Solaris

Rating:
Summary: Deep
Review: I'd seen Tarkovsky's movie version of Solaris five times before I read Lem's novel. And I'm not disappointed but rather thrilled.

Both works are deep and, for me at least, defy intellectual efforts to nail them down. Out of great respect, I'm not going to try to do that.

I will note how much I enjoyed in the book, among other aspects, the speculations of the Solarists on the nature of the ocean and also the inquiry into the amazing experiences with the ocean of the pilot Berton. The feeble efforts of the Solarists match what my efforts have been to grasp this book and Tarkovsky's movie. Solaris isn't within my grasp. But if I have failed intellectually, I have at least responded emotionally. Perhaps Solaris leaves me feeling as Kris with Solaris' Rheya, quite out of my element but glad to be have arrived at this book.

I can't separate well Lem's Solaris from Tarkovsky's. Any movie adaptation would differ from the book but there's more to it than that. Tarkovsky's work complements Lem's. Where they are similar, they resonate and where they differ, they continue to resonate. It's not an either/or. Both works are profound and I recommend them to the highest degree. There are aspects of myself and of life I wouldn't have realized I should be puzzled about had I not encountered these works. These are deeply spiritual works that have pulled the rug out of some of my pretenses of understanding.

Despite all the visual power of Tarkovsky's movie, there is still an extraordinary power of the word that Lem uses to invite us into his head: accepting that invitation turns out to have been an experience similar to Rheya's effort to go thru the door without realizing how best to open it. Hopefully our recovery powers can match hers.

Rating:
Summary: Bad translation
Review: I have not read the English translation but from what I have hear the re seems to be some character name changing (Snow), some place changing - Kelvin arrives to a sattelite orbiting Solaris... et cetera.

but, what would you expect of a double translation

Rating:
Summary: Important novel in a very bad translation
Review: Reading the previous reviewers (some of the reviews are really good and very informative - I bring to your attention the excellent review of Nicholas Musurca) I have little to add, except that indeed the English translation is very bad. I've known the novel for years in the original Polish. Only recently I read Solaris in English. After reading about 1/3 of the novel I realized some aspects were missing or twisted. I reached for the Polish original and wow! What a difference! The original novel is like a perfect little Chinese box: everything is there for a reason and everything is connected to everything for a reason. The English translation with changed character names, reinterpreted or missing text doesn't have the same sense of perfection. The novel is a must read for any serious reader but if you can read it in another language do so. I've heard that Germans, French and Spaniards have good translations (and yes, it's quite pathetic that one of the largest linguistic publishing markets can't afford a good translation of a major literary work of the 20th century). If you don't have a choice, keep in mind that the experience can't be much different from listening to a rendition of the 9th symphony by the local marching band.

Rating:
Summary: Promising, but meandering
Review: A promising, suspensful, and occasionally dramatic first half is squandered by verbose fictional scientific and historical sections that needlessly fracture the narrative, in my opinion. I felt like there was real potential in the premise but I need more zing in my SF.

Rating:
Summary: Lem has condemned this translation!
Review: First, I have not read this book (but I saw the movie), but recently I came across a few essays by Lem and about Lem on the cyberiad site run by his relatives.

He apparently was not thrilled about the film adaptation and really sort of dislikes the book itself. That may be just an author's typical fussiness.

But here's something else. Lem himself hates this translation; he has been pestering the publisher (who owns the copyright) for some time to commission another translation of it. He believes it is seriously flawed.

I don't know Polish, so I cannot comment. Other interviews record Lem as being content with English translations of most of his other works, but the bad translation of Solaris really gnaws at him. ALthough the publication date here for the paperback is 2002, in fact the translation (I seem to recall) dates back to the 1950's. And the publishing house that owns the copyright refuses to commission another translation.

Maybe this is just authorial fussiness. Maybe the translation isn't that horrible. But I'd be very careful about touching a translation that the author hates.

