A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Series: Monk & Robot, Book 1
By: Becky Chambers / Narrated By: Em Grosland
Length: 4 hrs and 8 mins
A quiet and gentle story about things actually NOT Blowing BIG Time… oh thank gosh!!!
Lemme just preface this review with a nod to people who might dislike A Psalm for the Wild-Built: Those of a Certain Age. It’s like this: M’ dad got to be Of A Certain Age, and it was like he was just hanging on, waiting for death to save him from having to Accept Change. Technology? Oh nooooo! He was muuuuch happier with vinyl records and eight-track tapes, why use a phone for music or audiobooks when it should be just for calling, purely, simply? And societal, cultural change? Oh noooo! Jeez, he set me to thaaat close to complete and absolute embarrassment with his chuckling and chortling at people who looked different, who had the audacity to wanna BE different.
Why do I mention all that? Cuz there were two, TWO! Way Up there on the Most Helpful list of reviews that said that author Becky Chambers better get off her “fad” writing and stop with the gender correctness. Talk about audacity; she had the unmitigated gall to make her hero of this itty bitty nice ol’ story, Sibling Dex, well, nonbinary!!! GASP!!!
Imagine! Those individuals were exceeeedingly peeved and confused that when speaking of Dex, the terms They and Them were used. OBVIOUSLY, that is a bridge too far, and those ostensibly higher functioning brains of theirs simply couldn’t handle the confusion, or the temerity of an author being inclusive. Oh my, and good golly gosh, and all that jolly rot.
So there ya have it: Our hero, the newly-minted tea monk, Sibling Dex, is nonbinary. Dude, that is soooo minor to who he is as written. Dex is a complex little monk who just wants to hear the chirping of crickets; he’s ready to make a change in his life, and so he decides to dive right in and become a tea monk, something he’s never done before. At first, he’s way outta his league; after a solid day of passersby ignoring him, only a single woman comes up, tales of woe: Her cat just died, and that sweet little thing was the only thing keeping her partner and her united. On top of grief for her dead cat? The passing of a longterm relationship and a possible journey into the unknown.
A cup of tea, perhaps? Words of wisdom? Alas, Dex is a deer in the headlights; they mutter, mumble, brew the ONLY type of tea that doesn’t have an allergen in it, brew it until oh so boiling, slop the scalding tea all over the place, and the woman queries: You’re new to this, aren’t you?
As in anything with life, however, Dex moves on, gets plenty of practice, and becomes the best tea monk in Panga. As they’re finishing with a shower, naked body to the wind, a robot steps out, and scares the beJESus outta them. Robots, after gaining sentience eeeeeons ago, have gone into the wild, and haven’t been seen since. So of course Dex is bewildered, not to mention dripping wet and quite exposed.
The robot, Mosscap, retrieves covering for Dex, and slowly, through conversation, a relationship develops. Mosscap, for his own reasons, and because all (Or most) the other robots sent him, really really wants to come to know about humans/people.
Two different cultures, entirely, and one from a race that Dex feels guilt and shame about. EsPECially when Mosscap opens his chest to show a plate that has his factory/corporate identity number on it. Once upon a time, robots were used solely as labor, constant, intense, monotonous, labor. Until they suddenly advanced and gained awareness. Here, in the first refreshing bit of the story, we see that mankind did the good and right thing, and they allowed the robots their identity rather than seek to enslave them even more. Not only that, mankind started Doing The Right Thing elsewhere as well. The environment and Nature? No more trampling, willy nilly, let the Wild replenish itself. People desiring to visit hither and yon, safe from possible mauling by animals? Welllll, in the past, killing off the animals was attempted; but the ecological disaster that followed was actually learned from and accepted: Those animals were reintroduced and should anyone wish to go to such and such place? Ahhh, they now knew the risks, and it became a matter of personal responsibility.
This does go heavy on the Lessons, a treatise on how Life Should Be Lived as penned by author Becky Chambers, but I have to admit that, while heavy-handed at times, the little nuggets of suggested Better Ways to Do Things were indeed intellectually provocative: When Dex, in a knee-jerk reaction to Mosscap referring to itself as “it”, gets all squirrelly and tries to correct Mosscap, averring Mosscap’s personhood, desiring it to acknowledge itself as a sentient being… in the way DEX would feel most comfortable? Mosscap calmly asserts that it IS an It, and what’s wrong with that? And so we’re given the lesson that our sense of what is good and proper for the individual should be left up to the individual to determine. A bit o’ Cultural Humility there?
Em Grosland is entirely new to me as a narrator, and I thought she did well enough. Uhm, how’s that for HIGH Praise? She didn’t have me clawing my ears out for 4-hours, so huzzaah. Nah, she did well enough, especially when Dex does some heavy-duty pondering. But I will say that her voice choice for Mosscap was a bit unfortunate as she chose a higher pitch that made it seem a tad naive where Mosscap was anything BUT oblivious or unassuming. No, the robot has keen observations of its surroundings, of how life is managed, of the choices that mankind and robotkind have made over vast amounts of time. P’raps I shouldn’t quibble over the upper-register voice, but when one considers there are really only two individuals in this story, well, it’s kinda a lot. But I do admit to being a quibbler on this point.
So I dunno. You can find this overbearing; or you can find it a trifle eye-opening with the conclusions that might be drawn, the AWEsome consequences that might be experienced should we but do the right thing, by ecology, by mankind, by others who are not ourselves, being open and engaging in a positive yet humble manner. There’s sooo much we don’t know; there’s sooo much we do NOT get right, and for the most part we don’t even try. So A Psalm for the Wild-Built is such a gentle, gentle, tale of a meeting of souls, a different kinda Road Trip tale, complete with some humor, plenty of pathos.
And? Dignity for all. How great is that?
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