“You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is… 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.”
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers
Summary
Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.
Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers’ series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
My Thoughts
This book is very much a cozy sci-fi book, and not very long either. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading, however. I picked this up based on recommendation from one of my favorite Booktubers, TheBookLeo, and it was an excellent read, in my opinion. Not too long, but philosophical enough that it got me really thinking. I personally have struggled to understand my own opinions on a lot of the topics this book touched upon, mainly: if we are going to die, if we are specks in an unforgiving universe, then how do we make our mark and be remembered? Does being remembered actually matter?
The world of Panga is very much a utopia, a world where Humanity left behind industrialization and moved onto being sustainable and spiritual, in harmony with nature. Our main character is a tea monk who travels from village to village and sets up little pop-up shops for people to stop at to drink their sorrows away with various teas and talk about their problems, like a mini therapy session. Then, our tea-monk is hit with an existential crisis and wanders into the woods, where he meets a robot, and the two spend the rest of the book wandering the woods and having deep, philosophical conversations. Chambers does a very good job of ensuring that the philosophy and discussions don’t get dense or textbook like; they feel like conversations actual people would have, and she also does a wonderful job of writing from the perspectives of two characters whose world is entirely unlike our own while still connecting to base emotions and questions all of us will have, regardless of whether we live in a futuristic utopia or not. The questions asked in this book are very much first world problems—people are not struggling for food, or to work, or live, which sounds amazing in the year 2025—but they are very much still worth pondering. Reading the book from the perspectives of our characters, I am filled with wonder at the world around me at times, suddenly appreciative of things I didn’t realize I had. One of my favorite quotes asks:
“Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”
You have to put aside the cynical thoughts to read this book, ignore the voice in your head that thinks that the world of Panga even existing is improbable, and focus on the characters and philosophy. It’s uplifting, and sweet, a cozy book to read by the fireplace to take your mind off of harder things and very much escapist. It’s not too long, so you don’t have to worry about committing weeks to this book, and it’s a must-read, in my opinion.
Review: ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫
Niharika Agrawal 
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