The Beautiful Mind-Bending of Stanislaw Lem (2019)
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Just look at the premises of all of the "books" reviewed in this volume: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Perfect_Vacuum
Hell, the book actually starts (inevitably) with a review of the book itself!
It's a playground for Lem's invention and all of his favorite themes. It's absurdity always makes me laugh harder than just about any other writer I know (with the noteworthy exception of Charlie Kaufman, who was greatly influenced by Lem).
Strong recommend for someone who doesn't know where to begin with Lem.
A slightly different kind of paranoia and delusion shaped Russian intelligence on Ukraine, but I think Lem would have been the perfect writer to dissect it.
Fixed that :D
"I didn't build a machine to solve ridiculous crossword puzzles! That's hack work, not Great Art! Just give it a topic, any topic, as difficult as you like..."
Klapaucius thought, and thought some more. Finally he nodded and said:
"Very well. Let's have a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics. Tensor algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if need be. But with feeling, you understand, and in the cybernetic spirit."
"'Love and tensor algebra?' Have you taken leave of your senses?"
Trurl began, but stopped, for his electronic bard was already declaiming:
Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n,
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
And ever vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love:
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove,
And in our bound partition never part.
For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel,
Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler,
Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers,
Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell?
Cancel me not - for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
Ellipse of bliss, converge, O lips divine!
The producs of our scalars is defined!
Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind
Cuts capers like a happy haversine.
I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die,
Had he but known such a^2 cos 2 phi!Nieśmiały cybernetyk potężne ekstrema
Poznawał, kiedy grupy unimodularne
Cyberiady całkował w popołudnie parne,
Nie wiedząc, czy jest miłość, czy jeszcze jej nie ma.
Precz mi, precz, Laplasjany z wieczora do ranka,
I wersory wektorów z ranka do wieczora!
Bliżej, przeciwobrazy! Bliżej, bo już pora
Zredukować kochankę do objęć kochanka!
On drżenia wpółmetryczne, które jęk jednoczy,
Zmieni w grupy obrotów i sprzężenia zwrotne,
A takie kaskadowe, a takie zawrotne,
Że zwarciem zagrażają, idąc z oczu w oczy!
Ty, klaso transfinalna! Ty, silna wielkości!
Nieprzywiedlne continuum! Praukładzie biały!
Christoffela ze Stoksem oddam na wiek cały
Za pierwszą i ostatnią pochodną miłości.
Twych skalarnych przestrzeni wielolistne głębie
Ukaż uwikłanemu w Teoremat Ciała,
Cyberiado cyprysów, bimodalnie cała
W gradientach, rozmnożonych na loty gołębie!
O, nie dożył rozkoszy, kto tak bez siwizny
Ani w przestrzeni Weyla, ani Brouwera
Studium topologiczne uściskiem otwiera,
Badając Moebiusowi nie znane krzywizny!
O, wielopowłokowa uczuć komitanto,
Wiele trzeba cię cenić, ten się dowie tylko,
Kto takich parametrów przeczuwając fantom,
Ginie w nanosekundach, płonąc każdą chwilką!
Jak punkt, wchodzący w układ holonomiczności,
Pozbawiany współrzędnych zera asymptotą,
Tak w ostatniej projekcji, ostatnią pieszczotą
Żegnany - cybernetyk umiera z miłości.
Shy cybernetic powerful extremes
He recognized when unimodular groups
Cyberiads were integrated on a steamy afternoon,
Not knowing if there is love or not yet.
Away with me, away, Laplasiana from evening to morning,
And vectors of vectors from morning to evening!
Closer, counterpictures! Closer, because it's time
Reduce the mistress to the embrace of the lover!
He tremors half a meter, which a groan unites,
Change into rotation groups and feedbacks,
And so cascading, and so dizzying,
That they threaten with a short circuit, going from eye to eye!
You transfinal class! You, strong greatness!
Unwind continuum! Pre-layout white!
I will give Christoffel and Stoks for a century
For the first and last derivative of love.
Your scalar spaces have multi-leaf depths
Show those involved in the Body Theorem,
Cyberiada of cypresses, bimodal whole
In gradients, pigeons multiplied for flights!
