Continuing my reread of Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series, I went through The Bourne Supremacy over the course of a weekend. This novel steps away from the question of identity, and instead puts Bourne in the midst of a complex maze of interwoven plots. An imposter has taken the name and reputation of “Jason Bourne”, deadly assassin for hire, and revived it for his own purposes. The assassin who was created to trap Carlos must now return to the land of his birth to trap himself.
I have no complaints about this book; it’s well-written, fast-paced, and delivers most of the things I liked about the The Bourne Identity. The plot is, if anything, even more convoluted than before, and the reader is offered the chance to view Bourne at his best: alone, outnumbered, faced with an equally-lethal adversary, and utterly deadly despite it all.
Internal conflict has been replaced with external conflict, however, which means the thought-provoking elements of the first novel are less present. Instead, the reader is invited to explore moral questions: to what extent is our government justified in using men like Bourne to advance their policies? Does the magnitude of a threat justify the use of deceit, kidnapping, blackmail and murder to achieve a desirable outcome? Is it just to assassinate a man who employs assassins – and if so, what of those who employ Bourne himself?
With regard to the upcoming movie version (scheduled for a July 23rd release), I’m not sure how exactly they are going to make the plots coincide. The first movie tossed out the whole issue of whether Jason Bourne was really an assassin (versus simply a lure for Carlos), that aspect of events in The Bourne Supremacy won’t get much play.
But it’s still possible for someone to assume Bourne’s identity as an assassin, and doing so would draw Webb’s attention even without the plot elements left out of the first movie. I suspect they’ll keep the action fast and gloss over the issue as much as possible, trusting people to accept the premise without explanation if they haven’t read the books.
Another possibility, since there are plans to film The Bourne Ultimatum as well, would be for the scriptwriters to draw out the revelation of Bourne’s real purpose slowly, with hints in the second movie, and the revelation itself in the third. That would be tricky to handle, but they haven’t set up anything in the first movie to make it impossible – just tricky.
UPDATE: Now that the movie is out, you can read my review and see how it turned out. (Short version: poorly).
