. Bourne quickly finds out that he was deep-cover agent for Treadstone, a top secret government operation. Bourne’s mission was to kill Carlos, the world's most deadly assassin. Carlos’s agents killed almost everyone associated with Treadstone and framed Bourne for it, causing the U.S. …show more content…
Robert Ludlum often had the characters speaking in French which confused me and didn’t allow me to fully understand the story. Like when one of Carlos’ men said “‘You bore me.’ The killer turned to the stocky man. ‘Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!’”(pg.120). When Ludlum switches languages it leaves the reader wondering what was said. One thing that I found interesting in the way that Robert Ludlum wrote The Bourne Identity is the way that Bourne would “know” something without actually knowing what he knew. Like when Bourne thought to himself “And instinct told had evoked the city of Paris. As though it were somehow vital. Why?’(pg.63). Jason knew that the answers to his life would be in Paris but he didn’t know why or how he knew it. I thought it was interesting that Jason knew all these things, but he didn’t really know until his instincts kicked