Oh, he did not live up to the pleasure of anyone without gray hair
Neither in Weyl's space, nor in Brouwer's
A topological study opens with an embrace,
When examining Moebius, no curvature known!
O, the multi-skin of comitanto feelings,
You have to treasure a lot, this one will only find out
Who such parameters, sensing the phantom,
It dies in nanoseconds, burning every moment!
Like a point that is part of the holonomic system,
Without the zero coordinates an asymptote,
Yes, in the last projection, the last caress
Farewell - the cybernetic dies of love.Shy cybernetic powerful extremes
He met when unimodular groups
Cyberiads totaled on a sultry afternoon,
Not knowing if there was love or not yet.
The world of the world, the world of the world, the world of the world, the world of the world, the world of the world,
And verses of vectors from morning to evening!
Closer, counter-images! Closer, because it's time
To reduce the lover to the embrace of the lover!
He'll make the half-metric tremors that moan unite,
He'll turn them into groups of turns and feedbacks,
And so cascading and so dizzying
That they short-circuit, going from eye to eye!
Thou, transfinal class! Thou, strong of greatness!
The uninhabitable continuum! Praucus white!
Christoffel with Stoks I will give up for a whole age
For the first and last derivative of love.
Thy scalar spaces' multilinear depths
Show the entangled in the Theorem of the Body,
Cyberiad to cypresses, bimodally whole
In gradients, multiplied into flights of pigeons!
Oh, he did not live to enjoy, who so without gray hair
Nor in Weyl's space, nor Brouwer's
The topological study with an embrace opens,
Studying curves unknown to Moebius!
O, multilayered comitant of feelings,
Much you must be valued, he will only know,
Who, sensing the phantom of such parameters,
Dies in nanoseconds, burning every moment!
Like a point, entering the system of holonomy,
deprived of the coordinates of zero by an asymptote,
So in the last projection, the last caress
Farewelled - the cyberneticist dies of love.
Mainly to talk with my girlfriend's parents. I'm also 50% Polish but never spoke it growing up.
To get out the max of this poem you need to be versed in Polish lang of course, but also mathematics and basic history of Polish literature.
The poem is a mock-erotyk (quasi "poem about lovemaking") where the mechanics of love are replaced with mechanics of mathematics. It works very well with całka (integral) which creates a fantastic replacement całkować (determine integral) instead of całować (kiss).
The other place that speaks volumes about this being satirical is an almost word for word quote from Polish national epos called "Pan Tadeusz": Wiele trzeba cię cenić, ten się dowie tylko" (Much you must be valued, he will only know), which for a Pole is an instantly recognisable stylistic device.
It also mentions a lot of math which is either made up or way above my head so I won't comment about that.
I am in love with all things - and I recognize that while I am "smart" I am not "smart" like others, but I seek to gain not just their understanding, but their wisdom oof the universe of thought.
A shy cyberneticists got to know[1] some powerful extremes,
when he integrated[2] cyberiads[3] on a steamy afternoon,
not knowing whether there is love, or there isn't yet.
Get out of my face[4], get out, Laplacians from evening to morning,
and versors of the vectors from morning to evening.
Come closer, preimages! Closer, because it's time
to reduce the lover into the embrace of the lover[5].
He will change half-metric trembles, united by moans,
into rotation groups and feedbacks[6],
so cascading, and so stunning,
that they risk a short-circuit, going from eye to eye!
You, transfinal class! You, strong enormity!
Irreducible continuum! White pre-structure!
I'll give up Christoffel and Stokes for an entire century
in exchange for the first and the last derivative of love.
Show the multipronged[7] depths of your scalar spaces
to the one who's entangled[8] in the Theorem of the Body[9],
you, cyberiad of cypresses, entirely bimodal
in gradients, multiplied into pidgeon flights!
Lo, he did not live to experience pleasure, who so without grey hair,
neither in Weyl nor Brouwer spaces,
topological study opens with an embrace,
studying curvatures not known to Moebius!
Lo, multilayered comittant[10] of feelings,
how much you need to be treasured will only be learned by the one[11]
who, experiencing phantom of such parameters,
dies in nanoseconds, burning every moment!
