21–30 of 215 posts
Seems pretty silly in hindsight and probably was back then as well. If communist committees could write like Lem, the world would be a much richer place today. What stuck with me after reading many of his works was this underlying theme in several of his novels, of the futility of trying to make contact or reason with alien entities which are so vastly different from us, no bridge of understanding is possible. On a l…
Funny how closely his own machinations resemble the (obviously comically deranged) delusions of some of his characters. He was clearly quite self-aware, as another comment noted, or could it be that the whole FBI report was a jest? It really reads exactly like a passage from his novels. The subtext of the report to the FBI, that we must suppress artistic expression in order to protect the innocent minds from dangerou…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really like Lem, but Solaris is probably my least favourite of his stories. It does have the thing I most admire in Lem's work of being about true aliens - that is, not just us again but in a Halloween costume like a Star Trek alien - but somehow Solaris doesn't "work" for me even though say, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub or Futurological Congress do.
I find it funny that i hated Lem for most of my life... because i was forced to read only his Robot stories in school. I still despise those moralist fables. But his other works? i love them! My favorite is The Star Diaries, despite having some robot stories in them.
Bruce Sterling's take on this story is still a classic: "The Spearhead of Cognition", 1987, https://germanponte.com/txt/catscan/sterling.html#ym2
“These essays are the work of a lonely man. We can judge the fervor of Lem's attempt to reach out by a piece like ‘On the Structural Analysis of Science Fiction:’ a Pole, writing in German, to an Austrian, about French semantic theory. The mind reels.”
That just sounds like an ordinary letter for a 20th century European intellectual. Reading and writing in French and German was table stakes.
Seems pretty silly in hindsight and probably was back then as well. If communist committees could write like Lem, the world would be a much richer place today. What stuck with me after reading many of his works was this underlying theme in several of his novels, of the futility of trying to make contact or reason with alien entities which are so vastly different from us, no bridge of understanding is possible. On a l…
Wow this reads like the plot of a bad romcom! I can totally imagine Dick sitting angry in his study getting all worked up over how badly Lem hated US SF and how mean that is, not realizing Lem actually loved his work. All this lacks is the grand finale where the misunderstanding is revealed and they kiss & make out.
He is still overlooked far too much - people seem to regard Solaris as his only work of note. But he has so works, all bizarre, imaginative, and insightful. Fiasco and His Master’s Voice are two of my lesser known favorites.
Wow this reads like the plot of a bad romcom! I can totally imagine Dick sitting angry in his study getting all worked up over how badly Lem hated US SF and how mean that is, not realizing Lem actually loved his work. All this lacks is the grand finale where the misunderstanding is revealed and they kiss & make out.
Philip K. Dick was vindictive, continually broke, terrible at titles, unlucky, and a wonderful writer. He never had a happy ending.
I disagree. Here are some that retain their power all these decades later and will likely do so for the foreseeable future:
Time Out of Joint
The Man in the High Castle
Martian Time-Slip
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Clans of the Alphane Moon
The Simulacra
Now Wait for Last Year
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)/Blade Runner (1982)
Ubik
We Can Build You
Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
A Scanner Darkly
The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
Radio Free Albemuth