Little Eyes
Samanta Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell)
A review
Argentinian author Samanta Schweblin is often
lauded as one of the best contemporary authors of literary horror. I confess that I have neither read Fever
Dream nor her short-story collection Mouthful of Birds. So I was excited at the opportunity of reviewing
her latest novel – Little Eyes, particularly after Megan McDowell’s English
translation made it to the longlist of the Man Booker International Prize.
Little Eyes is the literary equivalent of a musical “concept album”
whose different songs are linked by a one overarching subject. In this case, the “concept” is that of the “kentukis”.
(Incidentally, “Kentukis” is the title
of the original, Spanish-language version of the novel).
Schweblin describes kentukis as small soft-toy-like
robots which move on wheels, quite similar to the ‘interactive pets’ which actually
exist and are popular with younger children.
The fictional “kentukis”, however, have a defining characteristic – they
are remotely operated by anonymous, untraceable users or “dwellers” who connect
to and control the robots via an internet connection. Cameras installed in the gadget’s “little eyes”
allow the dwellers to watch the kentuki’s surroundings. Buying
a kentuki, therefore, is tantamount to letting a stranger into your home, whilst
buying a connection literally provides you with an insight into a different life.
As the book progresses, we learn more about the
way the robots operate. It’s immediately
evident, for instance, that the gadgets cannot speak and can only make ‘pet
noises’. Their batteries need to be
charged regularly, and they are a single-use product – if the battery falls flat,
or if the “dweller” unilaterally decides to terminate the connection, a kentuki
will no longer work and its owner or “keeper” can do nothing to revive it.
Schweblin’s novel is made up of several
distinct stories, all of which feature a keeper, a dweller or both. Some of the stories consist of a self-contained
chapter. Others are spread out over several
recurring chapters: an old woman in Lima who becomes the dweller of a kentuki
in Erfurt and develops maternal, protective feelings towards the robot’s owner;
an Italian man buys a kentuki for his son at the insistence of his ex-wife,
with sinister consequences; a young boy in Antigua discovers that he is
controlling a kentuki in Norway and dreams of “virtually” touching the snow. There
are other tales which range from the scary, to the harrowing, to the unexpectedly
moving. Indeed, the premise of the book
presents several interesting possibilities. It also feels very plausible – the technology
allowing such gadgets does exist and we are already used to the idea of social
media making “exhibitionists” of some whilst turning others into “voyeurs”.
The book is engrossing, the translation by
Megan McDowell smooth and highly readable.
And yet, this novel didn’t fully satisfy me. Perhaps the problem is that it starts with
one of its strongest chapters. Three teenage girls strip for their kentuki,
then try to make it communicate with them by asking it to trace out words on
the letters of a Ouija board. They realise to their dismay that the anonymous ‘dweller’
of their innocent-looking pet is a pervert and a blackmailer. In a few hard-hitting pages Schweblin creates
an atmosphere of fear and unease. The contrast between the Ouija board
(suggesting traditional supernatural horror) and the kentuki (a state-of-the-art
technological device) is brilliant, implying that conventional horror tropes
will be given a contemporary twist. This
chilling start creates expectations that are never fully realised. The different stories, interesting as they
are, reach their endings without really gelling with each other. I certainly
enjoyed the ride, but anticipated a more impressive destination.
Kindle Edition, 256 pages
Published March 18th 2020 by Oneworld Publications (first published October 2018)
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