美国国家公共电台 NPR Documentarian Says 'Anarchist Cookbook' Author Was Filled With Remorse

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

If you've been around long enough, you have seen this book - black cover, blocky white letters, instructions for making your own explosives inside. "The Anarchist¹ Cookbook" was first published 45 years ago. And it comes with this warning.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

WILLIAM POWELL: Keep in mind that the topics written about here are illegal and constitute a threat. Also, more importantly, almost all the recipes are dangerous. This book is not for children or morons².

MCEVERS: That's the man who wrote the cookbook, William Powell. He was 19 years old at the time. It was the height of protests against the Vietnam War. And since then, "The Anarchist Cookbook" has sold more than 2 million copies.

Now there's a new documentary about William Powell by filmmaker Charlie Siskel. And he spent a long time with Powell, asking him if he feels remorse³ about creating something that was later used by people to commit violence. Siskel stopped by the studio the other day, and I asked him how he first got interested in William Powell.

CHARLIE SISKEL: Well, I'd been familiar with the book...

MCEVERS: As so many people are, yes.

SISKEL: ...In the '70s and '80s growing up. And it was notorious. It was the kind of thing that kids in the suburbs had to get their parents angry. And I imagine none of the people who had it growing up that I knew had any plans to use it in any way. It was just sort of a - kind of a cult⁴ status thing. But the book was associated with the Columbine shootings and has been associated, sadly, with a number of school shootings and incidents.

So I was aware of the legacy⁵ of the book. And it got me wondering about the author. And so I started to do some research about him and saw that he had written a couple of public statements but had pretty much vanished. And so I was interested in trying to track him down and hear what he had to say.

MCEVERS: And so how did you first get in touch with him? And how did you convince him, Powell, to talk to you?

SISKEL: Well, I reached out to him. I just tracked him down. And I talked to him about what interested me about his story, the parallels between his story, writing this book at age 19, and, you know, creating a kind of Frankenstein's monster, something that he was unable to control after creating it because the book, I imagined, haunted him throughout his life.

MCEVERS: And what did you find out? I mean, who was the 19-year-old Bill Powell, the man who wrote this book?

SISKEL: Well, Bill was an angry young man, and with reason. I think Bill, like a number of kids who have gone on to commit acts of violence, usually males, was sort of let down by the adult world. There were people who could have been role models - teachers, for example - who were abusive toward Bill. And he was bullied⁶ as a kid.

MCEVERS: And then he went on to do something very different with his life, didn't he? What did he go on to do?

SISKEL: He did. I would say, you know, Bill sort of redeemed⁷ himself. He went to college and then became a teacher. He himself started working with kids who had emotional problems, kids who suffered from ADD and ADHD. And he worked in schools around the world.

MCEVERS: A lot of the film, while telling his story, is also this dialogue between the two of you and going back and forth⁸ a lot about how he feels now. How - does he feel responsible? And there's this one exchange I want to play.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "AMERICAN ANARCHIST")

POWELL: There is a sense of while I do feel responsible, I didn't do it. Somebody else - somebody else with a perverted⁹, distorted sense of reality did something awful.

MCEVERS: When he says I didn't do it, he means I didn't shoot people. I didn't take my own advice in this book and make explosives and I didn't kill people, right?

SISKEL: Exactly. And I think that's absolutely true. I think Bill has for many years wrestled¹⁰ with this, can relate to those emotions, to feeling on the one hand that you deserve redemption, that you deserve a second chance, and on the other hand feeling that you have done something wrong and that you feel a sense of guilt¹¹ over. And clearly, I think, Bill is a complex enough person to hold on to both of those emotions at once.

MCEVERS: Bill Powell actually died suddenly last summer. Is that right?

SISKEL: He did. He passed away before the film came out and about a year after we met.

MCEVERS: Do you think he died at peace?

SISKEL: That's a really hard question to answer. I think, you know, Bill was a lovely person. He led a wonderful life in his adulthood¹². He was doing what he loved to do. And I think he was happy and I suppose at peace. I don't think he ever fully¹³ reconciled the place that the book would play in his life and where it belonged. And I don't know that Bill ever resolved the conflicts in his own mind about the book. But I think writing his memoir¹⁴ and hopefully the film helped him to move a bit further along in that journey.

MCEVERS: Charlie Siskel, thank you so much.

SISKEL: Thank you.

MCEVERS: Charlie Siskel's new documentary is "American Anarchist." And just a note here - William Powell's obituary¹⁵ appeared in a number of publications just last week even though he died in July.

(SOUNDBITE OF F.S. BLUMM AND NILS FRAHM SONG, "DAY ONE TWO")

1 anarchist   

n.无政府主义者

参考例句：

• You must be an anarchist at heart.你在心底肯定是个无政府主义者。
• I did my best to comfort them and assure them I was not an anarchist.我尽量安抚他们并让它们明白我并不是一个无政府主义者。

2 morons   

傻子( moron的名词复数 )； 痴愚者（指心理年龄在8至12岁的成年人）

参考例句：

• They're a bunch of morons. 他们是一群蠢货。
• They're a load of morons. 他们是一群笨蛋。

3 remorse   

n.痛恨，悔恨，自责

参考例句：

• She had no remorse about what she had said.她对所说的话不后悔。
• He has shown no remorse for his actions.他对自己的行为没有任何悔恨之意。

4 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

5 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

6 bullied   

adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• My son is being bullied at school. 我儿子在学校里受欺负。
• The boy bullied the small girl into giving him all her money. 那男孩威逼那个小女孩把所有的钱都给他。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 redeemed   

adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• She has redeemed her pawned jewellery. 她赎回了当掉的珠宝。
• He redeemed his watch from the pawnbroker's. 他从当铺赎回手表。

8 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

9 perverted   

adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落

参考例句：

• Some scientific discoveries have been perverted to create weapons of destruction. 某些科学发明被滥用来生产毁灭性武器。
• sexual acts, normal and perverted 正常的和变态的性行为

10 wrestled   

v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤

参考例句：

• As a boy he had boxed and wrestled. 他小的时候又是打拳又是摔跤。
• Armed guards wrestled with the intruder. 武装警卫和闯入者扭打起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

12 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

13 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

14 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

15 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。