38 pages • 1 hour read
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
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Themes
The Search for Meaning
Chambers explores finding purpose through Dex’s struggles with their identity and profession. An indefinable restlessness pushes Dex to leave their life of comfort and safety as a garden monk of Allalae in the monastery in Panga’s city, and to pursue a vocational change. Dex determinedly tells Sister Mara, the monastery’s keeper, that becoming a self-trained tea monk “is just something I need to do” (8). They are following an instinctual pull toward change. Dex believes that by pursuing their new calling, and by deriving purpose and focus from it, that they will find the peace and satisfaction which is alluding them.
Chambers shows the difference between learning something in theory versus doing it in practice. A period of struggle ensues where Dex learns on the job and feels like they are “drowning.” Dex has studied extensively, but finds themself “on the wrong side of the vast gulf between having read about doing a thing and doing the thing” (14). Dex’s purpose becomes devoted to mastering their new vocation, trying different combinations of herbs, flowers, and spices to create custom-made teas, and honing the art of comforting, listening, and offering advice. For a time, this provides a clear purpose. However, Dex is dismayed to discover, after they become “the best tea monk in Panga,” that their feeling of restlessness is still present (36).
Dex pursues an inexplicable call to the wild, to journey to the abandoned hermitage in the Antler Mountain Range. They want to hear cricket song; crickets are extinct in most parts of human-settled Panga. This purpose propels them toward a chance meeting with Mosscap, who accompanies them toward the hermitage. During the journey, Dex finally articulates their feelings of restlessness and dissatisfaction to the bemused Mosscap.
Mosscap provides an entirely different perspective on life. The robot redefines Dex’s notions of purpose, and helps them to see that simply being is enough. Mosscap stands in contrast to the capitalist idea that we need to be productive in order to have meaning. It points out that, like animals, robots simply exist in the wild. Their level of consciousness allows them an additional layer of appreciation for their surroundings. This appreciation is enough; there is no further purpose required. Mosscap argues that “you are allowed to just live”—a greater purpose is not needed to justify living (139). To Mosscap, doing meaningful work is just as “fine and good” as crawling into a cave and watching stalagmites grow (139). The novel closes with the two friends quietly sitting and listening to the crickets, while looking over the incredible scenery of the wild forest of the Antler mountains. This ending is hopeful and peaceful. It implies that Dex, through their journey to the hermitage and their friendship with Mosscap, has found a measure of satisfaction and inner quiet. They accept that it is enough to simply be.
Freedom and Adventure
Chambers explores freedom and adventure through Dex’s pull toward the wild. Although they feel safe, loved, and relatively fulfilled in their life as a garden monk and then as a tea monk of Allalae, Dex wants to hear crickets in the wild. Crickets symbolize spaces untouched by humans, as they are extinct in most of human-occupied Panga. Dex respects Panga’s principles of harm minimization and therefore avoidance of the wild. However, they are drawn to follow the pre-Transition road toward the Antler ranges, and excited to see untouched forest and to go on an uncharted journey. Their excitement and exhilaration are characterized in their reflections as they leave the modern road to follow their heart toward the hermitage—“nobody in the world knows where I am right now, they thought, and the notion of that filled them with bubbling excitement” (47).
Dex is validated by Mosscap, who appreciates Dex’s draw toward freedom and adventure: “‘I’ve been so desperate for that feeling, so desperate to just enjoy the world again, that I …’ ‘You followed a road you hadn’t seen,’ Mosscap said” (120). Mosscap’s correct completion of Dex’s explanation conveys the robot’s understanding of Dex’s desire to explore unseen spaces and the growing bond between the two.
The striking beauty of nature also validates Dex’s pull toward exploration. Walking through wild forest for the first time with Mosscap, Dex reflects that it is “stunning.” Dex and Mosscap’s joint appreciation of the beautiful and dilapidated hermitage in the mountainous forests echoes Mosscap’s reflections on the nature of purpose— “it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it” (139). The peaceful conclusion of the novel, with its singing crickets and setting sun, suggests that Dex is able to find peace in nature and in simply being.
