book reviews – Tolstoy Therapy

Summary and review: Galatea by Madeline Miller

Lucy Fuggle — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 15:16:39 +0000

Galatea

Although it’s quick enough to read in the bath before the water gets cold, Galatea is perfectly contained, defiantly powerful, and a short story you’ll want to immediately discuss with fellow booklovers.

URL: https://amzn.to/3OgvaAW

Author: Madeline Miller

Editor's Rating:
5

Book review of Galatea

As soon as I finished Galatea, which took less than an hour (even though I wanted to savour it), I walked to my husband’s side of the bed and placed it at the top of the stack of books on his bedside table. This happens often, and is just one of many non-verbal cues that you should really read this next.

In the last few years, I loved reading Circe and The Song of Achilles. Reading Galatea has felt like a Madeline Miller top-up: a welcome reminder of just how much I adore her stunning writing and how I really should re-read her novels.

Like Circe, Galatea is a story focused on transformation, or as Miller explains in the afterword, on “finding freedom for yourself in a word that denies it to you”. Also echoing Circe, and showing one of Miller’s greatest skills, it’s a story that reimagines a classic myth and gives a new, powerful, and defiantly feminist voice to a previously misunderstood character.

Here with Galatea, Miller exchanges the character’s traditional role as an obedient and subversive girl for a woman who’s trapped, controlled, abused, and desperate for freedom.

Despite the growing number of authors trying to replicate her success at reimagining Greek mythology, I find Miller’s gloriously powerful retellings of classic myths to be totally unique.

As is her trademark, Madeline Miller’s writing here is as sun-kissed and brutally striking as the Greek islands she writes about. I adore her themes of beautiful yet destructive nature and women with brooding hidden power.

Reading Galatea has made me even more excited to find out more about Persephone (here’s what we know about Madeline Miller’s next book).

Is Galatea worth reading?

If you’re looking for a beautifully-written retelling of a compelling Greek myth, I’d wholeheartedly recommend Galatea. If you’ve enjoyed Madeline Miller’s previous novels, Circe and The Song of Achilles, you should also absolutely read this story next. But it’s also the perfect book to read first by Madeline Miller.

Galatea is one of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time. Although it’s fast to read, it’s perfectly contained, breathtakingly powerful, and a piece of writing you’ll want to immediately discuss with fellow bookworms.

The gorgeous little hardcover of Galatea is also one of my favourite recommended stocking stuffers and small gifts for book lovers this year. It’s a tiny gem of a book that’s a beautiful addition to any bookshelf.

Synopsis of Galatea (no spoilers)

“Everyone looked at me, because I was the most beautiful woman in the town. I don’t say this to boast, because there is nothing in it to boast of. It was nothing I did myself.”
Madeline Miller, Galatea

First published in 2013, Galatea isn’t actually a new book by Madeline Miller. However, it’s just been published in November 2022 (and earlier this year outside the US) as a beautiful little hardcover that’s just 49 pages long plus a wonderful six-page afterword.

In this short story, Madeline Miller boldly reimagines the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion. As Miller explains in the story’s afterword, it’s a response, “almost solely”, to Ovid’s version of the Pygmalion myth in the Metamorphoses.

Galatea (“she who is milk-white”) is the most beautiful woman her town has ever seen, carved from stone by Pygmalion, a skilled marble sculptor, and blessed with the gift of life by a goddess.

In Ovid’s myth, Galatea does not speak at all and isn’t even given a name – she is only called the woman. She is an object of desire and nothing more. But here in Miller’s short story, she is a real woman with startling courage and a clear and confident voice. Fittingly, Pygmalion isn’t named and is referred to as her husband.

“The term ‘incel’ wasn’t in wide circulation when I wrote this, but Pygmalion is certainly a prototype”, writes Miller in the afterword of Galatea. He demands his wife’s meekness, devotion, beauty, and perfection, even as his own hair thins and belly fattens. He deems all other women to be sluts, expressing horror and disgust for their independence and shamelessness.

