To Be Taught, If Fortunate is an English language science fiction novella, in the hopepunk subgenre, by American author Becky Chambers, who also wrote the Wayfarers science fiction novel series, which won the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2019. In 2020, To Be Taught, If Fortunate was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella.
The title refers to Kurt Josef Waldheim's voice recording on the Voyager Golden Records, which were launched aboard the spacecrafts Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977, as a "message in a bottle" to any spacefaring races which might discover them in the distant future.
We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate.
This quote effectively captures the optimism and open-minded philosophy of the novella's narrator, Ariadne O'Neill, her three crewmates Elena Quesada-Cruz, Jack Vo, and Chikondi Daka, and - if her other works are to be taken as any indication - the author herself.
To Be Taught, If Fortunate follows the four scientists aboard the exploratory spacecraft Merian as they visit four worlds believed to contain complex forms of life, each given a name in Latin: Aecor ("the surface of the sea"), Mirabilis ("astonishing"), Opera ("work" or "service"), and Votum ("promise," "dedication," or "vow"). The technology in this story is advanced far enough that the crew are able to manipulate their bodies to survive extreme planetary environments, such as high radiation or extreme cold, through stick-on skin patches which administer gene therapy to transform "baseline" humans into something new. Each of the four worlds differs drastically both from Earth and from the other worlds, in climate, landscape, life forms, and the emotional conditions it elicits in the crew. Regarding the life depicted on these worlds, Chambers has the kind of talent for writing xenobiology that puts her in the same class as Sue Burke, author of Semiosis, and I certainly recommend Chambers' works to anyone who enjoyed Burke's.
Regarding the emotional life of the four characters, this novella demonstrates Chambers' psychological writing chops, inciting the reader to empathise deeply with the protagonist's fear, depression, isolation, deteriorating sense of purpose, and second-guessing of her own judgment. The crew of Merian receive periodic news updates from Earth, sometimes with years, decades, or generations of time elapsed on Earth between each update, while the crew are in hibernation during transit between the four mission worlds. The characters explore their own grief at the certainty they will outlive everyone they knew back on Earth, and in fact that their mission will persist long enough that they even outlive their individual home countries and cultures of origin, due to climate change and rising sea levels. Conditions on Earth progressively worsen, and updates come less and less frequently, until they cease altogether, leaving the crew to decide if their mission should be continued after their visit to Votum, and how, or if they should attempt to return to an Earth which may no longer be hospitable to human life. The crew's experiences on each of the mission worlds become sensory metaphors for their exploratory spirit, their optimistic sense of wonder, their perseverance through profound grief, and their ultimate dedication to the cause which they have given their literal entire lives for.
There is so much to love in this book, but what gripped me the most profoundly is how fully and earnestly these four people love each other, and how many rich nuances of love are demonstrated in the plot, centered on this "found family" or "family of choice," and the home which they have created among themselves and within their ship. The complex ways the nature of their home and family evolve, as they move between worlds and face the new challenges and delights each world has to offer, grant a second layer of emotional metaphor to the plot: they have the sense of a somewhat nuclear family going through the stages of a life together, beginning with a kind of courtship and early infatuation or "honeymoon period," then a sense of stability and marital bliss, then struggles with loss and mid-life crises, and finally a "renewal of vows" as the crew redefines their sense of purpose together in a universe where "mother" Earth has gone silent - which itself could be seen as a metaphor for outliving one's parents.
This is a brief work, but unlike many novellas I have enjoyed, it does not feel too short, and instead feels for me like it contains exactly and only what it needs to contain, to convey its entire message and grant the reader an experience which makes that message wholly felt. It acts as a splendid jumping-off point for Chambers' other works, despite not sharing a setting with them, and it is a consummate work of hopepunk, for those interested in sampling what the subgenre has to offer. Having reread it a few times, I have found that there is significant "replay value" to be found here, mainly in appreciating the symbolism and psychological depth, some of which might be missed in a first reading, out of the reader's eagerness to know what happens next, rather than what it all means.
For a novella with a similar starting conceit and quasi-opposite philosophy, to enjoy as a contrast from this work, I recommend Providence by Max Barry.
For a film with similar emotional pathos and narrative features, I recommend Interstellar (2014).
Iron Noder 2020, 15/30