Christopher Doda

In Praise of The Unabomber

2002

      Part One

      Part Two

      Part Three

      Part Four

Part One

The Critics Agree:

“A fireworks exhibition of fantasy, sexual love, and moral awareness.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“The essay’s devastatingly sustained black irony stands comparison with Swift’s A Modest Proposal. It is, I think, the Unabomber’s finest achievement to date.”

—The Financial Times

“One of the ten best works of the decade...dazzling... fantastic and poetically convincing... The Unabomber has managed to seize the strands of actuality and transform them into a fabulous tale.”

—Time

“... enormous fun... The Unabomber has found a fresh way to orchestrate the themes of American innocence, energy, and inchoate ambition... A remarkable achievement.”

—Newsweek

“The effect is a cross between a long scream, a nervous breakdown and a Tacitean indictment of a regime.”

—The London Times

Part Two

There are, of course,
easier ways to get
published
but few quite as innovative

The Times and the Post are nothing
to scoff at and
he was the only writer
to be on People’s 25
most interesting list
that year

His friends and relatives
often wondered
about him
so concerned with letters
What a strange character
they would say
an even stranger sentence to pronounce

Beneath the sagging roof
the stylist has taken shelter
in the unlikely
guise of a bitter
   failure in order
to elude the FBI
and other censorship agencies

Now tried and convicted
for beliefs so dangerous
not even PEN International
dare write letters
on his behalf

Part Three

FBI Profile of the Disgruntled Scribbler:

He would most likely be a loner with few ties to family or loved ones. Probably has travelled extensively in the country of his origin but rarely outside of it. Would travel alone and avoid open, crowded areas, almost always preferring movement after nightfall. Uncomfortable in the glare of headlights. Excessively jealous and possessive, and highly demanding of acquaintances and lovers. Likely to have come from a broken home with uncertain, or illegitimate, parentage. Severe anti-establishment tendencies. Talks to a presence who is not there and frequently complains of voices or other people living in his head. Overactive imagination with a tendency to hyper-focus. Better at division than multiplication. Plagued by feelings of uselessness masked by an excessive, almost comic, egotism. Severe feelings of persecution allow him justification for his actions. Devours the world with the senses, a state where everyone is a part of the search for wholeness, for balance, for order, and rebirth. Is attracted to images of women in jeopardy. Picks his targets on the basis of their usefulness to him. He seeks to own them, ingest some parts of them so as to claim their spirit, or essence, as a trophy. Does not believe in coincidence but is willing to exploit it. Most likely, he is a failure.

Part Four

Under his hands things take shape
pieces put together
connections made
forms found
tight and intricate

The smaller he makes it the bigger it breaks
the better it scatters

He hears an engine all around him
chugging out a juggernaut mantra
makeitnewmakeitnewmakeitnewmakeitnew
and he digs in futile heels
   against it
demands that we go beyond modern
by burning backwards
into the past

It is essential contra-diction
to use such stunning technique
to protest technology like writing
words to reveal the instability
of language

Theory driven, university driven
out, a mind warped by perception
before observation; the cart before
the horse, roof without foundation

It is easy then
to become the sort of writer
who sees the world
as a series of targets

Rarely, he would think
of how all this might
be received, how people
will react (new ideas
always finding resistance)
and if his works will
earn him a part of history
from a time that passed him
by, before addressing
his latest piece of Black
mail and sending another
small package of chaos
into an orderly world.
From the book Larger Than Life, published by Black Moss Press (Windsor, Ont.).
The title is satirical and the quotes fictitious.