It’s a story that is sadly still all too relatable for many women, but, as Miller explains in the afterword, “that is the mark of a good source myth; it is water so wide it can reach across centuries.”

This is a man who desires women but hates them, finding that the only way he can live out his fantasies of purity and control are by carving a woman from stone – which, too, backfires in this story.

Pygmalion expects Galatea to please him with her youthful beauty and humble obedience, but in Madeline Miller’s retelling, Galatea has desires of her own. She yearns for independence – and knows she must break free to rescue her daughter, whatever the cost.

An in-depth summary of Galatea (spoilers!)

At the beginning of Galatea, we find the main character Galatea in bed and being tended to by nurses. They worry about how pale she is, but as Galatea responds, she’s always this colour: “Because I used to be made of stone.”

Although she longs to walk and leave her imprisonment, Galatea is made to lie down and avoid any sort of exertion by the nurses and doctors, who receive plenty of money from her husband. The reason he has this money, we learn, is because of Galatea.

It’s her husband who carved her from marble as his ideal of virginal beauty. He then dressed her in silks, draped her in flowers, brought her gifts, and prayed to the goddess every night. After all this care, the goddess blessed Galatea with the gift of life, eleven years ago now.

Strange and with a beauty that could only have come from the gods, her husband kept her hidden inside as much as he could. But word started to spread, and suddenly everyone wanted statues from him. He chisels maiden after maiden, knowing that they will not come to life because they are not worthy of the goddess’ gift, unlike Galatea.

When Galatea wonders why he didn’t just marry a girl from the town, he responds: “Those sluts […] I would not have them.” Galatea, above all, exists to fulfill his sexual fantasy and ideal of beauty and virtue.

When her husband visits her, they undergo a strange and rehearsed ritual in which Galatea pretends to be asleep (and fights the desire to feign a snore), and he exclaims that she must be made of stone, because how could a real woman be so beautiful.

She then wakes from the stone, and as Galatea explains bluntly, “that’s when I’m supposed to open my eyes like a dewy fawn, and see him poised over me like the sun, and make a little gasping noise of wonder and gratitude, and then he fucks me.”

During this one visit, after they have sex, Galatea finds out that he is working on a new statue – this one for himself, he says, of a ten-year-old girl. Galatea seems jealous (or more likely, unsettled and worried for this girl’s future, if it’s anything like her own). Her husband then notices the stretch marks on her stomach, asks how long they have been there, and calls them ugly, saying he would chisel them off if she were still made of stone.

We learn that Galatea and her husband have a ten-year-old daughter together, Paphos, who was conceived the first time they had sex. Galatea misses her daughter dearly, who is also beautiful and stone-pale. A tutor taught Paphos some lessons, and she passed these on to Galatea in secret, but her husband sends the tutor away after a fit of jealousy.

Galatea believes that she doesn’t think her husband expected her to be able to talk. When he wished her to live, he only thought of her beauty and body: “only warm so that he might fuck me”.

Now, her husband admonishes her growing lack of shame and meekness, physically abusing her and leaving her covered in bruises.

One day, with a little money found on the street, Galatea and Paphos set off for the countryside in secret, but they are too easily identifiable and found soon after. She knows she will have to be more devious to craft an escape route.

On another visit from her husband, Galatea tells him that she is pregnant, which he says is not possible because he leaves his seed on her stomach. But she puffs out her stomach and says that with the gods, anything is possible. The doctor gives Galatea tea to abort the pregnancy, she waits until he is gone, and then doubles over in pain and tells the nurses that they must fetch the doctor back.

As soon as the nurse leaves her, Galatea escapes and runs towards the town. At her house, she sees Paphos asleep and doesn’t want to frighten her. So she finds a pot of sand, spills a little on the floor, and spells out Paphos.

She then breaks into her husband’s studio and sees the new statue of the girl girl in the centre of the room, then goes to her husband’s bedroom. “Ah, my beauty is asleep”, she says, just as he would say to her before having sex with her. Then, she runs out the house and he rushes after her.

