Robots, Monks, & Tea
This rambling posting hopes to offer some initial thoughts on Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built, a post-apocalyptic, solar-/hope-punk novella offering a wonderful exploration of a post-scarcity society where humans and their awoken robots no longer interact.
The short work begins with a discussion on robot consciousness, if it exists, and how the different philosophical sects address this thorny issue within a human society on a habitable moon similar to and yet not quite the same as Earth.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built follows the exploits of a tea monk, Dex, who goes by gendered-neutral pronouns throughout the text. At first, this feels jarring, especially considering traditional storytelling’s reliance on binary genders when identifying characters, even the character-narrator within the narrative. However, the wonderfully crisp and lightweight prose doesn’t get hung up on this gender neutrality, even ignores any qualms readers might have with it, and propels the narrative forward.
Chambers does an exceptional job of putting us into the mind and the world of Dex. It is a world familiar, idyllic, and, yet something feels off. This is a post-apocalyptic setting, in which humanity, somehow, some way, has managed to rebuild themselves, their world, and their societies into something better, not perfect, and infinitely more sustainable.
Dex, a monk in the only remaining city, decides to change their vocation to that of a traveling tea monk. These monks are individuals who move from one settlement, town, or village to another, making the rounds as makers-and-givers of tea and being there when people need them most. I guess you could say they’re emotional support teagivers (sorry, I couldn’t help myself).
Along the way, we find Dex hasn’t formally trained to be a tea monk, nor have they ventured far. This presents Dex with a need to learn to be the best tea monk, which takes years of practice and perfection on their part. As Dex becomes the best tea monk around, they begin to feel a need for something more, a familiar feeling they hoped would be gone being a tea monk, and something they can’t quite understand: At first, around the beginning of the novella, Dex wanted to hear crickets, insects that had long since gone extinct and/or disappeared around human settlements, cities, and towns. Dex’s need to hear crickets offered some pull into their new vocation as a tea monk. They could escape the city and find these crickets out around the more remote human-settled regions of Panga (the moon where the story takes place), or so Dex believes.
Dex becomes absorbed with being a tea monk, for a brief time, but the need to hear crickets again prompts them to begin heading into the uncharted wilderness, long since abandoned by humans, and, ironically, the location of robots who’d awoken long ago and left human societies behind them.
Dex’s journey into the wilderness is slow, agonizingly so, and they happen upon a robot looking to establish contact with humanity, to see how they’ve been doing without their automations around. The robot, Splendid Speckled Mosscap, becomes an unlikely companion for Dex, who seeks out an old and long-abandoned sanctuary, a place where crickets, whose chirping, were once recorded by humans. Dex’s continues their trek toward the crickets, and the road trip is one from hell, punishing and sobering all at once. Dex and their robot companion, Mosscap, learn about one another, which serves as a wonderful way for Chambers to explore consciousness and the meaning of life, and why we need things to feel fulfilled. It goes even deeper: Why do we need anything? Why do we need anything beyond the simple means of ensuring survival? Mosscap points out to Dex that no other living creature cares about such things, so why should humans? For Dex, the question is more profound than their robot companion realizes.
This short work, which is a binge-worthy read, offers the most satisfying and hopeful ending I’ve read in speculative fiction in a long time: There are no grand battles between rebel alliances and galactic empires, no reversing the corrupted timeline to keep Skynet from winning, nor are there any Prime Directives. Instead, we are faced with something truly profound: “[W]hat do people need?”
One of the many criticisms pointed against speculative fiction, and a lot of genre fiction for that matter, is the lack of grounding. The feeling of needless escapism. Here escape only lasts a few fleeting moments before reality comes crashing down. Instead of running from it, Chambers tackles it headlong, offering a cheerful, heart-warming, and sobering moment of reality, of humanity, and of hope: In the end, Dex comes to terms with their need for something more. They’ve also ended a spiritual journey, which has brought them in contact with Mosscap, with the human past, and crickets, chirping in the re-wilded wilderness surrounding the long-abandoned sanctuary, once a refuge to those looking to escape from human civilization and hoping to find something they needed.
It is here where Dex, and their robot companion, Mosscap, leave us to wonder what comes next: What is the next journey? What will happen when Dex brings Mosscap into contact with the humans it has been asked to contact by his kind?
Another interesting element of this book is the level of detailed world-building. It is balanced with witty characters, interesting situations, and brevity. The world-building, while deep, is an iceberg, where we only see a small portion of its vast size, and it is something that doesn’t necessarily weigh down the readers. This iceberg approach is both refreshing and rewarding to readers, especially those accustomed to info dumps or weird dialogues masquerading as info dumps for world-building.
The grounding, the sincerity, and the world-building make this an easy read and an enjoyable one at that.
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