Both writers were, perhaps still are, great story tellers. Their stories were action-packed thrillers and I loved reading them. Then, the love died, killed off by excesses in the writing. In Ludlum's case, it was an excess of characters and places and plots and subplots. Said I, "Yeah, there's a story in there somewhere but I'm tired of sifting through extraneous crap in search of it. I'm outta here!"
In Clancy's case, the excesses were in high tech stuff, political and military organizations, acronyms and superhuman heroes. Said he, "Story be damned! I'm famous and wealthy and people will read anything I write so I'm gonna use all these technical terms and acronyms and government agencies and unbelievable characters as much as I damn well please." Once again, trying to follow the story line through the maze just wasn't worth the effort.
Last night I watched The Bourne Legacy (Ludlum). The night before, I watched The Sum of All Fears (Clancy). I read both books years ago: Ludlum was just stepping over the line; Clancy was still well behind it. I enjoyed aspects of both movies. Both had excellent casts and great action sequences. Sum was best by far, was able to follow the story line, no problem. Bourne, like the book, was over the line, disjointed, skipping and hopping around like a cat on hot tin roof. Half way through, maybe earlier, I was mostly lost and remained that way for the duration.
My junior year in high school, , inspired by a challenging remark from my history teacher - something about the number of characters and pages - I read War and Peace. Yeah, it was a struggle. I certainly wouldn't include Tolstoy in my top ten list of greatest authors. Not even the top 100. Seems like Ludlum and Clancy evolved into Tolstoy wannabes.
Is it me? Have I become a simpleton over the years? Weigh in here if you will: have you read these guys? Are you still reading them? Do you connect at all with what I said above?
