Bourne Of Identiti

About the author
In addition to the information about Robert Ludlum in the Introduction, another interesting fact is that the idea for The Bourne Identity resulted from his personal experience. After the publication of his first book, The Scarlatti Inheritance, Ludlum could not remember 12 hours of his life, and later was informed by doctors that he had had temporary amnesia. This event,combined with real-life spy stories of the day, inspired him to write the Bourne trilogy.
Summary
Chapters 1–2:
A man wakes up suffering from amnesia. Dr. Washburn, who has been treating the man on a French island for several weeks, after he was found in the sea with gunshot wounds, tries to prompt the man into remembering. The doctor is convinced the patient is intelligent, speaks threelanguages, has experience using guns, and has had his physical appearance changed many times. He also tells him that he found a Zurich bank account number embedded in the patient’s body. The doctor organizes a boat to take the man to Marseilles. In a café, while he is arranging a new passport, he is recognized by a man who then tries to kill him. He hits his attacker and travels to a hotel.Everything is familiar to him in the hotel, but he can’t understand why. He then has to sign the hotel form and sees his name, Mr. J. Bourne. He leaves the hotel and, without really knowing why, makes his way to a bank. Inside the bank he discovers he has more than four million dollars in an account and that he worked for a company called Treadstone Seventy-one. On leaving the bank he isattacked by some men but escapes to his hotel. However, the men follow him and attack and injure him there. He grabs a woman, Marie, and forces her at gunpoint to drive him to a restaurant he vaguely remembers. Inside, he is recognized by a fat man, who tells him the address of one of Bourne’s previous contacts, a man called Chernak.
Chapters 3–4:
Bourne and Marie drive to the address. Chernaktells Bourne that a man called Carlos is looking for him and wants to kill him. Bourne shoots Chernak dead. Marie and Bourne then set off for Steppdeckstrasse, another address that Bourne remembers. On the way, Marie escapes. Bourne is attacked in the house by two men and, as he is making his escape, Marie appears with some men who she thinks are the police. They are not, and one of themdrives Marie away to a place where Bourne knows she will be killed. He is driven away in another car. He kills the two men and rescues Marie. Marie drives the now seriously injured and exhausted Bourne to a safe house in a village, where they gradually become friends. Marie feels indebted to Bourne for saving her life and can’t believe he is a killer. She tries to help him remember his pastlife. Marie, being a financial expert and having important contacts, decides to help Bourne discover the truth about the Treadstone Company. When Bourne mentions the name Carlos, Marie is terrified and explains to him that Carlos is wanted for the assassination of over fifty people. The two fly to Paris. Bourne, now beginning to suspect that he himself was an assassin, looks into theassassination of an American ambassador in Marseilles. He is relieved to discover he had not been in Marseilles on the date of the killing. When Bourne tries to access his bank account in Paris, he sets in motion a sequence of events: alarms, phone calls, mysterious men arriving and the death of Marie’s financial contact.

Chapters 5–6:
Bourne reveals to Marie that he knows a lot about the killercalled Carlos. He then goes to a fashionable clothes shop, Les Classiques, whose phone number is somehow linked to Bourne’s bank account. He assumes a false name and invites the owner of the store, Madame Lavier, to dinner. As the two are leaving the shop, the switchboard operator recognizes Bourne and informs the woman’s business partner, Bergeron, that Bourne, who he believes is an assassin...