I just finished reading “Solaris” by Lem and wanted to put somewhere my thoughts about it. I’m from Poland so I always thought I should know Lem better but before Solaris I’ve only read “The Invincible”. I’ve seen the Hollywood movie years ago which didn’t proved to be much of a spoiler. So, my thoughts, without spoilers I think…
Lem had a great imagination. The concept of Solaris, it’s exploration and the idea of trying to communicate with it brilliant and original. The way Lem describes it not so much. Half of the book is just a very dry recounting of its history and behavior. It’s well written but it’s just a background for the actual story. The actual story itself is bizarrely the complete opposite: it’s interesting but terribly written. It contains the worst dialogs I’ve ever read (and I read the original version, not translation). If not for the well written descriptions of the planet I would assume I’m reading something translated by Google Translate. I think I understand now why so many Philip K. Dick’s books were successfully turned into movies but Lem’s were not. He was great at coming up with interesting concepts but not that good at telling stories. I would like to know what others think about it.
P.S. Another thing I straggled with (and I know it’s just something I don’t like personally, that’s why it’s just a side note ) is the way Lem describes or invents the tech of the future. Basically he doesn’t. His worlds are still analog with printed books, microfilm and lamp based computers (The invincible was the same with computers programmed using perforated paper). I’ve checked and Solaris was written in 1969 while the first hard drive was commercialized in 1966. I think Lem was more interested in physics and modern tech simply wasn’t his thing. He would take was he saw around him (probably usually tech many years old already) and put it in the future without thinking to much about it. Is it just me or do others also find it jarring?
I think Lem was more interested in physics and modern tech simply wasn’t his thing.
I think he, like Vonnegut, was more interested in philosophy, psychology, and sociology than in physics or tech. Science fiction (and fantasy) allows one to create artificial situations that can explore these topics from “noveler” angles than one otherwise could.
“The Invincible” was definitely tech focused, hard sci-fi, so I guess in different books he would simply focuses on different things. Which is completely fine. From the two books I’ve read I would say he definitely struggled with computers but maybe he has some books about them too :)
Weird thing is that while I love SF movies that focus on philosophy of psychology (Gattaca, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, Never let me go, Moon, Realive, The Platform…) I like my books to be more detailed and tech focused (Banks).
I think these are fair criticisms of Lem in general. His writing has always been much more about his ideas than about the story. I kind of like the atmosphere and character that his particular style creates though, it is distinctly his and, for me, places his worlds in a kind of eastern european, retrofuturistic space in my mind. But this is obviously coming from a westerner that has a somewhat exoticised view of eastern european culture.
“The way Lem describes or invents the future.”
Here’s a story from Star Trek’s first season. There was an episode where, in one scene, a salt shaker was a major plot point. The producers’ first thought was to go out and buy a lot of fancy, futuristic looking salt shakers. The problem was that everything looked too futuristic; they didn’t look like the salt shakers the audience was familiar with. In the end they used a mundane 1960s salt shaker and gave the fancy ones to Dr. McCoy to put in his medical bag.
Remember that not every reader was conversant with all the new technology. I’d wager that even hardcore science fiction fans were up to date on all computer technology in 1969. I’m sure I could find a dozen tech breakthroughs from the past decade that you never heard of.
Interesting point. I guess it could be an issue of familiarity. For me the concept of a “digital library” for example is obvious but maybe in 1969 people would struggle with it, especially in communist Poland. And maybe Lem simply didn’t want to spend much time explaining that because the book was about something else entirely.
I guess I always liked the part of science-fiction that is about predicting what future will look like and I struggle with books that skip it. It feels like something is missing. (that’s also why I love Iain M. Banks’ books so much, he’s simply so great at it).
Let me come at this from a slightly different angle.
In the movie “Apocalypse Now” there’s a scene where Martin Sheen gets drunk and does tai-chi exercises in his Saigon hotel room. When I first saw the movie I thought it was stupid Hollywood nonsense. Later on I saw a documentary about the movie, and one of the people they interviewed was a CIA asset who would have been one of Sheen’s colleagues.
The CIA agent said that doing drunk tai-chi was absolutely a thing that character would have done.
The point is that in storytelling it’s hard to tell what details to use and which to avoid.
I think for me personally (I get it that different people look at those things differently) movie is just a faster medium to it’s normal to use symbols, shortcuts and other story telling tools like that. Directors would love to crate a 10h long movies and include all the details they can think of but that’s impossible so they use different devices to transmit ideas. Books on the other hand do let you take time with the world building. For example in Solaris Lem spends entire chapters describing different plasma formation you can see on the planet. That’s why I find it strange that when describing a library, computers, rockets, phones, food and everything else on the station he didn’t stop to think “what this may look like in 1000 years”. I would love to ask him why he did it. Lack of time? He didn’t think it’s important for the story? He really thought people will still eat canned meat 1000 years from now?
BTW, a friend of mine claimed that Lem lived next to him when he was in high school and after some party told him to clean up cigarette butts kids threw on his lawn from a balcony. Sadly I only met this guy at the University so I wasn’t at this party.
