To Be Taught, if Fortunate
Author: Becky Chambers
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: September 2019
Date of Review: January 2020
Faced with the possibility that her home planet may have forgotten her and her crewmates, Ariadne O’Neill begins to chronicle her extraordinary journey to the planets of a distant sun, in the hopes that someone may still be listening. We all should.
Spaceflight has always been theoretically restricted by our bodies as much as by our technology. We’re designed for one type of atmosphere, one gravity, and one distance from one particular sun. At the beginning of the twenty-second century, these limitations no longer apply. A technique known as somaforming allows astronauts to survive in non-Earth environments using biological supplementations, and extended hibernation allows humans to dramatically slow their aging process during the long journeys to distant stars. Ariadne and her three crewmates aboard the spaceship the Merian are part of a mission to survey exoplanets suspected of harboring life. For them, potentially habitable worlds aren’t just lights in the night sky but the next waypoints on the expanding frontier of human experience. But their journey separates the crew irreparably from home.
It is improbable that To Be Taught, if Fortunate works as a novella. The title is far from catchy, and the basic plot of astronauts visiting distant planets is hardly groundbreaking. And that plot is tremendously freighted with emotional density that might seem better suited to a full-length novel. There are four characters and four planets - each in turn yielding lessons about the limits and exultation of understanding, about the futility of isolation and the vitality of purpose, and about how purpose is born of understanding your existence in greater context. This novella uses the fundamentally alien to root a fundamentally human sense of place and purpose.
Yes, there is a lot in this novella, but it works. And that’s partly because of what Chambers leaves out. Years of exploration and experience spanning four planets transpire over the course of the story, but the narrative device announced in the opening paragraph - the voice of Ariadne distilling the experiences to their most important elements - makes it work. This provides the author with freedom to give readers enough impression of the worlds to understand them, and enough of a glimpse into the characters’ interactions with each world to understand how each of them thinks and feels. We are immersed only in Ariadne’s summarizing perspective - not in the myriad details of each character and world. We get high and low moments, and an understanding of what creates those moments, which is more than enough to grasp the core of each place and personality.
As the engineer on board the Merian, Ariadne’s job is to keep everything working and to be an extra set of hands. That gives her more opportunity to observe and reflect than her crewmates. Venturing far from the place you call home doesn’t mean you leave the people and ideas you call home. The Merian’s astronauts are each imperfect, but are united - and sustained - by sharing their grief at leaving behind friends and relatives, the joy of discovery, and their driving sense of wonder. The four are a reminder that even when we are far from familiar settings, it is possible to find home with ideas and people that fulfill us.
The fact that this reviewer feels compelled to write so much about a novella might be her biggest endorsement. In short, read it. There are plenty of elements to notice and absorb in Chambers’ novella, but most important it is a well-told, enthralling, and thoughtful story. At its best, science fiction broadens our perspective, taking us outward so that we can better see inward - which is exactly what To Be Taught, if Fortunate does. I would recommend it to YA and adult readers who enjoy reflective science fiction.
D. K. Nuray, age 14
