Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

This is to discuss May 2017's group read Solaris by Stanisław Lem

This should be an interesting group read as I think it's one of these books that people will love or hate. I've read three books by Lem, The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy, The Invincible, and this one, all completely different in style. It's been a while since I read this so i'm planning to read it again (although i've still not finished last months book yet!).

I've watched the film by Tarkovsky probably three or four times, and I'd be interested to see how the book is similar and different from the screen. The movie is probably among the best ever made in the history of film.

I was disappointed in this after all I'd heard about it for so many years. I listened to it last September & gave it a 2 star review here:
/review/show...

I read Solaris a couple of weeks ago. It left me feeling that the author had great ideas that didn't work out. The concept of the living ocean was fascinating, but wasn't enough to fill an entire book. I feel that Lem could have fleshed out the book to give it more depth. Plus, pages and pages of scientific theory interrupts the plot because it isn't integrated better.
I haven't seen the movie, but I think this is a case in which the movie would be better than the book.

M.P. wrote: "I've watched the film by Tarkovsky probably three or four times, and I'd be interested to see how the book is similar and different from the screen. The movie is probably among the best ever made i..."

It is my understanding that "Stalker" is the material left over after the primary footage was destroyed by fire. The director had no filming budget left so he edited what remained into the movie. I saw it almost 20 years ago and enjoyed it. I also saw Solaris at that time. The Russians know how to do the psychological.

Solaris, the movie, is available for viewing free and legal on the site sovietMoviesOnline:


It, along with Stalker, are two of my favorite films, which is one reason I'm eager to read this. Stalker is _very_ different from the book it was based on: Roadside Picnic. So I wonder how different this one is from it's book.

The movie is very, very slow. Many find it dull. But it entrances me. (OK, maybe not the 5 minute car ride, but overall....)

The remake with George Clooney moves faster, while still keeping faithful to the plot of the original film. I like both versions. The English version helped me understand the original better.

I didn't know there was a Clooney version.....on to Netflix!!!

Loved the Tarkovsky film - the remake? Ehhh

I wonder why Hollywood has such an urge to redo films already established as classics. The audience? Money?

Haaze wrote: "Loved the Tarkovsky film - the remake? Ehhh

I wonder why Hollywood has such an urge to redo films already established as classics. The audience? Money?"

Probably money.

Haaze wrote: "Loved the Tarkovsky film - the remake? Ehhh

I wonder why Hollywood has such an urge to redo films already established as classics. The audience? Money?"

Also some people won't watch films with subtitles (or depending on the country, dubbed).

Film-makers and writers get their ideas from all sorts of places. I don't understand why the idea of re-making a film is so often looked-down on. Why is that a less valid inspiration than a novel, or a comic book, or a video game? Why is the "novelization" of a film looked-down on? If the end product is good, then it is good regardless of the source.

Soderbergh was not necessarily re-making the film:

[via wikipedia] Soderbergh "said that he didn't intend Solaris to be a remake of Tarkovsky's film but rather a new version of Stanislaw Lem's novel".

Tarkovsky was also motivated by money and could also be accused of doing a re-make, since there was already a soviet made-for-TV film version.

[more wikipedia] In 1968, the director Andrei Tarkovsky had two motives for cinematically adapting the Polish science fiction novel, Solaris (1961), by Stanisław Lem: firstly, he admired Lem's work. Secondly, he needed work and money, ...

Tarkovsky's film is a masterpiece while Soderbergh's is good but unexceptional. The difference is due to the skills of the film-maker, not the originality of the starting material.

I think remaking a film usually gives them a built-in draw. Sometimes it's a turn-off, though. I think that happens when a film is too iconic. No one has tried to remake "Gone With The Wind" or "A Clockwork Orange" for instance.

New audiences and a pattern of success, it is a less risky investment for the producers and investors.

Jim wrote: "I was disappointed in this after all I'd heard about it for so many years. I listened to it last September & gave it a 2 star review here:
/review/show..."

Thanks for that review.

I'm halfway into it now and I am enjoying it. But, like Jim, I find some of the scientific discussion parts dull and hard to follow. It might have been better to just leave it all mysterious.

And the mish-mash of technologies feels weird. Living in a world where almost everybody walks around with a video recorder in their phone, it feels weird to read about people who can build a space station that flies about above a distant planet, yet don't seem to have any technology for recording images. The characters keep worrying that nobody will believe what they've seen. So why not take some movies, or even just some pictures?

I still am enjoying it because I find it interesting to think about what the main character must be feeling faced with his visitor. The human story of that is more interesting than the alien planet.

Both movie versions spent more time on that human story, which apparently Lem wasn't happy about.