He follows her towards the sea, grabbing her in the water and expecting her to fight. But she doesn’t, and instead seizes him around the ribs and the weight pulls them both under. As she returns to her roots and uses the gift she was born with – heavy, heavy stone – we hear that, “He had no chance, really. He was only flesh.”

Before sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor, Galatea thinks of Paphos and her stone sister. Then, she imagines how the crabs will come for her husband, and she settles into the ocean floor and sleeps.

Does Galatea die at the end? At least in my interpretation, yes. Galatea sacrifices herself to kill her husband so that her daughter can be free and the new statue of a girl will not come to life and suffer.

What the critics say

Books like Galatea

For more books like Galatea, you can’t go wrong with Madeline Miller’s two bestselling novels, Circe and The Song of Achilles.

You might also like my list of the best books like Circe about nature and mythology.

12 magical books like Circe set in nature and rich in mythology

Persephone: what we know about Madeline Miller’s next book

Book excerpt of Galatea

Read the first pages of Galatea, or see the book on Amazon.

The post Summary and review: Galatea by Madeline Miller appeared first on Tolstoy Therapy.

Summary and review: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Lucy Fuggle — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 12:53:20 +0000

Book Review | Synopsis | Similar Books | Excerpt | Buy It

A Psalm for the Wild-Built

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a true balm for the soul, as comforting and wholesome as any of the personalized tea blends imagined and served with love by Dex, the story’s main character.

URL: https://amzn.to/3giY0En

Author: Becky Chambers

Editor's Rating:
4.5

“Old people, young people. Everybody needed a cup of tea sometimes. Just an hour or two to sit and do something nice, and then they could get back to whatever it was.”
A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Book review of A Psalm for the Wild-Built

This book opens with a dedication to anyone who could do with a break. Dang, does this book deliver.

The first book in Becky Chamber’s Monk and Robot series, A Psalm for the Wild-Built is one of the most popular books at the forefront of hopepunk, a genre of optimistic and utopian sci-fi that’s grounded in human kindness, sustainability, and care for nature.

The result is a true balm for the soul, as comforting and wholesome as any of the personalized tea blends conjured and served with love by Dex, a tea monk at the centre of this story.

At the heart of the book are these questions: What do humans really want? What does a meaningful life look like? And what about meaningful work?

In this heartwarming story, we enter a utopian future years after the end of the Factory Age, when robots put down their tools and gave up their roles as human servants to disappear into the untouched wilderness. That’s where they’ve remained, far from human life… until a robot suddenly turns up at a tea monk’s door.

This book got me thinking more about my work and how I live than most other books I’ve read in the last year, which, considering how much I read, is saying something.

Is A Psalm for the Wild-Built worth a read?

There’s something so therapeutic about Becky Chambers’ writing. As well as anyone who wants a break, A Psalm for the Wild-Built is the perfect book for anyone feeling lost, directionless, or in need of a big change in life. It’s also full of slice-of-life vibes, if you love that in your reading material.

Synopsis of A Psalm for the Wild-Built

“If we want change, or good fortune, or solace, we have to create it for ourselves.”
A Psalm for the Wild-Built

In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, we enter a utopian future years after the end of the Factory Age, when robots put down their tools and gave up their roles as human servants to disappear into the untouched wilderness. That’s where they’ve remained, far from human life.

In Panga’s main city, we meet Sibling Dex: a non-binary twenty-nine-year-old gardener who has no idea what they want to do with their life. But they do know one thing for sure, that despite the beauty and livability of a metropolis, “sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city”.

And so Sibling Dex leaves their job to become a tea monk, skipping the usual apprenticeship route and opting to learn everything themselves. After a rocky start, Sibling Dex is adored by their customers. Dex listens to their problems, and then serves the perfect cup of tea.

Despite becoming perhaps the best tea monk in Panga, Sibling Dex still feels that this isn’t it. There’s something missing in life. They yearn for wildness and the sound of crickets. And so they cycle their wagon further into the wilderness than definitely advised and take in the freedom and beauty of their new surroundings.

