Tanitha's Cosmic Musings

Recently I joined the Sci-Fi Book Club of my area, and Blindsight by Peter Watts is the book that we will be discussing in November. I had not heard of Peter Watts before, which is a pity because, in a really weird way, I enjoyed this book immensely.

“Imagine you are Siri Keeton.” This is the first phrase of the book. Maybe, you think “so what?”, lots of books start with similar phrasing. However, it is Siri Keeton himself that utters those words; Siri Keeton is one of the protagonists of the book, and Siri Keeton narrates the book from his “Chinese Room”.

The writing contains flowery sentences and descriptions. Especially the alien landscape; Elizabeth Bear in her introduction, describes it as Lovecraftian; in my mind, it evoked images of the Alien ships and landscapes in the Alien franchise as designed by H.R. Giger.

The book, at first, seems fragmentary; it jumps from the present to the past. However, it compels you to contiunue reading it. Even if some of the tech jargon will go over your head (even mine, and I have a solid knowledge of both tech and science), you just want to continue reading.

If there is one unreliable narrator, that is Siri Keeton. I have read some unreliable narrators in the past; but Siri Keeton, thinks he is a Chinese Room, an observer which in some instances his own admission made me think of The Watcher from Marvel Comics. However, unlike the Watcher, Siri has no empathy; any emotions he feels are only for and about himself. And this is why he is unreliable as a narrator; he sees, he observes, but does not understand. And in his situation, understanding is key.

Do I get Siri? In part, but where I am an optimist and see the glass being half-full (or at least I want to believe so), Siri does not qualify the glass as neither half-empty nor half-full; he just sees a glass whose half has been filled with water and the other half is empty! He sees, observes but, his lack of empathy, his lack of emotions, leave him unable to comprehend, to understand people. He thinks he does from their words and their attitudes; but, in reality, he is blind and oblivious, to their needs and to their emotions.

I said that I understand Siri in part; as an autistic person, reading people is hard; social situations are even harder. But unlike Siri, I have empathy, I have emotions; and those can overwhelm me at times. And, I could see how blind Siri was at times.

I enjoyed this book immensely. And I think you should give it a try, and let me know what you think.

“Imagine you are Siri Keeton.”