When it comes to Latin American literature, we are all under the impression of magic realism. In addition to magic realism, Latin American literature has other landscapes.
The work of Samantha Schwibling is a special landscape. Schwieblin was born in Buenos Aires and came from Alsace. The inheritance of the bloodline may affect the preference of literature.
Before reading Schweeblin's short stories, I had a general impression. "The Girl Who Eats Birds" is strange and bizarre, but unfortunately too story-oriented, and the plot is similar to the "urban legend" of hunting. Reading "Reconnaissance Machine" recently, my impression has changed greatly. This novel also has a fantasy component, but this fantasy is no longer to provoke sensory stimulation, nor is it a mythological and folklore component nourished by latin American traditions, but a fantasy work close to the rise of science in the late 19th century, a bit of Jules Verne's style, belonging to the scientific knowledge base, simple and everyday in narrative, exploring the dilemma of people in the context of new technologies: can new machines help people live better?
"Reconnaissance Machine", by Samanta Schweibeling (Argentina), translator: Bu Shan, edition: Republic of china| Beijing Daily Press, September 2021
Written by | Lin Yi
01
What kind of machine is this?
The novel is named after a new machine of fantasy, the Reconnaissance Machine. What kind of machine is this?
This machine looks like a variety of stuffed toys: pandas, moles, rabbits, dragons... Plush toys are one of the most beloved toys of human beings, and their shape and touch have healing powers. It can be understood that the original intention of the invention of the reconnaissance machine is to allow human beings to be comforted, to approach, cuddle, touch, and talk.
The peculiarity of the reconnaissance machine is that it is not a toy, and it is not only a machine. The person who buys the reconnaissance machine is called the "master", and the material form of the reconnaissance machine can be caressed, destroyed, and smashed; but the person who controls the behavior and behavior of the reconnaissance machine, or makes the reconnaissance machine show consciousness, wisdom and vitality, is another person, that is, "machine control". The owner and the machine controller are randomly matched, full of uncertainty, the reconnaissance machine does not know which corner of the world he is in, and the owner cannot know in advance what kind of personality machine he will get, let alone the purpose of the person behind the machine.
The eyes of this machine that looks like a plush toy are actually cameras, and the machine controls watch the life of the owner through the "eyes" to understand the owner and the environment in which he lives, and most of the owners are also happy to share their lives and establish intimate relationships with each other.
It can be concluded that the essence of the reconnaissance machine is "connection". People's desire for connectivity has driven the Internet to develop into a tool of a connected nature. We show our lives on the Internet every day, and we can tell from some interactions and comments who is watching us, and most of the time, we don't know who is hiding behind the screen.
Obviously, reconnaissance machines are more embedded in real life than social media on the Internet. It combines the elements of face-to-face communication and writing communication, its degree of intimacy comes from the sense of presence, the interactors can perceive each other, especially the machine control side, can see the appearance, expression, dress, posture of the owner, walking around the room, dressing, eating, sleeping, and even the details of sex, the sense of reality, presence and closeness transmitted by the reconnaissance machine is easy to indulge.
The reconnaissance machine demonstrates the utopian potential that technologically created "connections" bring to relationships, where we can meet new people and, in general, the new friends are geographically far apart or lack clues to each other, so on a psychological level it feels like a safe, pure relationship.
Samantha Schwibeln is an Argentine novelist born in Buenos Aires in 1978. In 2014, he published the novella "Rescue Distance", which won the 2015 Tigre Juan Prize and was shortlisted for the 2017 International Booker Prize. In 2018, he published the novel "Reconnaissance Machine", and in 2020, he was again shortlisted for the International Booker Award.
02
The interpersonal relationship of the reconnaissance machine is weakly connected
The novel constructs several sets of relationship stories, interspersed and evolved in different directions, sometimes focusing on the perspective of the main machine, sometimes focusing on the perspective of the machine, and sometimes both.
Amelia is an old woman who lives alone, she watches Eva every day as a reconnaissance machine, the novel says several times that Emilia thinks of her son, and this son has never returned home to visit her mother in the novel, for Amelia, the camera Eva gradually incarnated into her family, out of maternal instinct, she cares about this girl who has never lived.
Enzo relies on the friendship of "Mister". The reconnaissance machine was originally bought for his son Luca, who did not like it. The pressure from the powerful ex-wife and the psychiatrist is a shadow in Enzo's life. Enzo loves gardening, which is a hobby to relieve stress, and Mister wanders around the room with Enzo, accompanying Enzo to watch him loosen the soil and raise seedlings, and the reconnaissance machine is Enzo's friend.
