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A Psalm for the Wild-Built

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A Psalm for the Wild-Built

by Becky Chambers
ISBN: 9781250236210

My wife recommended I read this book, and I immediately loved it. It's one of those books that feels almost scriptural, where you know you will re-read it at a different stage of your life and take different meanings from it, where you know that someone else can read the same book and feel fed but for completely different reasons.

This book features a monk named Sibling Dex who has found that their life's work doesn't seem quite as satisfying as it used to. They try changing vocations and become very good at their new job, but it's still not quite enough. They finally decide to do something completely out of character and go find an abandoned hermitage. En route, they stumble across Splendid Speckled Mosscap, a robot that has been sent to discover the answer to the question "What do humans need?" Mosscap decides to help Sibling Dex reach the hermitage, and en route they explore why Dex doesn't feel like they are doing enough.

Chapter Breakdowns

1. A Change in Vocation

Sibling Dex is a monk at the Meadow Den Monastery whose vocation (official purpose in life) is to care for the rooftop garden. One day, they notice the lack of crickets and decide they need to get out of the City, do something different, and hopefully find a place with cricket song. They tell the Keeper of the Monastery that they want to change vocations, and so they decide they are going to teach themself how to be a tea monk. The job of a tea monk is to listen to people's problems and offer consolation and a mug of hot tea, which should be super simple. "Endless electronic ink had been spilled over the old tradition, but all of it could be boiled down to listen to people, give tea. Uncomplicated as could be." Except it turns out to be rather complicated and their first attempt goes poorly. They consider going back to the Monastery, but they don't want to give up (in reality, they don't want to look stupid), so they decide to head out to the villages. They set up camp in Little Creek, where they take time to learn their new vocation.

2. The Best Tea Monk in Panga

It's been two years, and Sibling Dex is now an expert in their craft. They arrive at Inkthorn, a village in the Woodlands, and set up their tea service. It's very different from their very first one, and one of the village councilors calls them "the best tea monk in Panga." But Dex still isn't satisfied. They haven't found any crickets, and they can't figure out why they're not satisfied. One day, they find out that crickets are located at the abandoned Hart's Brow Hermitage, which is outside of the human settlement area in protected wilderness. On a whim, they decide to go to Hart's Brow. They set up camp that night and are cooking dinner when a robot walks up and says, "Hello! My name is Mosscap. What do you need, and how might I help?"

3. Splendid Speckled Mosscap

Mosscap introduces itself to a startled Dex, explaining that the robots that left society hundreds of years ago have decided to "check in" to see how humanity has progressed without them. Mosscap is extremely curious about everything and asks Sibling Dex to be its guide, but Dex demurs and says they're headed to the Hermitage instead, so Mosscap proposes a deal: It will help them reach the Hermitage, and they will tell it about human society. Dex decides that they will still turn it down: "They were a fucking tea monk, not an academic, or a scientist, or any of the myriad professions infinitely better suited to facilitating the first contact between humans and robots in two hundred years. Dex barely remembered what the Parting Promise was. They were the wrong person for this. That wasn't selfish, they thought. That was fact." They are about to tell Mosscap this when a bramble bear shows up and eats Dex's dinner, and Dex thinks about how the god they follow is represented by a bear. They realize they have to accept Mosscap's offer.

4. An Object, and an Animal

As Mosscap and Dex begin their travels, they start to learn more about each other. Dex learns that Mosscap prefers it to they because it's a machine, machines are objects, and objects use it. Dex objects, saying Mosscap is "more than just an object," and this offends Mosscap, who says "I would never call you just an animal, Sibling Dex... We don't have to fall into the same category to be of equal value". Other conversation topics include how robots interact with each other and whether robots should inherently be structured and strict because they're made from numbers and logic. Mosscap points out that "I am made of metal and numbers; you are made of water and genes. But we are each something more than that. And we can't define what that something more is simply by our raw components." Dex explains that since humanity doesn't know why robots suddenly gained sentience, they try to keep technology simple. Mosscap laments that it doesn't have a specialized focus because "Everything in interesting. I know about a lot of things, but only a little in each regard... It's not a very studious way to be." But Dex points out that "You're a generalist. That's a focus."

