8 ms·

The Case for Stanislaw Lem

155 points by Schiphol 6y ago

SarikayaKomzin 6y ago
I got a 404, so I did a quick Google search. This seems to be the article in question —> https://onezero.medium.com/the-case-for-stanislaw-lem-one-of-science-fictions-unsung-giants-94aee43db04f https://onezero.medium.com/the-case-for-stanislaw-lem-one-of... 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)
- clairegraham 6y ago
  I also received the 404, thanks for sending the fixed link. 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.
- dang 6y ago
  Changed to that from https://onezero.medium.com/p/94aee43db04f https://onezero.medium.com/p/94aee43db04f. Thanks!
- FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
  > I just finished reading Solaris for the first time, and it was mind-changing. 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.
  - SarikayaKomzin 6y ago
    I thought it was a truly novel speculation on encountering nonhuman intelligence in the cosmos that challenges our most common fantasies about space exploration. I know I’m guilty of anthropomorphizing intelligence because that’s a lot easier than considering that it may come to us in incomprehensible forms, so I was generally impressed how well he was able to portray that— devising the actions of a nonhuman intelligence is almost a paradox. 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.
  - goatlover 6y ago
    Solaris is different from most scifi in which aliens are presented in largely anthropomorphic terms. They're either humanoids, monsters from our nightmares, or they take on the form of humans or human communication. What they lack is the quality of being truly alien. 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.
    - Udik 6y ago
      > The Solaris ocean is utterly alien to the point that the humans are unable to understand and communicate with it 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).
      - goatlover 6y ago
        There are even people who think we can solve the "problem" of entropy and find a way to keep civilization going beyond the heat death of the universe, and this is a challenge we should start working on. It sounds absurdly optimistic. 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?
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Lem posited a question: what if we encounter an intelligence that is so non-human as to be unknowable? He explores this in "Eden", "Solaris" and "Invincible". All three are highly recommended.
abetusk 6y ago
Stanislaw Lem is one of my favorite authors. "His Masters Voice" is one of my favorite books. "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.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Tarkovskis Solaris is really good.
  - reedwolf 6y ago
    Lem hated it. He said Tarkovski turned his book into a Dostoyevsky novel. The problem is that it focused almost exclusively on the relationship drama and jettisoned the science fiction.
    - adrianN 6y ago
      I found the movie to be incredibly boring, so I read the book to find out if it was just a bad adaption. In my opinion the book was even more boring.
      - Sharlin 6y ago
        Well, you can’t watch a Tarkovski movie and expect gripping or drama. The same goes for Lem’s books. They just require a different mindset.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      Lem hated Tarkovski's "Solaris". 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 :)
virtualritz 6y ago
I grew up with Lem's works as a kid, teenager and young adult in West Germany in the 80's. Lem spoke German so he was involved with the translations and there wasn't anything he wrote that didn't get translated to German. Not least because East Germany, together with Poland, was part of the Soviet block. 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.
- justin66 6y ago
  Interestingly, Watts himself makes a pretty good case for Solaris: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5566 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5566
- danidiaz 6y ago
  I absolutely love 'Eden', even if Lem himself thought it wasn't among his best work. It's an alien dystopia seen through human eyes. 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"...
- BruceEel 6y ago
  Absolutely. As for hard sci-fi, Lem's work had a similar impact on me. I would also like to recommend the 'Pilot Pirx' short stories. Reading 'The Accident' (on OMNI) as a teenager is perhaps what got me into sci-fi in the first place. 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.2016.21.1.12/8063 https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/IL/article/view/IL.2016.21.1....
cageface 6y ago
Lem was a brilliant writer and I’d recommend his books to anyone, not just science fiction fans. 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.
- pharmhax 6y ago
  The Star Diaries are a great example of his funnier (yet still remarkably thoughtful) writing.
gboss 6y ago
I love Stanislaw Lem's work. I particularly enjoyed Futurological Congress. It was so absurd but I loved how it explored how it is never possible to be 100% sure that what you are experience is "real". The trippiness of all of the drugs and absurd situations was hilarious. Highly recommend.
- adz_6891 6y ago
  Yes! I also really enjoyed the Futurological Congress. The film rendition, while straying from the short story significantly, is still worth watching I think. https://imdb.com/title/tt1821641 https://imdb.com/title/tt1821641
kabdib 6y ago
One of Lem's translators, Michael Kandel, wrote a few good books of his own. I really liked _Strange Invasion_ and _Panda Ray_.
jeffchuber 6y ago
"Summa Technologiae" is also quite excellent and incredibly prophetic.
quijoteuniv 6y ago
Lem explains “the human problem”
HONEST_ANNIE 6y ago
Good selection. 'Return from the Stars' is more relevant today than it was when it was written. Its a story about sociocultural evolution and Lem clearly has a deep insight. (the book has tablet computers and e-paper too).
- fpoling 6y ago
  Return from the stars is my favorite. In a some sense it is still about how to deal aliens that we cannot understand, it is just the aliens is future society.
QuesnayJr 6y ago
Lem's Ijon Tichy stories are surprisingly funny. He has a reputation for seriousness (because of "Solaris", I assume), but they're among the funniest sci-fi stories I've ever read.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Ijon Tichy is there with HHGTG.
00ajcr 6y ago
For fans of crime/detective novels, I would not hesitate to recommend 'The Chain of Chance'. Utterly gripping, fascinating, and a gateway to Lem's sci-fi works.
fpoling 6y ago
Among film adaptations of Lem’s works I like “Inquest of Pilot Pirx” from 1979 the best. It is rather off from the story, but at least it portrayed Pirx close to how I imagined him.
puzzlingcaptcha 6y ago
I wish Janusz Zajdel had more recognition abroad. I believe only a few of his works were ever translated to English and you can draw interesting parallels between them and Lem's books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel
arkj 6y ago
Off topic: >>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.
- ngvrnd 6y ago
  error/typo
FpUser 6y ago
I absolutely love Lem. He is a giant in my eyes. Very nice to know that MIT has decided to reprint some of his work.
ngvrnd 6y ago
Lem was a great author of real imaginative fiction. His novels shaped my world view more than any other SF author. I hope more of his stuff gets republished.
chiph 6y ago
As long as they don't make a machine that can make anything, provided it starts with the letter "N", I'm all for it.
alex_young 6y ago
Another interesting read: Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. 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.
lykahb 6y ago
Stanislaw Lem is a brilliant writer. It is unfortunate that the article tells about him through the lens of the Golden Age and modern progressive views, which hardly relate to him. 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.
hristov 6y ago
I am a huge fan of Lem and it is good to see these books are getting new translations and editions. I also like the cool 50s sci fi covers. 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.