Alina is a fashionable girl, she likes the reconnaissance machine to go around her, she also likes to listen to the humming motor sound of the reconnaissance machine moving with the sunlight, she also likes to masturbate in the eyes of the reconnaissance machine, imagining what kind of reaction the person behind the camera will make, she feels relaxed and full of vitality.
Marvin in Antigua hates to learn, and inhabiting the reconnaissance machine is the light of his dark life, which was initially placed in the window of the home appliance by the owner, and later got the opportunity to go out, a snowy area that was very different from his own world, which made Marvin very excited. However, when the majestic father discovers that his child is severely addicted to the Internet, it is conceivable what will happen.
Gregor mastered many of the connections of reconnaissance machines and profited from reselling them. One day, he and his partner Niklina found a imprisoned girl through the reconnaissance machine, and the rescue process was thrilling, full of twists and turns, and finally succeeded, which was very gratifying. But so what? The girl still has to go back to the gang because, it was her father who sold her.
Emilia, Enzo, Alina, what they do, what they cling to, all end up hitting them head-on. How close can the owner and the machine control be, and what responsibilities and obligations should the two sides have for each other?
These stories all contain contextual provisions. The interpersonal relationship of the reconnaissance machine is a weak connection, is a temporary compromise in the interaction, the two sides have established a superficial operation in the relationship, showing love and concern for each other, while the inner hidden wrestling and game of the relationship between the two sides, the process of communication is not necessarily symmetrical, it is still a kind of information game presentation, a possible hidden, discovery, false display, rediscovery of the infinite cycle, is a self-presentation and self-imagination stage setting.
The setting of the reconnaissance machine, the simulated mode of interaction and psychological state are precisely the subtle portrayal of "emotional bond" and "bond-based attachment" for us humans.
The Girl Who Eats Birds, by Samantha Schwiberlin (Argentina), translated by Yao Yunqing, Edition: 99 Readers| People's Literature Publishing House, January 2021
03
Can technology make humans happier?
All social occasions require us to play a role suitable for the interaction and interactive context, the reconnaissance machine has a sense of presence, but it is after all an incorporeal identity, so in the initial expectation of the owner, it is often positioned as a pet, they often overlook that the reconnaissance machine is invisible to another living person. The consequences are conceivable, and the exposure of privacy is difficult to avoid.
The first chapter of the novel, about several young girls because of nude photos were screenshotted and blackmailed, once the owner, the machine controller realized the existence of the other party, humans are difficult to control their curiosity, want to track the real identity of the other party, there is a machine owner according to the background guessed the other party's place of residence, on his birthday to send a courier to all users of the apartment to send cake, although she is out of good intentions, but this sudden sense of distance is close, I am afraid it is psychologically uncomfortable.
We are experiencing a digital revolution. As early as the 1950s, Turing was thinking about the possibility of human-computer communication. In Turing's experiment, the two parties communicating were isolated in two different rooms, and they could not "show up" to communicate. Turing eliminated all the ways in which the two sides could interact with each other's bodies, such as visual, auditory, and tactile communication, leaving only words. The reconnaissance machine works close to Turing's practice of suppressing all signs related to the human body. "The human body in the machine" has always been an important theme of contemporary science fiction works, and this work also has depictions of the right struggle of the reconnaissance machine.
Is human-to-human communication possible? Is the relationship sincere? What is the true message? What is an interpretation beyond the boundary? What is a confusing and inconclusive anagram game in which the conspirators cooperate with each other to carry it out without even knowing it or even knowing it and never admitting it? In the social system built by the reconnaissance agency, the world is the self-projection of the identity of the other, the self lost in the maze of self-creation, and the other who has lost its substantial existence.
What a long struggle and struggle human being has made to adapt to a world in which the human body is externalized as a medium. Perhaps Freud can be regarded as the most foresighted communicative media thinker. Freud's Civilization and Its Discontent, written in 1923, reveals the transformation of society from a "separate body" to a "political body." Freud foresaw what would happen when the interpersonal communication between the two was extended to massive mass communication as a result of technological developments. The medium of technology is considered an extension of the human body, the telephone extends our ears, and the camera replaces our memories, but Freud disagrees with this, and he feels that human beings cannot be made happier because of it.
The idea of the Reconnaissance Machine can be seen as a kind of remedy for the inadequacy of the modern medium of communication, filling the gap that exists between each other in the absence of the human body. When human existence is obscured or mediated, the reconnaissance machine comes into being as an invention that gives rise to some novel adventures, contact with the particularly mysterious other, but, at the end, we see the collapse of the various relationships that the author has devised, indicating her pessimistic view of this pattern.