The Case for Stanislaw Lem
onezero.medium.com
onezero.medium.com
I read 'Eden' when I was in 3rd grade -- my dad left it laying on the table in our living room. It had the world 'alien' as part of the subtitle so I was hooked.
When my dad found out, about a year later, that I read and grokked the book he read my three years younger brother and me the 'The Invincible' as a bedtime story over many nights. My poor little brother. :)
I think it was 'Eden' that thus set the standard for my expectations of sci-fi (aka: hard sci-fi).
It was probably also the reason that I am forever disappointed by the pale vision of blockbuster and series sci-fi. Or most sci-fi in general, written or filmed.
And I often have deja-vus when I read contemporary sci-fi because of my exposure to Lem. When I e.g. read Watt's 'Blindsight' I couldn't help comparing it to Lem's 'Fiasko'.
I never understood the public's focus on 'Solaris' and even less how both movies missed the core theme of the book so badly.
And lastly: there is unfortunately a substantial body of shorter works from Lem that has still not been translated to English.
Are the scenarios the explorers encounter something "normal" in some sense, or something gone terribly, terribly wrong? And how can the humans judge, coming from outside?
The final revelation dispels some of that ambiguity, and what it shows is not pretty. For me, it's among the most unnerving passages in science fiction. Also, it taught me the word "procrustean"...
Speaking of robot-related stories like 'The Accident', you might want to check out this very interesting article 'The Uncanny Robots of Pilot Pirx: Stanisław Lem’s Tales' (PDF) : https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/IL/article/view/IL.2016.21.1....
In "The Futurological Congress", the protagonist is offered two potions to choose from, red or blue. The Matrix is like a 10x dumbed down version of it.
I loved Fiasco. Brilliant book that I never hear mentioned.
And Pilot Pirx stories - the atmosphere that flying spaceships is just dirty, demanding, lonely job like driving a lorry. 1978 Polish-Soviet film based on 'Pilot Pirx Test' was very good ...
And Futurological Congress.
EDIT: Also Perfect Void (Doskonała Próżnia) and Imaginary Value (Wielkość Urojona) - introductions to non-existing books and Inquiry (Śledztwo) - one of two Lem's quirky crime novels about mysterily disapearing corpses from mortuaries...
https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_pierwszych_wyda%C5%84_...
It's pretty quirky. A mix of Lem and maybe old school Doctor Who. It operated on zero budget and thus had a few charming props.
If you understand German I highly recommend it. Sadly it's almost impossible to translate to other languages because of the made up dialect used in it, which is the basis for much of its comedy. But looking at clips on YouTube should give you some idea.
I just want to point out that Ijon Tichy is a different character than Pirx and a hero of its own series of tales. The confusion is understandable, because at at a glance they appear to be very similar characters.
"Cyberiad" and "Mortal Engines" are also great books but much more playful and probably geared towards a younger audience, even if some of the subject matter is philosophically deep.
I think Stanislaw Lem kind of suffered from the same fate as Gibson's work in that there have been a few attempts at making them into movies but they haven't ever really took off or translated well.
I do wish his books were in the public domain, though.
The problem is that it focused almost exclusively on the relationship drama and jettisoned the science fiction.
Strugatski brothers hated his "Stalker" based on their "The Roadside Picnic".
Tarkovski was always making his own movies based on his own (understanding of) stories. Basing them on other people's work was just a pretext :)
Every realization of the Solaris story demands patience and thought from its audience, and I expect that's the root of the problem with its lack of popularity.
I also really enjoyed "The Futurological Congress" (which is of Lem's easier-to-digest stories in my opinion) and "Fiasco".
yeah, i'm from poland and "Fables for Robots" (= most of the stories found in "Mortal Engines") was given as optional reading in elementary school
I am excited to read it. I just finished reading Solaris for the first time, and it was mind-changing. I highly recommend it to any of you who haven’t read it.
I started on Stanislaw Lem by reading The Futurological Congress (the movie is also fairly decent) and I really enjoyed it. I still need to read Solaris.
I have heard Solaris refered to as being mind-changing before. What was it about Solaris that impacted you so much?
After first hearing about Solaris decades ago, I finally got around to reading it upon learning of his passing. I must have missed something because it didn't strike me as living up to its reputation.
I can see how the dry digressions (which I personally enjoyed) and lack of resolution could rub some readers the wrong way, but I found the philosophical questions it raised valuable, not to mention the mystery and human interest woven between it all. There are of course other works with this kind of thought experiment (like the movie Arrival and the short story it’s based on), but I find Lem’s pessimism refreshing.
The Solaris ocean is utterly alien to the point that the humans are unable to understand and communicate with it, despite it clearly possessing some form of intelligence. The alien isn't a mirror for the human reader. It also presents issues for science, since Solaris can't be understood, implying that science is limited by our being human. And that kind of mind-blowing.
This is the theme of all Lem's novels involving aliens: Planet Eden, Fiasco, Solaris, The Invincible and His Master's Voice. It's the opposite of our Western optimistic idea that we can face any challenge and solve any riddle, either thanks to a universality of scientific reasoning (such as in Greg Egan's novels) or because the aliens are nothing other than Americans or Nazis in rubber costumes (as in most SF blockbusters).
Then again, I have no idea what life might do trillions of years in the future, if there is any life around then. But if there is, I highly doubt it will be remotely human, so what difference would it make to us now?
He explores this in "Eden", "Solaris" and "Invincible". All three are highly recommended.
The author of this article seems to have an ideological axe to grind though. Lem himself was never so humorless and hamfisted. In fact his books are often very funny.
As many other authors behind the Iron Curtain, he was largely isolated from the contemporary Western cultural influence. His biography and the vibrant Polish surrealism scene would give a much better background.
But something is really annoying me -- why did they spell the name of the author in Polish? You have to decide whether the book is in English or Polish and if you have an English book you should have an English cover, otherwise you are just going to confuse your customers. If you print the largest writing on the cover in Polish a lot of people looking at the cover will quite understandably think the entire book is in Polish.
I know the Polish has a cool looking L and all but that is not sufficient to cause confusion.
Also the guy deserves to have his name correctly pronounced by people who read him, as much as practical for people with a foreign language, and the Polish W is pronounced as a V. Thus, for an English speaker it is better to just write Stanislav.
(the book has tablet computers and e-paper too).
>>he was was in peak form during the ’60s and ’70s
Is this usage correct? Or is the second “was” a typo?
I am not a native English speaker so forgive if this is something very basic.
It’s a bit dark, but a fun jump down the post apocalyptic bureaucratic wormhole where everyone is spying on everyone and nothing is safe.
Utterly gripping, fascinating, and a gateway to Lem's sci-fi works.