THE UNBINDING by Walter Kirn

Reviewed by Melissa Fish

Let’s face it – I’m a sucker for novelty. That, in fact, is what first piqued my interest in Walter Kirn’s : its format is so utterly unique. Kirn first published the novel in January 2006, not in hard-copy format, but as an “Internet novel”, with new updates added every week. Taking full advantage of all the bizarre, interesting, and slightly creepy phenomena available on the Internet, Kirn provides links at certain phrases throughout the story to different videos or websites, some of which seem totally irrelevant and others absolutely crucial to the understanding of the plot. An interactive book! I thought. If nothing else, this will be fun! And it certainly was fun; the prose is very accessible, the plot is infused with intrigue, the characters are quirky, and the web links provide their own continual entertainment.

But does The Unbinding have literary merit, aside from its innovative use of a new medium? When you glue a binding on The Unbinding and ask your readers to navigate to a web page that lists out all of the novel’s original links in chronological order, does it still hold the same appeal, even though it loses its intended format? Absolutely, I contend.

The story centers around Kent Selkirk, a young man who works for a satellite assistance agency, one where customers can purchase ear pieces that give them a constant connection to operators who provide help of all kinds, from driving directions to instructions on putting out gas fires to counseling for depression. At the other end of the spectrum is Rob Robinson, a man hired by the government to shadow Selkirk and determine whether or not he poses a threat to society. As the novel progresses, the lines blur in each man’s uses of technology to aid or observe others, ultimately leading to the question of at what point technologies invented to protect inevitably result in deceitful invasions of privacy. Thus, Kirn’s use of the Internet as the medium for his novel is not just for the sake of innovation. He uses it instead to incorporate directly into his story the precarious power, for better or worse, of modern technology. Though the story’s rhetoric sometimes becomes rather bogged down in obscure references and confusing subtleties, nevertheless Kirn’s novel is a fascinating exploration of both the beneficial and sinister uses of technology and the thin line that separates Big Brother from your guardian angel.