11–20 of 54 posts
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.
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 bu…
Tarkovskis Solaris is really good.
The problem is that it focused almost exclusively on the relationship drama and jettisoned the science fiction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tarkovskis Solaris is really good.
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.
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 '…
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... 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)
> 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.
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.
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... 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)
> 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.
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.