Rating:
Summary: Science Fiction Meets Philosophy
Review: In "Solaris," scientist Kris Kelvin travels to a space station in orbit above the surface of the planet Solaris, which may or may not be a conscious entity. Upon arrival, he finds the crew, consisting of two men, haunted by figures from their past (or nightmares) who appear in the flesh. A mere day after arriving, Kelvin's lost love, dead for ten years, shows up in his room, professing her eternal adoration. Is the planet attempting to communicate? Have they all gone mad? Or is there another answer? After traveling lightyears across the galaxy in search of a foreign intelligence, Kelvin finds himself faced with the same old enemy: himself.

Lem's book is a masterful blend of science fiction and philosophy. In its pages you will find speculations on the nature of intelligence, consciousness, being, the faults of mankind, love, and happiness. Discover it for yourself.



Rating:
Summary: Deep
Review: I'd seen Tarkovsky's movie version of Solaris five times before I read Lem's novel. I enjoyed the book including the speculations of the Solarists on the nature of the ocean and also the inquiry into the amazing experiences with the ocean of the pilot Berton. The feeble efforts of the Solarists match what my efforts have been to grasp this book and Tarkovsky's movie. Perhaps Solaris leaves me feeling as Kris with Solaris' Rheya, quite out of my element but glad to be have arrived at this book.

Despite all the visual power of Tarkovsky's movie, there is still an extraordinary power of the word that Lem uses to invite us into his head: accepting that invitation turns out to have been an experience similar to Rheya's effort to go thru the door without realizing how best to open it. Hopefully our recovery powers can match hers.

Rating:
Summary: A great novel that happens to be science fiction
Review: In some of Lem's lesser work, the ideas take over as in most science fiction, but "Solaris" is a transcendent work, a great novel that prompted his nomination for the Nobel Prize. In the larger sense it reveals what a blessing it is that human memory fades, and allows healing by fading. Lem also comments on the art of theatre, portraiture, and psychiatry in the process. Neither film makes a dent in the depth of the novel, though the Russian version is the greater work, though the Sonderberg is well intentioned. For Lem's ironic humorous take on human nature, find "Mortal Engines" and "A Perfect Vacuum" (a collection of reviews of non-existant books); but for the most moving of his works, which just happen to be in the genre of science fiction, welcome to "Solaris".

Rating:
Summary: Solaris is not a love story
Review: A characteristic view of Solaris is, as one reviewer wrote:

"It's an intriguing premise, but unfortunately Stanislaw Lem intellectualizes his story to the point that the majority of SOLARIS doesn't even read like fiction. For a good chunk of the novel, you feel like you're reading a philosophical tract, or at times a psychology text."

Good fiction should not necessarily require the divorce of the reader's intellect from his emotion; that is the task of pulp fiction. Unfortunately, many readers (Steven Soderbergh included) seem to view Solaris as a romantic story of thwarted love set against a sci-fi backdrop, polluted by inexplicably dense sections of text dealing with invented fields of science. This is clearly a fallacy; no romantic novel comes to the conclusion that "the age-old fath of lovers and poets in the power of love . . . is a lie, useless, and not even funny."

Solaris is, rather, a satiric novel attacking science and human reason. Those aforementioned dense passages that seem extraneous are, in fact, central to the novel's intent; they examine the failings of the scientific method when confronted with the utterly alien. The novel attempts to topple one of Western civilization's central conceits, the idea that rational thought can solve all of the universe's mysteries. Lem claims that the true goal of science is to find a "mirror" for humanity, to find in the unknown the ideal image that we have of ourselves.

The relationship between Kris and Rheya, and between Snow/Sartorius and their respective "visitors," serves as an allegory for this premise, in which a scientist's frustration with his inability to comprehend the Other, combined with the painful memories dredged up by the visitor's form, results in spite and a desire to destroy. Lem's psychological insight in this matter rivals that of Dostoevsky, but the novel seems "cold" because Lem lacks Dostoevsky's fervent Orthodox faith. Where Dostoevsky found resolution in the pure emotion of faith in God and love, Lem can only leave the reader with "the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past."