A PSALM FOR THE WILD-BUILT BY BECKY CHAMBERS
2025-02-27
IMG Book cover: A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers. The cover art shows a winding trail weaving its way through a forest of diverse plants. At one end, a figure wearing brown and yellow robes sits on the front step of an old fashioned wagon carriage, cupping a hot beverage in both hands. Near the other end of the trail, a humanoid metal robot reaches out a finger to provide a landing spot to a pair of butterflies.
I'd already read every prior book published by the excellent Becky Chambers,
but this (and its sequel) had been sitting on my to-read list for some time,
and so while I've been ill and off work these last few days, I felt it would
be a perfect opportunity to pick it up. I've spent most of this week so far in
bed, often drifting in and out of sleep, and a lightweight novella that I coud
dip in and out of over the course of a day felt like the ideal comfort.
I couldn't have been more right, as the very first page gave away. My friend
Ash described the experience of reading it (and its sequel) as being "like
sitting in a warm bath", and I see where they're coming from. True to form,
Chambers does a magnificent job of spinning a believable utopia: a world that
acts like an idealised future while still being familiar enough for the reader
to easily engage with it. The world of Wild-Built is inhabited by humans whose
past saw them come together to prevent catastrophic climate change and
peacefully move beyond their creation of general-purpose AI, eventually
building for themselves a post-scarcity economy based on caring communities
living in harmony with their ecosystem.
Writing a story in a utopia has sometimes been seen as challenging, because
without anything to strive for, what is there for a protagonist to
strive against? But Wild-Built has no such problem. Written throughout with a
close personal focus on Sibling Dex, a city monk who decides to uproot their
life to travel around the various agrarian lands of their world, a growing
philosophical theme emerges: once ones needs have been met, how does one
identify with ones purpose? Deprived of the struggle to climb some Maslowian
pyramid, how does a person freed of their immediate needs (unless they choose
to take unnecessary risks: we hear of hikers who die exploring the
uncultivated wilderness Dex's people leave to nature, for example) define
their place in the world?
Aside from Dex, the other major character in the book is Mosscap, a robot whom
they meet by a chance encounter on the very edge of human civilisation. Nobody
has seen a robot for centuries, since such machines became self-aware and,
rather than consign them to slavery, the humans set them free (at which point
they vanished to go do their own thing).
To take a diversion from the plot, can I just share for a moment a few lines
from an early conversation between Dex and Mosscap, in which I think the level
of mutual interpersonal respect shown by the characters mirrors the utopia of
the author's construction:
>
> ...
> “What—what are you? What is this? Why are you here?”
> The robot, again, looked confused. “Do you not know? Do you no longer speak
of us?”
> “We—I mean, we tell stories about—is robots the right word? Do you call
yourself robots or something else?”
> “Robot is correct.”
> ...
> “Okay. Mosscap. I’m Dex. Do you have a gender?”
> “No.”
> “Me neither.”
These two strangers take the time in their initial introduction to ensure
they're using the right terms for one another: starting with those relating to
their... let's say species... and then working towards pronouns (Dex uses
they/them, which seems to be widespread and commonplace but far from universal
in their society; Mosscap uses it/its, which provides for an entire discussion
on the nature of objectship and objectification in self-identity). It's queer
as anything, and a delightful touch.
In any case: the outward presence of the plot revolves around a question that
the robot has been charged to find an answer to: "What do humans need?" The
narrative theme of self-defined purpose and desires is both a presenting and a
subtextual issue, and it carries through every chapter. The entire book is as
much a thought experiment as it is a novel, but it doesn't diminish in the
slightest from the delightful adventure that carries it.
Dex and Mosscap go on to explore the world, to learn more about it and about
one another, and crucially about themselves and their place in it. It's
charming and wonderful and uplifting and, I suppose, like a warm bath:
comfortable and calming and centering. And it does an excellent job of setting
the stage for the second book in the series, which we'll get to presently...
LINKS
HTML I've been ill
HTML Off work
HTML As the very first page gave away
HTML We'll get to presently