Stanislaw Lem
Reviewed by Heidi Boudro
As a child, I read Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke.
As an adolescent, I discovered Anthony Boucher and Alfred Bester. I was an
adult before I found Philip K. Dick, who is best known for the source
material for the film Blade Runner. And yet I had never heard of
Polish writer Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006), whose work first began to appear
in English translation in the 1970s, and who is said to be the most widely
read science fiction author in the non-English-speaking world. Then I saw
Solaris on cable.
In Steven Soderbergh's Solaris
(2002), based on Lem's 1961 novel of the same name
,
George Clooney plays a widowed psychiatrist who is asked to investigate
apparent psychological problems on a space station. It is a brilliant,
subtle psychological drama. (The novel was turned into a movie once
before, the tedious and puzzling semi-experimental Russian film Solaris
(1972), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.)
The range of Lem's work is astonishing to explore and difficult to
describe. I began by reading The Star Diaries
(1966), the Gulliver-like adventures of Ijon Tichy, a pedantic time
traveler in a one-man spaceship. The first story, "The Seventh Voyage," is
the most hilarious time-travel story, in fact the most hilarious science
fiction story, that I have ever read. Tichy's adventures, continued in Memoirs of a Space Traveler
(1971) and The Futurological Congress
(1974), are highly imaginative satires with premises that range from a
monastery of thoughtful, religious robots; to a planet of people who, for
political reasons, pretend to be robots; to the strangely recurring
Lemmian motif of cyborg furniture; to, of course, a drug that makes people
think they have taken a drug.
In contrast, a novella titled "The Mask" (1974), available in the
collection Mortal Engines
(1977), has the familiar theme of human / robot confusion, but explores
the human condition, even specifically the feminine condition, seriously
rather than satirically. In "The Mask," a machine/android created to
impersonate a woman begins to question her own motives. The story is
simultaneously bizarre--more bizarre than I can possibly recount here--and
deeply moving.
Return From The Stars
(1961) addresses what it means to be human from the middle ground (neither
satirical nor ethical) of traditional science fiction. An astronaut of our
own near future returns from a space voyage that lasted ten years for him
and 130 years for Earth. The society he finds on his return is
unrecognizable and unnavigable. To his shock, he discovers that even human
nature, from his perspective, has been altered by technology.
His Master's Voice
(1968), a mature and more complex precursor to Carl Sagan's Contact
(1985),
concerns a type of Manhattan Project devoted to the deciphering of a
supposed alien message, as told by one of the eccentric scientific genius
participants.
Lem was ahead of his time. Don't be fooled by the dates of his works; he
not only understood modern trends in technology but made bizarrely
accurate predictions. In addition, he clearly influenced today's science
fiction books and films. All books mentioned are in print.
Copyright © 2006 by Heidi Boudro