155 points by Schiphol 6y ago

I got a 404, so I did a quick Google search. This seems to be the article in question —> https://onezero.medium.com/the-case-for-stanislaw-lem-one-of-science-fictions-unsung-giants-94aee43db04f https://onezero.medium.com/the-case-for-stanislaw-lem-one-of... 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)

clairegraham 6y ago
I also received the 404, thanks for sending the fixed link. 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.
dang 6y ago
Changed to that from https://onezero.medium.com/p/94aee43db04f https://onezero.medium.com/p/94aee43db04f. Thanks!
FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
> I just finished reading Solaris for the first time, and it was mind-changing. 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.
- SarikayaKomzin 6y ago
  I thought it was a truly novel speculation on encountering nonhuman intelligence in the cosmos that challenges our most common fantasies about space exploration. I know I’m guilty of anthropomorphizing intelligence because that’s a lot easier than considering that it may come to us in incomprehensible forms, so I was generally impressed how well he was able to portray that— devising the actions of a nonhuman intelligence is almost a paradox. 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.
- goatlover 6y ago
  Solaris is different from most scifi in which aliens are presented in largely anthropomorphic terms. They're either humanoids, monsters from our nightmares, or they take on the form of humans or human communication. What they lack is the quality of being truly alien. 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.
  - Udik 6y ago
    > The Solaris ocean is utterly alien to the point that the humans are unable to understand and communicate with it 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).
    - goatlover 6y ago
      There are even people who think we can solve the "problem" of entropy and find a way to keep civilization going beyond the heat death of the universe, and this is a challenge we should start working on. It sounds absurdly optimistic. 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?
- dmitriid 6y ago
  Lem posited a question: what if we encounter an intelligence that is so non-human as to be unknowable? He explores this in "Eden", "Solaris" and "Invincible". All three are highly recommended.

abetusk 6y ago

Stanislaw Lem is one of my favorite authors. "His Masters Voice" is one of my favorite books. "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.