5. Remnants

The freshwater tank on Dex's ox-bike wagon breaks, so Mosscap offers to take the tank to a nearby creek to refill it. Dex objects, because they feel guilty that humanity had previously made robots work in the factories. Mosscap points out that it wants to help and that if "you don't want to infringe upon my agency, let me have agency. I want to carry the tank." They discuss the ethics of damaging living things to make a trail, and Mosscap points out that "Every living thing causes damage to others, Sibling Dex. You'd all starve otherwise." They get to the creek, and Dex admits that they don't want to drink that water because it doesn't feel safe, even though they know that the water they've been drinking up to this point eventually came from a place like this. Mosscap takes them to an abandoned beverage bottling plant, now in ruin. It explains that it doesn't like the factories, but it doesn't know why because it wasn't around during the Factory Era. It's made from pieces of older robots that broke down, and while it doesn't have their memories, it has instincts inherited from them, called remnants. Dex asks why the robots didn't just fix themselves and be immortal, and Mosscap explains that nothing else in the world is immortal, so why should they be? Dex explains Winn's Paradox, which is the idea that "life is fundamentally at odds with itself": When people got rid of the wild dogs so they could fish and hike without being attacked, the elk lost their predators and wrecked the ecosystem, so the people reintroduced the wild dogs and accepted the risk. "The paradox is that the ecosystem as a whole needs its participants to act with restraint in order to avoid collapse, but the participants themselves have no inbuilt mechanism to encourage such behavior." Dex realizes their fear of the water from the stream is a remnant, just like Mosscap's fear of the factories. The conclusion both come to is that they are smarter than their remnants, if they choose to be.

6. Grass Hen with Wilted Greens and Caramelized Onion

Dex makes dinner and explains to Mosscap why the various ingredients are used in cooking. Dex is about to eat but finds that they're uncomfortable for some reason. They realize that it just feels rude to eat in front of someone and not share, even though Mosscap can't eat. It's a cultural expectation, drilled into them by their family, because "We had a surplus. A surplus has to be shared." It comes from a good place, but it's keeping them from eating. They come up with a clever workaround, which is to put half their food on another plate, hand it to Mosscap, and then ask them if they're going to eat it. They coach Mosscap to say, "No, I'm done, you can have it if you want," and then they can eat it guilt-free. They both know it's silly, but it works, and that's what matters.

7. The Wild

They reach the literal end of the road. Dex decides to continue on foot, despite Mosscap's reservations, and Dex's inability to do what should seemingly come naturally infuriates them. "The road was gone. The wagon couldn't travel. The longer those observations sat, the more Dex fumed. The place ahead was simply the world, as the world had always been and would always be. Dex was, presumably, a part of it, a product of it, a being inextricably tied to its machinations. And yet, faced with the prospect of entering the world unaided, unaltered, Dex felt helpless. Hopeless... And what did we do before beds? Dex thought angrily. What did we do before showers? The human species did just fine for hundreds of thousands of years without any of that, so why can't you?" They fall down the mountain and break down in tears, admitting that they don't know what they're doing. Mosscap takes them to a cave, where they just end up talking. "I have it so good. So absurdly, improbably good. I didn't do anything to deserve it, but I have it. I'm healthy. I've never gone hungry. And yes, to answer your question, I'm -- I'm loved. I lived in a beautiful place, did meaningful work... So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?" Mosscap listens and is there for Dex, but has no answers.

8. The Summer Bear

Dex and Mosscap arrive at the Hart's Brow Hermitage, and Dex reflects on how it did its best to be sustainable in an unsustainable world but that ultimately it wasn't enough. Dex shares with Mosscap the story of how their dad took them seriously at age ten and took them to a monastery of Allalae in the local town, where a monk treated them as if they were a whole person and they had their first tea service. They realized over time that you didn't need a reason to want to rest and recharge, and that even the most important of people needed that rest and recharge. That's how Dex decided upon their vocation. But now it seems so unimportant. Mosscap points out that despite all the societal pressure on finding your purpose in life, you can always change and do something else. Dex says they can always choose whatever path, but they have to choose a path. Mosscap asks what its purpose is, and Dex says it's here to learn about people. "That's something I'm doing. That's not my reason for being. When I am done with this, I will do other things. I do not have a purpose any more than a mouse or a slug or a thornbush does. Why do you have to have one in order to feel content?... You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don't know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don't need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do." Mosscap revels in consciousness, and when Dex asks it how it handles the thought that it has no purpose and how it can be okay with "the idea of maybe being meaningless," Mosscap replies that "I know that no matter what, I'm wonderful." Dex goes to take a nap and wakes up to find that Mosscap has used what it has found in the hermitage to make them a tea service, and at the end decides to accompany Mosscap on its journey to find out what humans need. "In the wilds outside, the sun set, and crickets began to sing."

Possible analyses/questions to consider

Glossary (incomplete)

Tools

Places

People

Religion: The "Sacred Six"