ralentina reviewed Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin
A vision from the present
4 stars
Kentukis are a strange merge of Furbies, Social Media and Big Brother: little more than 'a cell phone on wheels', as one character remarks, that work as mechanical pets for their 'keepers', and as windows into another person's world for 'dwellers'. Keepers and dwellers do not receive any information about each other, and theoretically have few ways of communicating, seeing that kentukis can listen but not speak, and have no hands to write or type. But of course, human curiosity and inventiveness go a long way.
These gadgets have become a global phenomenon, from Hong Kong to Mexico, from Norway to Antigua, people become obsessed with them, fear them, experiment with them, develop businesses around them, turn them into art projects. Dwellers and keepers sometimes develop friendships, but more often than not there is something twisted about them, as one or the other becomes dominant, bullying, humiliating, blackmailing or terrifying …
Kentukis are a strange merge of Furbies, Social Media and Big Brother: little more than 'a cell phone on wheels', as one character remarks, that work as mechanical pets for their 'keepers', and as windows into another person's world for 'dwellers'. Keepers and dwellers do not receive any information about each other, and theoretically have few ways of communicating, seeing that kentukis can listen but not speak, and have no hands to write or type. But of course, human curiosity and inventiveness go a long way.
These gadgets have become a global phenomenon, from Hong Kong to Mexico, from Norway to Antigua, people become obsessed with them, fear them, experiment with them, develop businesses around them, turn them into art projects. Dwellers and keepers sometimes develop friendships, but more often than not there is something twisted about them, as one or the other becomes dominant, bullying, humiliating, blackmailing or terrifying the other.
Each pair of keeper-dweller is a story of their own, some only lasting a few pages, some running through the book. The book is quietly sinister, probably because Kentukis are not a exactly sci-fi: it is something that could exist, that almost exists. It does not take you for a rollercoaster, no profound revelation about humanity, no page-turning suspense, just the persistent feeling that something has gone awry in our relationship to technology, animals, and fellow human.