That is, until they’re interrupted by a robot, Mosscap, who has left the wilderness to ask one simple question. What do humans want?It turns out that this is actually an incredibly difficult question, and Dex feels like they absolutely cannot answer it.

What follows is a heartwarming and soul-searching journey of adventure deep into the wild to reach an abandoned hermitage. It’s here that Dex and Mosscap find a deeper bond than they could have imagined, learning more about each other, themselves, and what really leads to a meaningful life than ever would have been possible alone.

An in-depth summary of A Psalm for the Wild-Built (spoilers!)

Foreword

The foreword of A Psalm for the Wild-Built throws you into the world of Becky Chamber’s Monk and Robot series with an extract from a fictional work by a fictional Brother Gil, called From the Brink: A Spiritual Retrospective on the Factory Age and the Early Transition Era.

The main gist of the foreword is that it introduces us to the different spiritual worldviews in this universe, focused here on the question of what godly domain robot consciousness belongs to.

There are many unfamiliar terms here (Ecologians, Cosmites, Charismists) and it can be a little hard to follow. But this is just for three pages! You don’t need to take in and remember everything.

The main things we learn: the robots left the factories and departed for the wilderness during a time called the Awakening, robots declined the invitation to join human society as free citizens, and the Factory Age hasn’t been remembered fondly,

We read a quote from the robot’s chosen speaker, Floor-AB #921: “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.”

Chapter 1: A Change in Vocation

“Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city”, begins Chapter 1. Hear, hear.

We’re introduced to the main character, Sibling Dex. Dex has spent their entire adult life in a city: Panga’s only City, which they describe as a good city. It’s described as beautifully lush and well-designed:

“The City was a healthy place, a thriving place. A never-ending harmony of making, doing, growing, trying, laughing, running, living.”

However, Sibling Dex is tired of it. (Note that Dex is referred to as they/them throughout the entire book.) Dex wants to inhabit a place “that spread not up but out“. In particular, they yearn for cricket song, which they’ve never heard but now notice its absence everywhere.

Dex walks to the Keeper’s Office of Meadow Den, where they’ve lived for nine years and worked as a gardener, to share that they’re changing their vocation to a tea monk, going to the villages to do tea service. They explain that they don’t want to do an apprenticeship or formal study, but rather figure it out themselves as they go.

Dex packs a bag with clothes, sundries, and a small crate with seeds and cuttings, and walks out of Meadow Den towards a wagon that’s waiting for them near the City’s edge. This wagon is Dex’s new home-on-a bike, and it contains freshwater and greywater tanks, a pop-out kitchen and camp shower, and a bed on a second deck.

The exterior is decorated with a mural of the Sacred Six’s symbols, alongside “a paraphrased snippet from the Insights”, which we’re told any Pangan would understand: Find the strength to do both.

We then learn what a tea monk does: people come up to their wagon with their problems and leave with a freshly-brewed cup of tea, personalized to their exact needs and worries at that moment.

As a baby step before diving in, Dex sets up their first service in the Sparks, an edge district of the City. They set up a folding table, an assortment of mugs, and a colossal electric kettle.

The set-up looks a bit plain, and Dex knows that it’s not quite like the tea parlor at home, with fragrant herbs and twinkling solar-powered lanterns. Hours later, their first customer arrives and Dex scrambles to remember the advice they’ve read about being a tea monk, bumbling through this first tea service. When the customer leaves, they seem disappointed.

Dex knows they could give up now and head back to Meadow Den, but how very stupid they’d look. As they set off on their wagon to the next village, they consider heading down the road to Haydale, where their family lives and everything would be familiar. But now lost and still figuring things out at the age of twenty-nine, how very stupid they’d look there, too.

Dex ignores the road to Haydale and instead steers their wagon towards the next village, Little Creek. Dex heads to the busy marketplace until they find a booth stuffed with seedlings of herbs and buys one of each. They ask the herb farmer for advice on where to buy kitchen and garden supplies, and then find a clearing to park their wagon.

For three months, this is where Dex stays, acquiring more plants and turning the lower deck of their wagon into a laboratory full of planters, sunlamps, and tea blend experiments.

