by Becky Chambers ★★☆☆☆

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is Becky Chambers' short novel (just 149 pages) that follows "Sibling Dex", a non-binary monk who leaves the monastery on a journey to find themself. While Dex can't pinpoint any logic behind why they need a change, they simply know that they do. As they say at the start, "Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city." And so Dex decides to change their vocation and become a 'tea monk", which involves going to remote villages to listen to people's problems and serve tea to bring them some measure of calm. Dex selects just the right tea for the problem, sort of like Delilah choosing the perfect sappy song for her callers on her radio show.
All of this takes place on a fantasy moon, Panga, that resembles earth, but an earth which has eschewed most technology and all robotics. Several hundred years prior, robots achieved consciousness, but instead of a Terminator-style rebellion against humans, the robots simply decided to leave humanity to their own devices.
"All we have ever known is a life of human design, from our bodies to our work to the buildings we are housed in. We thank you for not keeping us here against our will, and we mean no disrespect to your offer, but it is our wish to leave your cities entirely, so that we may observe that which has no design—the untouched wilderness."
The robots were told they could come back at any time, but the humans agreed that they would not initiate contact, as part of the "Parting Promise". Humans have adhered to that promise, and the robots have stayed away.
Despite their eventual success as a tea monk, Dex once again is filled with a burning desire for something different, something more, and so they spontaneously decide to venture further afield to once again try to fill the hole in their life. Along that journey, they encounter a robot named Mosscap, marking the first human-robot interaction in hundreds of years. After introductions, Mosscap explains that it was sent to find a human and "answer the following question: What do humans need?", and then report back to the robots. The irony, of course, is that the first and only human that Mosscap meets has continuously struggled to answer that question for themself.
Perhaps it is because they are in the midst of a crisis of identity and purpose, but Dex is the least monk-like monk I've encountered in literature. Foul-mouthed and closed-hearted, they are strangely resistant to any type of friendly overtures from Mosscap, be it suggestions for surviving in the wild or help propelling the "ox-bike" they use for transportation. The notion of an outsider coming to learn about humans is a well-trod concept, and A Psalm for the Wild-Built doesn't take it in significantly new directions. Given the positive reviews, I was expecting something more profound. Instead, I couldn't help but measure it against another short novel I recently read, Foster. Claire Keegan's brief work cuts to the heart of humanity subtly and brilliantly, and by comparison A Psalm For the Wild-Built feels hollow. I was left disappointed, and I don't intend to continue with the "Monk and Robot" series.
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