Good morning friend! I am excited to share my review of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, my very first Becky Chambers book, with you today!! I read it back in February in two days and while I did loved this book and did lots of highlighting, I procrastinated and it’s mid March by the time I am writing this and months later when you are reading this. Lately, I have been reading more Science Fiction novellas from Tor – they are good (see The Lies of the Ajungo which I read after this one and posted about way earlier 😀 ). Let’s start with the synopsis of this one:
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
By Becky Chambers | Goodreads | Monk and Robot #1
Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.
Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers’ series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
A Psalm for the Wild-Built – Review
Recommended to me by Lauren and Ariel, A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a thought provoking story set on a moon called Panga. I was mesmerised by the writing and the world from the very start. I love the idea that robots were constructs that Awakened and left to live in the wilderness so that “we may observe that which has no design – the untouched wilderness,” said Floor-AB # 921 as it declined the invitation, on behalf of all robots, to join the human society. Something artificial wants to explore something wild. This is such a beautiful and unexpected idea that I had not explored until I read this book.
The beginning chapters of A Psalm for the Wild-Built focus on a human, Dex. They have lived in the city all their life but they have been feeling this urge to be in nature, to listen to the sound of crickets. The society of Panga allows for everyone to choose and learn whichever vocation they want so Dex decides to become a tea-monk, a travelling monk who goes from village to village, bringing tea to the people.
Dex has been a garden monk all their life and they are past the age of an apprentice, at twenty-nine, they are not that young anymore. But they want to get out of the city and try something new. There is fear of the unknown. What will it be like to do something that they have never done before? Dex could go back to the safety of the life they know but their heart calls for adventures and there is no better time to follow.
On their travels outside of the city, Dex becomes an amazing tea monk. Slowly, they go from knowing next to nothing about the craft to being someone whose visits to the villages are looked forward to. They are organised and loved. Being a tea monk is an art and the creativity of the craft is expressed beautifully in A Psalm for the Wild Built. As things start to settle down, Dex realises that the reason they left the city is still unfulfilled. They may not be surrounded by city landscapes but frogs don’t make the same sounds as crickets. So Dex finds courage and takes a leap of fate, taking an unknown path to a place where cloud crickets were last heard. This is a dangerous path. It is in the wilderness and if anything bad happens, help would be hard to find. But Dex does it anyway.
And then Dex meets a robot. Mosscap is short for Splendid Speckled Mosscap. Considering the name of the first robot I came across in the preface, Floor-AB # 921, the wilderness has changed the way robots name themselves. It is adorable. While Dex is on their journey to experience the wilderness, Mosscap wants to see how humans have been doing since the robots left the factories. Their interactions build the past. That robots would be welcomed in human territory anytime. The awkwardness of meeting an intelligent being you never expected to is portrayed succinctly by Becky Chambers.
Mosscap knows a lot about the human world, the monks and Gods of Panga. It is curious and when it learns that Dex wants to go to a monastery, it offers to guide Dex there for the fair exchange of Dex telling it all all human customs. Dex agrees and the two journey together to the monastery. On the way, they learn about each other’s cultures. It is fascinating to learn about how the robots live, how they communicate, what they have been up to and how Mosscap came to be as it has been a long time since the factory robots left. Mosscap’s glee and awe at the world is infectious. I learned a lot in the conversations between Dex and Mosscap.
Their conversations bring about a transformation in Dex too:
It is difficult for anyone born and raised in human infrastructure to truly internalize the fact that your view of the world is backward. Even if you fully know that you live in a natural world that existed before you and will continue long after, even if you know that the wilderness is the default state of things, and that nature is not something that only happens in carefully curated enclaves between towns, something that pops up in empty spaces if you ignore them for a while, even if you spend your whole life believing yourself to be deeply in touch with the ebb and flow, the cycle, the ecosystem as it actually is, you will still have trouble picturing an untouched world. You will still struggle to understand that human constructs are carved out and overlaid, that these are the places that are the in-between, not the other way around.
This is the cognitive shift that Dex ran headlong into as they straddled their bike on the old road and stared at the place where the asphalt disappeared.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers
One of my favroite conversations happens towards the end of the book. In it, Dex and Mosscap discuss purpose of life. How humans designed robots for a purpose and found immense happiness in letting them go when robots rejected that purpose. Why do humans seeks purpose? Why do we have to have one purpose? What drives us to live and what makes us unhappy about our circumstances? Doing is not the same as being and the ideas that these two characters talk through are insightful, freeing, through provoking and liberating. Mosscap’s belief in itself, its wonderful-ness, acceptance of its brilliance is a lesson all us humans can learn from it.
Dex’s journey throughout this book is a reminder that we can come of age, any age we want. So often, discovering ourselves and what we want to be is associated with the teenage to new adult transition but we all know from our experiences in life, we can reinvent any time we want. The work that we put into ourselves, the time we spent in taking risks and being a learner again are the making of us into the person we want to be. Dex inspires me to pursue what I find exciting. It may have its risks and obstacles but feeling alive is the best part of living. When we don’t feel enough, we can become more.
Have you read this book or are you going to? If you enjoy audiobooks, this is a great one to listen to! A Psalm for the Wild-Built was a nominee in the Best Science Fiction 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards. I am glad to see it recognized!
Book Club Questions for A Psalm for the Wild-Built
- How does the relationship between Dex and the robot evolve?
- What kind of society is depicted here?
- How does Dex become good as a tea monk?
- What are some lessons to take away from the book?
- What does the book make you ponder?
- What ruins are a part of the book?
- How is the importance of conversation depicted?
I am looking forward to the sharing about the next book in the series, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy! One of the finalists in the 2022 Nebula Award – Novella category, I enjoyed that one too.
My co worker shared this book with me. I now understand her. Thank you for creating such a masterpiece.
Thank you for reading. 🙂