Dex shares that “they frequently asked themself what it was they were doing. They never truly got a handle on that. They kept doing it all the same.”

Chapter 2: The Best Tea Monk in Panga

There’s been a two-year jump, and Sibling Dex now knows the quiet highways between Panga’s villages like the back of their hand. During this time, Dex has learned a huge amount about their trade and infuses each service with more love and creativity. One of their customers joyfully calls her the best tea monk in Panga.

Dex realises they are about as successful as could be, but they still feel like something is missing. They wake up feeling like they haven’t slept and can’t understand why. They should feel happy and healthy. Why isn’t it enough? What’s wrong with me? Dex wonders.

There is one thing they can pinpoint that’s missing… the sound of crickets. They look them up one day, and learn that crickets are extinct in most of Panga. However, they find some old recordings from a hermitage in Hart’s Brow, a place they’re vaguely familiar with. Dex wonders if the crickets are still there… and if they could go and find out.

Dex knows this is a stupid idea, but it keeps niggling at them, despite the warnings from their computer that the area is outside of human settlement areas and in protected wilderness. Travel is strongly discouraged because of unpredictable wildlife and dangerous road and environmental conditions.

And yet, as Dex cycles towards Hammerstrike for their scheduled tea service, they realise how familiar and repetitive everything will be when they get there. The wilderness, on the other hand, would be quiet and isolated, with the wagon offering everything they needed…

Dex sends a message to Hammerstrike letting them know that they won’t be there. Then they turn the wagon around and head for a new road. They have no idea what they’re doing, but they can barely contain their nervous excitement.

Along the way, the road becomes trickier to navigate. As evening falls, they find a perfect campsite and set up for the evening, preparing a delicious dinner of vegetables and beans and heading for the shower while it simmers.

As they finish their shower and reach for their towel, they can’t find the towel but encounter something that really shouldn’t be there: a seven-foot-tall, metal-plated, boxy-headed robot striding briskly out of the woods.

Terrified and naked, Dex freezes as the robot greets them. “My name is Mosscap”, it shares, “What do you need, and how might I help?”

Chapter 3: Splendid Speckled Mosscap

Dex tries to process the robot standing in front of them long enough for the robot to ask if it’s done something wrong. But soon enough, Dex and Mosscap (short for Splendid Speckled Mosscap) begin to communicate and get to know one another.

Dex eventually learns why Mosscap has exited the wilderness after so long: to check in and see how humans are doing.

“We know our leaving the factories was a great inconvenience to you, and we wanted to make sure you’d done all right. That society had progressed in a positive direction without us.”

Planning to travel from town to town, Mosscap wants to answer this question: “What do humans need?”

Dex explains that they are a very bad choice of person to help them with this. They have no idea what the answer is, and explain that it changes from person to person and minute to minute.

Dex explains that they’re also busy and can’t help Mosscap with this; instead, they want to head further into the wilderness to reach the hermitage. Mosscap discourages them when he hears this, explaining that the wilderness is very different from the highways and that it’s dangerous for a human.

Eventually, Mosscap offers to accompany Dex to the hermitage, getting them there safely and finding out more about human customers on the way. Although Dex maintains that they’re a terrible person to teach Mosscap this, they start to mull it over… and then come face-to-face with a large bramble bear.

They freeze, escape into the wagon, and the bear leaves after sniffing around a bit. More than ever, Dex knows they are definitely not in the City anymore.

Chapter 4: An Object, And an Animal

They set off the next morning, Dex huffing and puffing as they cycle the wagon up the miserably steep old road. Mosscap walks alongside the wagon and offers to help, but Dex quickly disagrees: after the Factory Age, they absolutely do not want to make robots do their work for them again.

Talking as they make their way, Dex learns more about the robots. Mosscap explains that they are not networked or connected via their hardware, and maintain their own individual thoughts. They have no need for food, rest, or shelter, so settlements serve them no purpose.

