Give Me Everything You Have
On Being Stalked
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- 52,99 lei
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- 52,99 lei
Publisher Description
A true story of obsessive love turning to obsessive hate in the crucible of the digital age.
Give Me Everything You Have chronicles author James Lasdun's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled "verbal terrorist," who began trying, in her words, to "ruin him." Hate mail, online postings, and public accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct were her weapons of choice and, as with more conventional terrorist weapons, proved remarkably difficult to combat.
James Lasdun's account, while terrifying, is told with compassion and humor, and brilliantly succeeds in turning a highly personal story into a profound meditation on subjects as varied as madness, race, Middle East politics, and the meaning of honor and reputation in the Internet age.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When novelist and poet Lasdun (Beseiged) began receiving deranged anti-Semitic electronic correspondence from a former student, he entered a "realm of stricken enchantment in which technology and... the primitive mind... converge with the paranoias peculiar to our own age." In this insightful, discursive memoir, Lasdun's tale of being stalked is only part of the story his disembodied, if mentally violent, encounters with "Nasreen," his stalker, lead him to reflect on topics as diverse as the seductive power of literature, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the writings of D.H. Lawrence, and his father's work as an architect in Israel and the aggressively anti-Semitic response it provoked. The "verbal terrorism" (Nasreen's phrase) escalates as the book goes on, but it's almost a red herring it is indeed terrifying, and as the stalker becomes more sophisticated, she begins tormenting his friends and colleagues. But Lasdun is able to see past the surface-level effects of her attacks to the desperate and pitiable person behind them. This subtle, compassionate take on the subject is rife with insights into the current cyberculture's cult of anonymity, as well as the power, failure, and magic of writing.
