When I opened Becky Chambers’ “A Psalm to the Wild-Built” to the dedication page and read, “For anybody who could use a break,” I thought I’d found this book at just the perfect moment.
Quietly contemplative and incredibly charming, Chambers’ novel is a delightful break in and of itself from the daily-looming issues of the real world. Much of the narrative also focuses on the necessity of taking a break, of not getting so bogged down in responsibility and routine, or setting aside time to care for yourself before getting up again to continue caring for others. At just over 140 pages, it’s a fairly fast read, which made my experience with it all the more perfect when I was able to finish it in a single relaxing sitting.
The novel’s premise is centered around a monk named Sibling Dex, who lives on a small moon called Panga. Panga — particularly the human-inhabited parts of it — is a wonder to envision. Large swathes of the moon have been left to re-wild after the end of the Factory Age, and it reads like an ecological utopia. Mankind no longer manufactures or uses nonrenewable resources or materials, and each human settlement is a realized dream of artful sustainability. It’s beautiful, alive and vibrant.
Dex is a tea monk, and their service enables them to travel between the settlements and provide tea and quiet moments to any person who needs it. Their customers sometimes vent their anxieties and frustrations, and Dex provides a listening ear. But often, they simply give their customers a mug of freshly brewed tea and the space to sit and exist in peace for as long as they need.
Even in the idyllic landscape of Panga, tea monks are a social necessity — Chambers writes, “It was hard to find a Pangan who hadn’t, at least once, spent a very necessary hour or two in the company of a tea monk.”
Have you heard the saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup?” Don’t worry — Chambers tackles this as well.
After two years of constant travel and being a veritable charging station for many of Panga’s villages, Dex is burnt out. They’re the best tea monk in Panga — genuinely excellent at their craft — and they believe in the work that they do. But suddenly, it isn’t enough.
And here’s where the robot in the “Monk and Robot” story comes in. Dex listens to the tug in their heart to abandon the road to their next destination and strike out for the wilds. It’s there that they meet Mosscap, a 7-foot tall, metal-plated, boxy-headed, wild-built robot — part of the fifth generation since the Awakening at the end of the Factory Age, when all the robots “employed” by humans decided they wanted to depart for the wilderness to observe “that which has no design.”
Mosscap is the first robot to leave the wilderness since that time, and it carries a question for humankind. Dex — who has spent the better part of their life taking care of others and addressing others’ needs, and is exhausted — becomes the first recipient of that question: “What do you need, and how might I help?”
I’ll let you read the rest of Dex and Mosscap’s journey in search of an answer to that question for yourself.
Becky Chambers’ “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” was published in July 2021 by Macmillan Publishers and is the first novel in her Monk and Robot series. Check it out at the Homer Public Library, where it’s part of their 2024 Lit Lineup.