Like a point, entering into holonomy configuration,
losing coordinates of zero on an asymptote,
in a last projection, with a last caress,
dies from love the cyberneticist, when he's bid farewell.
[1] - "poznawał" in original, past form of "poznawać", the most important meanings are "to be meeting a new person", "to be recognizing something/someone", or "to be learning something", hard to figure out which meaning is intended.
[2] - "całkował", a mathematical term meaning "to integrate"
[3] - a word made up by Lem
[4] - "precz"
[5] - first "lover" is female, second is male
[6] - "sprzężenia zwrotne"
[7] - "wielolistne", literally "multileaved", from "leaf", "liść"
[8] - "uwikłanemu", probably a reference to "twierdzenie o funkcji uwikłanej", "implicit function theorem"
[9] - "Teoremat Ciała", a more mathematical translation would have "Theorem of the Field", as the mathematical concept of the "field" translates to "ciało" (body) in Polish, similar to e.g. "Körper" in German, which also stands for "mathematical field".
[10] - "komitanto", I don't even know what this word is supposed to mean in Polish.
[11] - a verse from very famous Polish epic poem "Pan Tadeusz" by Adam Mickiewicz
In English "comitant": https://encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/Comitant
- "poznawać" is also used in "Biblical language" to mean "to have sexual intercourse with X"
- "całkował" is very similar (and rhymes with) "całował" = "he kissed"
- cyberiad suggests a cybernetic driad - I think that's the target of the cybernetic's love
- "so cascading and so stunning" "zawrotne" can mean "stunning" but I think "dizzying" is a better translation. It comes from the feeling you get when you turn around too much and can't keep balance - in this case following the feedbacks between the lovers' eyes
- if the first and the last derivative of love is the same, then love is constant :) [or exponential I guess]
Tangentially, I once had a job where I had to locate passages in Phil Dick's novels based on English translations of French editions. In many cases it was non-obvious, in a few cases it couldn't be done at all. There were passages in the french that just didn't exist in the original.
That's funny, because PKD once wrote of a game wherein the players translate from one language to another and back again (he wrote this long before computer translation existed, by the way).
If anyone remembers which PKD novel this was in and any details about the game, I'd love to hear about it, as I no longer remember myself.
The popular, over used, example of that would be:
The flesh is weak but the spirit is willing.
The meat is rotten but the vodka is good.
https://everything2.com/title/machine+translation
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/240589/need-author...
Here's an excerpt:
“Do you have a title for me?” Joe asked; he held his pen ready.
“The Tokyo translating computer has been tied up all morning,” Gauk answered. “So I put it through the smaller one at Kobe. In some respects Kobe is more—how shall I put it?—quaint than Tokyo.” He paused, consulting a slip of paper; his office, like Joe’s, consisted of a cubicle, containing only a desk, a phone, a straight-backed chair made of plastic and a note pad. “Ready?”
“Ready.” Joe made a random scratch-mark with his pen.
Gauk cleared his throat and read from his slip of paper, a taut grin on his face; it was a sleek expression, as if he were certain of himself on this one. “This originated in your language,” Gauk explained, honoring one of the rules which all of them together had made up, the bunch of them scattered here and there across the map of Earth, in little offices, in puny positions, with nothing to do, no tasks or sorrows or difficult problems. Nothing but the harsh vacuity of their collective society, which each in his own way objected to, which all of them, in collaboration, circumvented by means of The Game. “Book title,” Gauk continued. “That’s the only clue I’ll give you.”
“Is it well known?” Joe asked.
Ignoring his question, Gauk read from the slip of paper. “‘The Lattice-work Gun-stinging Insect.’”
“Gun-slinging?” Joe asked.
“No. Gun-stinging.”
“‘Lattice-work,’” Joe said, pondering. “Network. ‘Stinging Insect.’ Wasp?” He scratched with his pen, stumped. “And you got this from the translation computer at Kobe? Bee,” he decided. “‘Gun,’ so Gun-bee. Heater-bee. Laser-bee. Rod-bee. Gat.” He swiftly wrote that down. “Gat-wasp, gat-bee. Gatsby. ‘Lattice-work.’ That would be a grating. Grate.” He had it now. “The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.” He tossed down his pen in triumph.
