Hacker News Reader

Comment by SarikayaKomzin | Hacker News Reader

Solaris is a beautiful book. It’s a short read, too. I highly recommend it.

This was a case where I thought the movie (Tarkovsky's Solaris) was much better than the book.

I would definitely put Andrei Tarkovsky in the same league of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. Watching movies such as Solaris, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blue Velvet etc. feel like watching a beautiful and masterpiece art.

Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky is definitely greater than Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch in my book. He's a genius and I highly recommend reading "Sculping in Time", a book he wrote to explain his approach to film making.

Agree. I think the ordering is Tarkovsky > Kubrick > Lynch. All great directors, though.

Indeed. A bit like what happened with Blade Runner and 2001 (which has a different relationship to the movie as neither is based on the other).

I think 2001 is a movie making masterclass in itself.

An interesting note here is that the edition most people have read was translated into English from a French edition. Lem wasn't happy with the translation, and there was a direct Polish to English translation done in 2011 which was blessed by Lem's estate, and which was released as an audible exclusive audiobook, and then on Kindle in 2014. It still isn't available in print.

There are substantial differences in the tone and even the character names.

I still like Tarkovsky's version best, even though Lem was not a fan.

That explains it. I had difficulties with the English translation. I thought maybe this is art or something. Then read it in some other language, and it was more palatable, but I do not remember the book anymore. I only remember an enormous baby rolling in the sea and lofty structures emerging from the sea as a by-product of Solaris brain ruminating.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com