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Solaris (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover by Oscar Chichoni for the Spanish edition |
|
| Author | Stanisław Lem |
|---|---|
| Country | Poland |
| Language | Polish |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction, Novel |
| Publisher | |
| Publication date | 1961 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) Audio |
| Pages | 204 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-804-42994-4 |
Solaris is a Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), published in Warsaw in 1961 and probably his most famous work. The novel uses remote space exploration as a metaphor for whether the human mind will ever understand a truly alien life form. While the narration suggests that humans study the planet, the opposite seems to be the case, where the titular alien planet Solaris examines the secret, often guilty thoughts of men, which in the novel are given physical form and which invade the space station, disturbing the routine. The novel is pervaded by a powerful and moving poetic sense of remoteness and loneliness.
It was adapted into a Russian film in 1972, a cinematic tour de force by director Andrei Tarkovsky, and an American film in 2002. There is also an opera of the same title by German composer Michael Obst.
Contents |
The novel is about the ultimately futile attempt to communicate with an alien life-form on a distant planet. The planet, called Solaris, is covered with a so-called "ocean" that is really a single organism covering the entire surface. The ocean shows signs of a vast but strange intelligence, which can create physical phenomena in a way that science has difficulty explaining. The alien mind of Solaris is so inconceivably different from human consciousness that all attempts at communication are doomed (the "alienness" of aliens was one of Lem's favourite themes; he was scornful about portrayals of aliens as humanoid).
The novel begins with the arrival of the protagonist, Kris Kelvin, at a scientific research station hovering above the surface of Solaris. Research has been ongoing for years, but scientists have been unable to do more than observe the highly complex phenomena on the surface of the ocean, all the while classifying them into an elaborate nomenclature without understanding what they actually mean. When the protagonist and his colleagues become more aggressive in trying to force contact with Solaris, the experiment becomes psychologically traumatic for the researchers themselves. The ocean's response, such as it is, lays bare their own personalities, while revealing nothing of the ocean's. To the extent that the ocean's actions can be understood, the ocean begins experimenting with the researchers' minds by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories through the materialization of complex human constructs: the protagonist is confronted with memories of his deceased lover and his guilt over her suicide. What torments the other researchers is only hinted at (as they are careful to conceal it) but it appears to be much worse.
Andrei Tarkovsky's film follows the novel loosely, emphasizing human relationships over Lem's theories on exobiology, and devoting considerable time to Kelvin's life on Earth before his trip to Solaris. In 2002, Steven Soderbergh made a film adaptation of Solaris which appears to be influenced by the book and definitely by Tarkovsky's film. The Soderbergh film focuses on the relationship between Kelvin and his deceased wife to the exclusion of many of Lem's other themes.
An English translation of the French translation of the book (therefore a dual translation) is available as:
- ISBN 0-8027-5526-7 (1970)
- ISBN 0-15-683750-1 (1987)
- ISBN 0-15-602760-7 (2002)
- ISBN 0-571-21972-1 (2003)
- Solaris book page on Stanislaw Lem's official site
- Stanislaw Lem's essay on Solaris, ibid.
- Study Guide for Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961), by Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University