What the robots do have are meeting places, including glades and mountaintops, where they meet every two hundred days and then go on their way again. Some are single-minded and are content to watch a sapling grow from seed, while others prefer to travel in groups. Mosscap also explains that they leave messages in caches, or weatherproof boxes, which they can sense the presence of.

At a large gathering, the robots decided to go and see what the humans were up to, and Mosscap was the first to volunteer for this.

Dex says that Mosscap is nothing like they expected, which Mosscap is slightly offended by. They explain: “I am made of metal and numbers; you are made of water and genes. But we are each something more than that.”

As their conversation develops, Mosscap emphasises that there’s plenty of variation between humans and other creatures, and just as much variation between robots.

Chapter 5: Remnants

The crumbling road is starting to take its toll on Dex’s wagon, and at the start of this chapter we find them patching up the water tank with tape. They manage a temporary fix, but they’ve lost a lot of water and will need to refill it somehow.

Mosscap remembers there’s a creek not far away, which seems like the best solution. However, Dex insists on carrying the water tank instead of Mosscap… although it turns out that they can’t.

Mosscap argues: “If you had a friend who was taller than you, and you couldn’t reach something, would you let that friend help?” Dex says that they would, but adds that this is different because their friends aren’t robots.

“So, you see me as more person than object, even though that’s very, very wrong, but you can’t see me as a friend, even though I’d like to be?” replies Mosscap, adding: “if you don’t want to infringe upon my agency, let me have agency. I want to carry the tank.”

So Mosscap carries the tank, Dex cautiously following behind as they leave the trail and have to step on the wildlife below: something which Dex has been brought up to think is absolutely not okay.

However, Mosscap explains that sometimes damage is unavoidable. Dex isn’t making a habit of destroying nature, just heading off on one short walk. They continue, Dex realising that walking through uncut wilderness is difficult.

Taking careful steps, they finally reach the creek and refill the tank, although they can’t help but feel uneasy at the bugs and algae floating in the water. They know that this is where water comes from, but it just seems so… natural.

Mosscap asks Dex to leave the tank and follow them, and they soon reach an abandoned beverage bottling plant that is now in a state of ruin. Dex had never stood inside a factory. Mosscap feels unsettled, recalling a “remnant”, a feeling from a past life (or a past combination of parts), that they don’t like it there.

Mosscap explains that they never actually worked in a factory all that time ago, but that they’re “wild-built”. Their components are from factory robots, but these broke down long ago and had their parts harvested and reworked into new individuals. When they broke down, their parts were again harvested, refurbished, and used to build new individuals. Mosscap is part of the fifth build.

Dex wonders why they don’t just fix the parts rather than create new combinations, but Mosscap explains that the robots decided that immortality wasn’t desirable: “nothing else in the world behaves that way. Everything else breaks down and is made into other things.”

Dex shares that they find it pretty in the factory, despite the ruins; spiders weaving webs and vines stretching slowly between walls. Mosscap sums it up beautifully: “I think there’s something beautiful about being lucky enough to witness a thing on its way out.”

Chapter 6: Grass Hen with Wilted Greens and Caramelized Onion

Mosscap continues to ask Dex countless questions about human customs and watches everything they do with rapt attention (in a rather irritating way). Mosscap helps Dex with cooking, but when they ask Mosscap to pick some wild mountain thyme, they hesitate: “I’ve never harvested a living thing for food before.”

Dex does it instead. When they sit down to eat, they realise how uncomfortable they are that Mosscap isn’t eating too… even though Mosscap is incapable of eating. Dex solves this problem by giving Mosscap a plate with half their food and asking “are you going to eat that?” once they finish their own.

This makes Dex feel much better, and they explain this human custom of eating together and sharing food.

Chapter 7: The Wild

This chapter starts with the observation that “It’s difficult for anyone born and raised in human infrastructure to truly internalize the fact that your view of the world is backward.”

Even if we know that we live in a natural world that existed before us and will continue long after, we still struggle to realise that nature is the default, not human civilization.

Dex and Mosscap reach what appears to be the end of the road, with only wilderness ahead. The wagon couldn’t possibly navigate it. Dex is disappointed and angry at the feeling that they can’t go any further.