Chambers also explores the concept of individual freedom through the robots’ awakening. She presents an ideal model of how to treat others: Panga, instead of forcing the robots to continue working in the factories, allow them to leave populated areas and exist independently. Dex is ashamed of Panga’s history pre-Transition, where robots were subjugated and industrialization wreaked havoc. Dex tells Mosscap, “you’re not supposed to do my work for me” (83). Their shame about Panga’s past is also demonstrated by their body language: “Dex looked awkwardly at the ground, ashamed of a past they’d never seen” (83). Eventually, Dex and Mosscap agree that Mosscap should be allowed to help its friend if it chooses to—“if you don’t want to infringe on my agency, let me have agency. I want to carry the tank” (83). For Mosscap, freedom is being allowed to help its friend, Dex, and Dex must accept this, despite the uncomfortable associations they feel with Panga’s historical mistakes.
The Importance of Ecological Sustainability
Sustainability and harm minimization to the natural world underpins all of the structures and settlements in post-Transition Panga. The woodland village of Inkthorn epitomizes ecological sustainability. Nature is seen as almost sentient, something to be treated with respect. Most of the village is suspended in trees so as not to disrupt the verdant life on the forest floor—“a forest floor, the Woodland Villages knew, is a living thing” (26). The village builders and architects want to avoid felling living trees. Aerial homes are “roofed with either blooming turf or solar panels or both,” demonstrating the village’s desire to sustainably produce power, as well as to extend, rather than destroy, natural spaces (20). The imagery of present-day Panga, epitomized by the village of Inkthorn, is hopeful, warm, and appealing.
Even Panga’s populated city is designed to incorporate natural elements, as seen by the vine-covered buildings. Space is intentionally molded to encourage the growth of plants—“leaves […] spilled lushly from every balcony and center divider” (5). Sustainable power is derived from air turbines, and urban sprawl is minimized by border walls.
Dex’s wagon is also environmentally friendly. The wagon is powered via bicycle, negating the need for fuel or power, and installed with a filtration system to recycle water. It epitomizes the thoughtful construction of structures which minimize environmental impact, and is characterized as a warm and cozy space with a decorative mural, “a playful arrangement of round windows,” and a “warm blush of reclaimed cedar” (11). Inside, “the sheets were creamy, the pillows plentiful, the blankets heavy as a hug” (11). In other words, the wagon’s preoccupation with sustainability doesn’t negate luxury or comfort.
Wild spaces in between settlements are carefully safeguarded through enshrined societal rules. This is illustrated by Dex’s reluctance to step off the road with Mosscap: “I can’t walk off the trail. I shouldn’t” (84). Dex emphasizes “I” (as illustrated by the italics) to draw attention to the fact that Mosscap exists under a different set of rules. As articulated during the Transition, robots were given access to wild places, whereas humans began to intentionally move their society away from needless destruction and toward conservation. Dex has been taught that “everybody thinks they’re the exception to the rule, and that’s exactly where the trouble starts. One person can do a lot of damage” (85). Personal accountability is a cornerstone of Pangan society’s desire to create a sustainable space.
Chambers subtly critiques our own modern urbanization of Earth. Panga functions as a utopian society where respect for nature and sustainability are valued, a model which many, including Chambers, believe should be instituted on Earth. The similarity of pre-Transition, or “Factory Age,” Panga to Earth is established when Dex travels on pre-Transition, asphalt roads—“the road itself was a relic, paved in black asphalt—an oil road, made for oil motors and oil tires and oil fabric and oil frames” (45). A world reliant on oil (as Earth currently is) is for Panga a thing of antiquity; oil-reliance is characterized as wasteful, excessive, and unwise. Pre-Transition Panga is also conjured in the ruins of the canning factory—“hulking towers of boxes, bolts, and tubes” (90). This “[b]rutal imagery contrasts sharply with the carefully crafted wooden wagons and homes of modern Panga. Chambers encourages readers to feel that growth toward sustainability is a path that modern-day humans can and should embark on, that we should safeguard the natural resources that are being destroyed through urbanization, mass industrialization, and pollution.
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