m4rtink 6y ago
Tarkovskis Solaris is really good.
- reedwolf 6y ago
  Lem hated it. He said Tarkovski turned his book into a Dostoyevsky novel. The problem is that it focused almost exclusively on the relationship drama and jettisoned the science fiction.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    I found the movie to be incredibly boring, so I read the book to find out if it was just a bad adaption. In my opinion the book was even more boring.
    - Sharlin 6y ago
      Well, you can’t watch a Tarkovski movie and expect gripping or drama. The same goes for Lem’s books. They just require a different mindset.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Lem hated Tarkovski's "Solaris". 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 :)

virtualritz 6y ago

I grew up with Lem's works as a kid, teenager and young adult in West Germany in the 80's. Lem spoke German so he was involved with the translations and there wasn't anything he wrote that didn't get translated to German. Not least because East Germany, together with Poland, was part of the Soviet block. 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.

justin66 6y ago
Interestingly, Watts himself makes a pretty good case for Solaris: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5566 https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=5566
danidiaz 6y ago
I absolutely love 'Eden', even if Lem himself thought it wasn't among his best work. It's an alien dystopia seen through human eyes. 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"...
BruceEel 6y ago
Absolutely. As for hard sci-fi, Lem's work had a similar impact on me. I would also like to recommend the 'Pilot Pirx' short stories. Reading 'The Accident' (on OMNI) as a teenager is perhaps what got me into sci-fi in the first place. 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.2016.21.1.12/8063 https://ojs.utlib.ee/index.php/IL/article/view/IL.2016.21.1....

cageface 6y ago

Lem was a brilliant writer and I’d recommend his books to anyone, not just science fiction fans. 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.

pharmhax 6y ago
The Star Diaries are a great example of his funnier (yet still remarkably thoughtful) writing.

gboss 6y ago

I love Stanislaw Lem's work. I particularly enjoyed Futurological Congress. It was so absurd but I loved how it explored how it is never possible to be 100% sure that what you are experience is "real". The trippiness of all of the drugs and absurd situations was hilarious. Highly recommend.

adz_6891 6y ago
Yes! I also really enjoyed the Futurological Congress. The film rendition, while straying from the short story significantly, is still worth watching I think. https://imdb.com/title/tt1821641 https://imdb.com/title/tt1821641

kabdib 6y ago

One of Lem's translators, Michael Kandel, wrote a few good books of his own. I really liked _Strange Invasion_ and _Panda Ray_.

jeffchuber 6y ago

"Summa Technologiae" is also quite excellent and incredibly prophetic.

quijoteuniv 6y ago

Lem explains “the human problem”

HONEST_ANNIE 6y ago

Good selection. 'Return from the Stars' is more relevant today than it was when it was written. Its a story about sociocultural evolution and Lem clearly has a deep insight. (the book has tablet computers and e-paper too).

fpoling 6y ago
Return from the stars is my favorite. In a some sense it is still about how to deal aliens that we cannot understand, it is just the aliens is future society.

QuesnayJr 6y ago

Lem's Ijon Tichy stories are surprisingly funny. He has a reputation for seriousness (because of "Solaris", I assume), but they're among the funniest sci-fi stories I've ever read.

nabla9 6y ago
Ijon Tichy is there with HHGTG.

00ajcr 6y ago

For fans of crime/detective novels, I would not hesitate to recommend 'The Chain of Chance'. Utterly gripping, fascinating, and a gateway to Lem's sci-fi works.

fpoling 6y ago

Among film adaptations of Lem’s works I like “Inquest of Pilot Pirx” from 1979 the best. It is rather off from the story, but at least it portrayed Pirx close to how I imagined him.

puzzlingcaptcha 6y ago

I wish Janusz Zajdel had more recognition abroad. I believe only a few of his works were ever translated to English and you can draw interesting parallels between them and Lem's books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel

arkj 6y ago

Off topic: >>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.

ngvrnd 6y ago
error/typo

FpUser 6y ago

I absolutely love Lem. He is a giant in my eyes. Very nice to know that MIT has decided to reprint some of his work.

ngvrnd 6y ago

Lem was a great author of real imaginative fiction. His novels shaped my world view more than any other SF author. I hope more of his stuff gets republished.

chiph 6y ago

As long as they don't make a machine that can make anything, provided it starts with the letter "N", I'm all for it.

alex_young 6y ago

Another interesting read: Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. 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.

lykahb 6y ago

Stanislaw Lem is a brilliant writer. It is unfortunate that the article tells about him through the lens of the Golden Age and modern progressive views, which hardly relate to him. 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.

hristov 6y ago

I am a huge fan of Lem and it is good to see these books are getting new translations and editions. I also like the cool 50s sci fi covers. 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.