Mosscap apologises, but Dex starts packing a backpack with essentials. Once again, Mosscap explains that they shouldn’t do this: it’s too dangerous and unpredictable. But Dex retorts that Mosscap doesn’t even need to come with them; they were going to part ways after the hermitage anyway.

When Mosscap realises that Dex is going, they agree to accompany them further. The way is hard going, and although Dex thought themselves in good shape, their muscles object. Their palms and forearms are soon scraped and bloody, but Dex doesn’t care.

When it begins to rain, Mosscap suggests they find shelter, but Dex perseveres. “Why are you here, Sibling Dex” asks Mosscap. “Did something happen to you?” “Did someone drive you away?”

Dex objects to all of these questions, but it gets to them just as they lose their grip and fall, only to be caught and comforted by Mosscap. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know” cries Dex.

As the rain falls harder, Dex lets the robot help them up and guide them to a cave for the night. Inside, Dex ponders that children’s stories had lied about caves… they’re not cozy and adventurous nooks, but rather full of bad smells and animal bones and are incredibly uncomfortable.

However, Dex peels off their wet clothes, lays them flat to dry, and rests, talking to Mosscap. They ponder again why they can be unsatisfied when they have so much in life:

“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.”

As they explain, the world they live in is nothing like the world that Mosscap’s ancestors lived in. Although it’s not perfect, they’ve fixed so much and it’s a good world, a beautiful world in which they’ve struck a good balance.

And yet despite switching their vocation and working really hard to be extremely good at something, it still feels like something’s missing. Dex explains how they tried talking to friends, family, and doctors, but no one got it. So they just stopped talking about it.

They read books, went to places that used to inspire them, listened to music, and looked after their body, and it still wasn’t enough.

“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?” asks Dex.

They explain that the crazy idea of heading on a new road towards the wilderness was the first idea in forever that made them feel excited and awake. Mosscap understands: “You followed a road you hadn’t seen.”

Mosscap shrugs helplessly, then answers, “How am I supposed to answer the question of what humans need if I can’t even determine what one human needs?” But Dex is adamant that it’s not on them, adding that Mosscap just needs to get down to the villages and find better people to speak to.

Dex resolves to keep going, then they’ll figure out what to do afterwards. Before bed, the human and robot hold hands, the lights on Mosscaps fingertips making Dex’s skin glow red.

Chapter 8: The Summer Bear

Upon waking and leaving the cave, the world looks new and magnificent after the rain. Mosscap tells Dex that the hermitage is only a few hours away, and asks whether they still want to finish this. Dex does.

They find a human-made path, which Dex welcomes with profound gratitude after the underfoot conditions of the last day and a half. “Oh my”, says Mosscap when they see the hermitage ahead of them.

It was clearly a beautiful building once, though now in a state of decay. Dex imagines what it would have looked like once, and they wander the courtyard and rooms, uncovering relics of past humans who stayed there: cozy living spaces, beds, bathrooms, linens, and incense burners.

Dex remembers a monastery they visited as a kid where they met a cool tea monk with tattoos all over her arms and wearing plants as brooches and earrings: “She talked to me about what flavors I liked, and she busted out all the pots and jars and spice bottles, like we do, and gods, it was magic.”

In this world, tea means rest, rebalancing, and therapy:

“Old people, young people. Everybody needed a cup of tea sometimes. Just an hour or two to sit and do something nice, and then they could get back to whatever it was.”

Mosscap remembers the quote on the side of the wagon: “Find the strength to do both”. Dex explains that at this shrine they learned:

“a cup of tea may not be the most important thing in the world–or a steam bath, or a pretty garden. They’re so superfluous in the grand scheme of things. But the people who did actually important work–building, feeding, teaching, healing–they all came to the shrine. It was the little nudge that helped important things get done.”

This is what Dex wanted to do in their own work, too. But if this doesn’t feel like enough, what is?

