Imagine a world where your identity can be altered by the click of a mouse. You can be background-checked through your cyber meanderings and constantly monitored by friends, family members, government agencies and corporations. Welcome to our world.
“The Unbinding” by Walter Kirn, author of “Thumbsucker” and “Up In the Air,” illustrates the overwhelming power of the Internet in a comic, yet agitated, portrayal of American society.
“The Unbinding” was first published online at Slate Magazine, gradually telling the story of Kent Selkirk, an operator at AidSat, a ubiquitous electronic service, ready to help citizens with life’s never-ending obstacles: toaster fires, car repairs or even domestic violence. Selkirk sits on his phone solving America’s problems. But he uses his wealth of information in the AidSat database to help him seduce his attractive neighbor, a subscriber to his employer.
Kent isn’t the only watcher.
He, too, is being watched by a government agent who tracks Kent’s personal information. It’s as easy as a click on MySpace, a quick read of a blog or an e-mail interception.
Kirn illustrates this world through a series of blogs and other electronic-text exchanges. His writing style mirrors the cyber world itself, where identity has little to do with flesh and bones, conversations or education. In the new, Web world, your hobbies are whatever you choose to list; your face is as beautiful as your Photoshop abilities are savvy. You can steal, manipulate and create identities in seconds. Even “personal” relationships are as fleeting as the time it takes to refresh a page.
As the characters progress, we find names have been changed and faces skewed. The characters lock into a cycle of personal journalism that recounts and rewrites their pasts. Conspiracy theories begin to float around: Perhaps the government invented Tom Cruise. Maybe Rob, the government agent, is really a spy for AidSat’s competitors. Kirn creates articulate, agitated, modern American characters, distracted by alcohol and Netflix and ready to complain or preach to whoever, out there in the world, will read.
The novel’s humor evolves into horror when it becomes evident that technology has become a generator of unbound, fragmented personalities, unsure of their place in society and quickly trying to find ways
to give their existence meaning. The horror will resonate with those of us who feel plugged in, on-call and impersonally interacting everyday.
“I think we’ve known each other long enough that you can call me ‘What’s-his-face,’” Kent says to his government-issued
monitor. Is he Kent Selkirk, Cass B. Kirksell, Curtis Ormand or Chewnucca Smith? Terrorist or aide? Will he burn down the Library of Congress – can we trust his blog? In this modern world, forming and reforming personal identity may end up destroying a sense of human self.
Kirn’s satire is subtly futuristic and will have you questioning the role of the Internet in your own life. The recently bound version of “The Unbinding” proves easier on the eyes while reading, but loses the interactivity – the integrated links and timely references – provided in the book’s initial publication, which can still be found online at Slate Magazine. Kirn uses his original Internet publication to his advantage, making the medium part of the story – a social commentary on a culture increasingly plugged in and unbound.
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