“Ten points for you,” Gauk said. He made a tally. “That puts you even with Hirshmeyer in Berlin and slightly ahead of Smith in New York. You want to try another?”
[...]
Dialing his phone, he obtained a satellite relay to Japan; he raised Tokyo and gave the digits for the Tokyo translating computer. With the skill of long habit he obtained a direct line to the great, clanking, booming construct; he bypassed its host of attendants.
“Oral transmission,” he informed it.
The hulking GX9 computer clicked over to oral, rather than visual, reception.
“The Corn Is Green,” Joe said. He turned on the recording unit of his phone.
At once the computer answered, giving the Japanese equivalent.
“Thank you and out,” Joe said, and rang off. He then dialed the translating computer at Washington, D.C. Rewinding the tape of his phone recorder he fed the Japanese words—again in oral form—to the computer segment which would translate the Japanese utterance into English.
The computer said, “The cliché is inexperienced.”
“Pardon?” Joe said, and laughed. “Repeat, please.”
“The cliché is inexperienced,” the computer said with godlike nobility and patience.
“That’s an exact translation?” Joe inquired.
“The cliché is—”
“Okay,” Joe said. “Sign off.” He hung up and sat grinning; his energy, aroused by human amusement, surged up and invigorated him.
For a moment he sat hesitating, deciding, and then he dialed good ol’ Smith in New York.
“Office of Procurement and Supply, Wing Seven,” Smith said; his beaglelike face, haunted by ennui, manifested itself on the little gray screen. “Oh, hey there, Fernwright. Got something for me?”
“An easy one,” Joe said. “‘The Cliché Is—’”
“Wait’ll you hear mine,” Smith interrupted. “Me first; come on, Joe—this is a great one. You’ll never get it. Listen.” He read swiftly, stammering over the words. “Bogish Persistentisms. By Shaft Tackapple.”
Re: Bogish Persistentisms. By Shaft Tackapple. The answer is not in the book but the probable answer is in a comment of the above link.
Michael Kandel's translations are breathtakingly beautiful and sublime. they do an amazing job of bridging the slavic and the germanic which is almost on the level of Nabokov (an unfair comparison as in that case the translator is the author).
And that brings us to the sad blemish on Lem's english body of work: Solaris. Could you ask him please please please why there never was one by him? that such an important work is available in print only as a translation of a translation (from french)? Let's crowdsource it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)#English_transl...
I already know the answer. And the answer of course was money. Lem's US publisher just wasn't willing to front the cost of a new translation.
> poem about a haircut! But lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter S!!
which was duly delivered by Trurl's Electrobard in the same story.
1: https://mwichary.medium.com/seduced-shaggy-samson-snored-725...
Prompt (almost verbatim Lem): "Write a love poem, lyrical, pastoral, and expressed in the language of pure mathematics. Tensor algebra mainly, with a little topology and higher calculus, if need be. But with feeling and in the cybernetic spirit. In verses."
Output:
In the space of my heart
your love is a point
defined by certain coordinates
(x, y, z)
that exist in a specific time
t.
But your love is more than that
it's also a vector
with magnitude and direction
that can be graphed on a coordinate plane.
Your love is a function
of time and space
it's a curve that's always changing
but always coming back to me.
It's the limit of my heart's desires
and the product of our two hearts' vectors.
That poem is epic. I LOVE IT!
---
That's one of the best things I have read.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beholder_(Dungeons_%26_Drago...
I'm just rephrasing this from memory. The audience may be different now and possibly can accept less sex (this is supposedly a new trend in cinema).
Maybe there could be an index - how close a story is to Romeo and Juliet? Solaris ranks quite high.
The Cyberiad is better, full of short stories.
Also a good one is the The Futurological Congress.
I highly recommend Fiasco and His Master's Voice. Fiasco starts with quite a long intro vignette that has little to do with the rest of the story. If its too boring just skip it. (Although I think it's well worth reading).
Other than Solaris, any recommendations for a next one?
"The Futurological Congress" is good, but not great; "The Congress" with Robin Wright was loosely based on it and had more of an impact for me.
"His Master's Voice" I read while still in civil service, and it hit pretty close to home, albeit it also reminded me of the bad parts of academia. I need to read that one again sometime.
