(courtesy Little Brown)
People have long debated whether it’s nature or nurture that shapes us and turns out into the human beings we grow to become; but what about robots? Can they ever really change?
After all, aren’t they simply programmed Os and 1s working in algorithmic succession according to an immutable pattern from which there can be no deviation?
Maybe but as everything from Terminator to I, Robot and countless other stories have ruminated, what if the power of innate humanity, of the veracity of life, was so strong that it could empower programming and reroute all those circuits to create something entirely new?
It’s a beguiling idea and one that Peter Brown explores in The Wild Robot, a novel technically pitched at American Middle School readers (11-13) but which has a warm and reassuring readability for people of all ages, especially those of us who needed to be reminded of how powerful connection, love and community can be, and hoe deeply and profoundly they can change just about everyone.
Including Roz aka ROZZUM unit 1734, who washes ashore on a remote forested island after she and 499 of her fellow crated robots fall off a container ship in a storm; as far as Roz is concerned, or her programming informs her, this is when and where she comes alive.
Before this, there is no life (defined in robot terms as the programming kicking into gear); however, rather than ending up in domestic service or working in a factory, Roz is alone on an island, surrounded by animals who, quite reasonably, see her as some kind of interloping monster.
Roz wandered the island, covered in dirt and green growing things, and everywhere she went, she heard unfriendly words. The words would have made most creatures quite sad, but as you know, robots don’t feel emotions, and in these moments that was probably for the best.
Roz isn’t offended by this so much as bewildered; she knows she’s a robot, and is no threat to anyone, and certainly has no plans to harm or eat her new neighbours, so why can’t the otters and bears and the beavers and everyone else see this?
Roz does her best to fit in, or at least hide herself, adapting her programming so that she fits into the natural world around her, as well as a white gleaming robot of some size can do.
It works to an extent since no one can see her but Roz is lonely and it’s only when she encounters a gosling in need of a mother – the exact how of this happening is arrestingly poignant and speaks to the inherent humanity in this beautiful book – that she truly begins to build connections with the animals that begin to see her, ever so slowly, as one of them, albeit a strange and highly unusual inhabitant of the forest.
What transpires then in The Wild Robot is something quite wonderfully good.
Roz is no longer a feared outsider but a force for good, and when a truly dark seasonal threat looks to decimate the island, it is Roz who comes to the rescue, proving once and for all, that she is good and helpful but that she can supplant her programming, or add to it more accurately, in the kindest and life-changing of ways.
(courtesy Hachette Book Group)
That is likely the most wondrously soul-reviving part of The Wild Robot.
It attacks head-on, in the most buoyantly thoughtful and caring of ways, the idea that just because you don’t understand something or someone that it or they must inherently be bad.
Actions, so goes the old adage, are stronger than words, and Roz proves this again and again, defying the idea the animals have at first that she is a monster and proving that she is a force for good and for life.
In a world all too apt to consign the Other to banished oblivion, The Wild Robot is a love letter to the idea that rather than pushing the unknown and the misunderstood away and mocking and abusing it that we should embrace it and get to know it because what wonders and joy might then be in store for you?
It’s a wholly lovely idea onto which The Wild Robot puts real muscle and truth, and while there is a heartwarming lyricality and whimsicalness to the story, what really cuts through is how powerful it can be when first impressions are cast aside and you really take the time to get to know someone or to understand them.
It can be revolutionary and it is for the animals of the island who not only come to know Roz better but who draw closer together too, and while there is tragedy and loss in The Wild Robot, there is also a hopeful sense of what could be if we just surrender to the beauty and truth of someone or something rather than clinging to tired, bigoted old ideas.
It was true. Brightbill had seen hundreds of different robots that winter. And none of them were anything like Roz. None of them had learned to speak with animals, or had saved an island from the cold, or had adopted a gosling. As he sat there, watching the robot’s animal gestures and listening to her animal sounds, Brightbill realized [sic] just how special his mother really was.
The messaging is clear in The Wild Robot (from climate change to accepting differences to embracing community in all its many and divergent forms) but beautifully and delightfully woven into its story which takes place over a richly transformative year in which Roz and the animals grow and the community on their small, precious island is changed forever.
But then the robot’s past comes rising up to meet her and we have to wonder if you can truly leave who you were destined to be behind you and stay the person you have become. Is the world ever really that kind or accommodating?
That question can only be answered by reading this wholly delightful novel, but suffice to say, for all the ups and down of the narrative, what really becomes clear is how much you can gain by simply taking things on face value and embracing them for who they are.
The animals end up doing just that, and the result is lives transformed, a community built and enriched and worlds turned right on their heads in the very best of ways, with The Wild Robot a warm hug of a book that might reassure the soul and bolster the heart but which knows life can be tough, challenging and its darker elements hard to prevail against, but that with the people you love around you and the capacity to change for the better that anything is possible.
Who knows then, in the most wondrous of ways, where you might end up?