再Cyberstalking, March 23rd 2013 P84 サイバーストーキング 書評
James Lasdun is a British writer who teaches creative writing in America. His engrossing new memoir, ゛Give Me Everything You Have゛, is an attempt to come to term with being obsessively cyberstalked by a former student. Seven years ago friendly e-mails from Nasreen, an Iranian Muslim woman, mutated into violent accusations and sly manipulation as she began to ruin his reputation. It is to Mr Lasdun's credit that this memoir is a fascinating and eminently readable account of his experience, rather than a whining defence or a vicious retaliation. The book is also an astute meditation on anti-Semitism, online harassment, the nature of obsession and the power of the written word. A self-styled ゛relentless verbal terrorist゛, Nasreen made various unspecific claims that Mr Lasdun had plagiarised her work, sold it to other Iranian writers, had an affair with another student (Mr Lasdun says he is happily married) and conspired in an attempt to rape her. A secular Jew, he became the object of her anti-Semitic rage. Evincing a dangerous mix of cunning and instability, she plays on Mr Lasdun's paranoia, bombarding him with caustic words and psychotic repetition. Her e-mails combine mad fury, misplaced desire and desperate entreaty. The internet is her weapon. ゛Spite has never had such an efficient instrument at its disposal,゛he writes. His measured narrative has the suspense of a psychological thriller, but instead of analysing Nasreen to the point of caricature Mr Lasdun gains the reader's empathy through his self-analysis. No one is ever a purely neutral participant, he says. So what did he bring to the encounter? For much of the book he draws a self-portrait, rigorously decostructing his frame of mind, his family history and influences, seeking answers in literature - the lens through which he is able to understand the world. Mr Lasdun contacted the police and the FBI but unless Nasreen makes a death threat neither is able (or willing) to intervene. So the cyberstalking continues. He is oddly reluctant to accept that she might be mentally ill, admitting that he is not inclined to write about insanity：゛As soon as you reduce human behaviour to a pathology...it becomes, for literary purposes, less interesting.゛ Perhaps he also needs her to be sane so that she can one day be held to account for her intolerable actions.