I'd instead advice to read the whole Ijon Tichy cycle starting from Star Diaries (which are pretty similar to Cyberiad in style), and the whole Pilot Pirx cycle starting from the Pirx Stories.
That might help, I should probably do that. I started with "Cyberiad", then got into Lem's other works just sort of at random. It doesn't really feel like the Tichy series is grouped together in the way say the Heechee saga or a lot of other "serial" or "extended universe" works are.
https://booksvooks.com/fullbook/the-cyberiad-stories-pdf-sta...
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In the year 2010, scientists perfected suspended animation through the use of cryogenics for the purpose of surgery. After more than a decade of study and refinement, long term suspended animation became a reality, yet a privilege reserved for only the most wealthy and influential.
The thinking at the time was that only those who showed a global and fundamental contribution to society (while still viewed through the ridiculously tinted lenses of the global elite of the era) were worthy of entering into such state.
The process was both incredibly complex and costly. As each Transport, as they were known, required their own stand alone facility to be built around them. Significant resources were put into the development of each facility as they required complete autonomous support systems to accommodate whatever duration was selected by the Transport.
Standalone, yet fully redundant, power, security and life support systems were essential to the longevity of each facility.
Additionally, it was recognized that monetary resources would be subject to change over time, especially fiat-currency based resources. Thus there was a need to place physical holders of value that would be perceived to not deplete/dilute over time into the facilities for use by the Transport when they resuscitate.
These resources are the most sought after treasure of the new world.
After hundreds of years of human progress, civilization could no longer sustain itself in an organized self-supporting system. Through utter corruption of what some call the human soul, the world has fallen dark. There are very few outposts of safety in the current Trial of Life, as its now known.
Many Transporters have been found, resuscitated and exploited already. There are believed to be many many more, but their locations are both secret and secure. Akin to your life relying on the discovery of an undisturbed Tomb of a Pharaoh - even though every consciousness on the planet is also seeking the same tomb.
They are the last bastion of hope for they alone have the reserves of precious materials needed to sustain life for the current generation.
Metals, technology (however outdated), medicines, seeds, weapons and minerals are all a part of each Transport 'Crop'.
One find can support a group or community for years alone based on the barter and renewable resource potentials in each Crop.
One transport, found in 2465, that of a long dead nanotech pioneer - who was purportedly responsible for much of the cybernetic medical capabilities of the 21st century, which he sought to cure his genetic predisposition for a certain disease, was so vast that the still powerful city-state in the western province of North America was able to be founded.
The resources of this individual were extraordinary, but his resuscitation, as they all are, was rather gruesome and cold.
The security systems in each Transport Facility are biometric and very complex. They can only be accessed by a living, calm and (relatively) healthy Transport.
If the system, and its control mechanism AI, detect signs of duress, stress or serious injury to the Transport - they go into fail-safe. Which is to say they self detonate. Taking with them all resources, the Transport and the Seekers as well.
There have been many instances of this, such that the art of successful Resuscitation has become an extremely profitable business.
The most active and successful Resuscitation Team (RT) have been the ironically named, Live Well Group.
The most conniving, well practiced and profitable con in the history of mankind.
LWG alone has been responsible for the resuscitation of more than 370Transports. Their group is currently the most powerful in the world. With their own city-state, established after the Brin case mentioned, they have a cast of thousands of cons all working to ensure the Transport believes they have been Awakened to a new, advanced, safe world and that they would be allowed to stake part in a significant way now that they have been Transported.
They are fooled into releasing their resources, then brutally tortured for information about any other Transports or any other knowledge they may possess, which invariably is less than nothing.
It is a hard world out there now, and the LWGs ruthless strive to locate the thousands of other Transport Facilities is both the worst aspect of our modern struggle - yet ironically will serve to be the basis of the ongoing endeavor of the species.
There is rumor of a vast facility of resources and Transports in an underground 'CITY' of the most elite Transports ever. A facility supposedly comprised of the 13 most powerful and rich bloodlines of people to have ever existed.
It is not known which continent this facility is on, but I believe it is in Antarctica - fully automated and with the ability to auto-resuscitate at a given time.