Mosscap explains that while Dex’s religion puts a lot of emphasis on purpose and contribution, this doesn’t have to be everything. Consciousness alone can be exhilarating. And it can be okay to be utterly meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Dex is suddenly very tired, and folds their jacket into a pillow and falls asleep. When they awake with a start, the air smells of smoke. They find Mosscap by the fire pit, which is roaring with flames. Mosscap had learned how to make a fire from the monastery library (the first book they have ever read) and is now boiling water for tea.

Dex sits, cross-legged, and Mosscap does the same. Dex shares their problems and Mosscap listens.

“‘I’m tired,’ Dex said softly. My work doesn’t satisfy me like it used to, and I don’t know why. I was so sick of it that I did a stupid, dangerous thing, and now that I’ve done it, I don’t know what to do next. […] I’m scared, and I’m lost, and I don’t know what to do.”

Mosscap pours Dex a cup of mountain thyme tea, and while it’s disgusting, it’s still the nicest cup of tea they’ve ever had. Dex talks about the other communities and villages that they’re excited for Mosscap to meet, and suggests that they’ll join the robot on their way. Mosscap’s gaze flows brighter and brighter.

Then, Dex asks for another cup of tea as the sun sets and the crickets begin to sing in the wilds outside.

Books like A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Although there’s sure to be a flurry of Becky Chambers-inspired writers in the next few years, no one really writes quite like she does.

For more books like A Psalm for the Wild-Built, you can’t go wrong with other books by Becky Chambers. The sequel, A Prayer for the Crown Shy, was published in 2022 and is perfect to read next.

You can also escape into Becky Chamber’s Wayfarers series, beginning with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

Book excerpt

Read the first pages of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, or see the book on Amazon.

The post Summary and review: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers appeared first on Tolstoy Therapy.

Summary and Review: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

Lucy Fuggle — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 20:21:14 +0000

The Island of Missing Trees

Set between Cyprus and London, The Island of Missing Trees is a gorgeously woven, deeply emotional book about love, loss, heritage, nature, and belonging.

URL: https://amzn.to/3O1VrD7

Author: Elif Shafak

Editor's Rating:
5

Synopsis

“…if it’s love you’re after, or love you have lost, come to the fig, always the fig.”
Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees

It’s 1974 on the island of Cyprus, and two teenagers from opposite sides of a divided land meet at a taverna in the city they call home.

Hidden in a back room amongst garlands of garlic, chili peppers, and fragrant fresh herbs, Kostas and Defne fall deeply in love with each other, even though this is completely forbidden by their feuding families, neighbours, and cultures.

In the centre of the taverna, growing towards the light in a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree that witnesses everything. First, the couple’s hushed, happy meetings and eventually, their silent, surreptitious departures.

The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish.

Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born. But as she seeks to detangle years of secrets, she does have one connection to the land of her ancestors: a Ficus Carica which is lovingly tended to in the back garden of their home.

Book review

Set between Cyprus and London, The Island of Missing Trees is a gorgeously woven, deeply emotional book about love, loss, heritage, nature, and belonging.

This was my first book by Elif Shafak, and I adored it. Although I found it a little slow to get started (especially the London chapters), once more of the backstory in Cyprus evolved, I wanted to soak in the novel’s beauty and elegance for as long as I could.

Also, this must be the first book I’ve ever read that features the perspective of a fig tree. It’s just so delicately and thoughtfully crafted.

Worth a read?

If you’re looking for a beautifully-written book that offers an emotional love story and an ode to nature while teaching you some history, I’d wholeheartedly recommend The Island of Missing Trees.

If you love books about trees, you should pick it up even faster.

What the critics say

Similar books to The Island of Missing Trees

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières is a similar book about war, separation, forbidden love, and the history and beauty of the Mediterranean.

Also, like The Overstory by Richard Powers, this book makes it difficult to look at the trees around you in the same way.

For more books like The Island of Missing Trees, you might also like my lists of books about trees, beautifully written books, and books to remind you of the beauty of life.

Book excerpt

Read the first pages of The Island of Missing Trees. Or, see the book on Amazon.

The post Summary and Review: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak appeared first on Tolstoy Therapy.