I'm reading the print version translated from a French version which was translated from Polish. I initially assumed that the two listed translators was because it was a double translation. But nope, it took two people to get it from French to English. The original Polish to French translator isn't mentioned anywhere in my book.

I wonder whether some of the stilted language comes from that odd translation path.

There is a more recent direct-from-Polish translation by Bill Johnston, but it is not available in print. Only as audio or e-book.

I don't remember it being stilted when I first read it, but I haven't started to re-read it yet - i'm hoping to start at the weekend. I've got the 2003 copy that came out as a tie in with the film (the one with Clooney on the cover).

Just finished my print copy, 1972, translated directly from polish to dutch, I guess. I'm going to find out a little bit more about book and writer, as I don't see yet why it is known as a classic. The long scenes with a description of the science concerning Solaris didn't interest me really, they were too many and too long I think. What I did like is the fact of a planet with a lifeform men doesn't understand a bit, while studying it for ages. And the relationship of Kelvin with his guest, a sad story. Not sure whether I would like to see one of the movies.

Leo, those were my feelings to when I read the book. The science was out of place in a novel. But I found the concept of the sentient ocean fascinating.

Yes, this ocean and its activities, agreed it is a great thought.

Rosemarie wrote: "The science was out of place in a novel."

That was his way of explaining what happened before the story began. I don't think it was out of place. But, those info-dump sections are very dull. I suppose they are supposed to sound dull since they are supposed to be publications of scientists and academic researchers.

On the other hand, Lem has written some parodies(?) of academic articles in works like Imaginary Magnitude, and I found those to be fun.

You have a point there, but he could have made it more interesting, maybe?

Leo wrote: "Just finished my print copy, 1972, translated directly from polish to dutch, I guess. I'm going to find out a little bit more about book and writer, as I don't see yet why it is known as a classic...."

I think there was a great interest in the books emerging from across the wall in the 70s/80s. Poland was of course one of these nations. Stanislaw Lem has a very different type of imagination compared the mainstream. I suspect that several factors brought it into the limelight of the SF fans of the time?

I borrowed from my library what I thought was the audiobook version of Solaris. It turns out that it was a BBC radio play. It was quite good, only two hours long. Novels are usually better than their movies. I wonder if the same holds true for radio plays. At any rate, I had not read Lem before, and now, even though I very much enjoyed the radio play, I feel that I still have not read Lem.

I think I would have enjoyed this more without the science, too. A Bradbury treatment would have been really good. No info dumps or weird lapses in tech.

The radio play Buck listened to it might be the best way to enjoy it, depending on how true they stayed to the book. I don't like reading PKD generally, but enjoy many of the movies based on his stories. Radio plays vary a lot, but they generally have to trim the story down, so I'd guess many of the info dumps were cut.

I find lately that I haven't cared much for PKD. I've read a lot of his stuff. I'm reading one now. Can't help myself.

Haaze wrote: "I think there was a great interest in the books emerging from across the wall in the 70s/80s. ..." That could be it then. I do have in my collection some translated Russian SF from that period too. Did not read it yet but it'd be interesting to compare.

Dick wrote ten great novels. The rest are just experiments...

Gregg wrote: "Dick wrote ten great novels. The rest are just experiments..."

Is this figuratively or do you have a specific ten in mind, and if so which?

There are many concurrent opinions on this subject including Fredric Jameson in his "Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions:

He devotes a whole section on an analysis of "Dr. Bloodmoney" by Dick. Jameson's work is the highest literary statement on SF to date.

My review of the work:

A non-apologetist review of the science fiction genre through the eyes of America's leading postmodernist thinker. You will need to bring your knowledge of the Western Canon and contemporary philosophy with you in order to fully appreciate this text. Its division into books I and II enables regular science fiction readers to access straight forward reviews in Book II.

Expect to learn from this book and don't expect him to enshrine SF into the Western Canon but rather to provide you with an understanding of the zeitgeist of the history of the genre and ourselves. Authors reviewed range from Dick to Robinson, Brunner to Le Guin. With a focus on utopianism and dystopia the subjects covered are sex and society, aliens and psychoanalyst, and the motifs and mechanics of this writing field.

Jameson also remarks on the differences between hard science fiction and fantasy. He clearly traces the link between the utopian members of the Western Canon and the rise of science fiction's paraliterature, and the societal needs for these works and their roots in the human collective conscienceness. He also notes the limits of critical literature and the "drift" of high literature into the domain of science fiction in recent years as a result of our postmodern condition and the limits of critical literature to deal with the disassociative nature of the contemporary experience.

The reader will be left with an understanding of the genre, our times, and our historical basis. He or she will also be perplexed as to how science fiction was replaced by fantasy as the popular literature of our times at the same moment it matured as a literary entity. One will also begin to understand how the internal dynamics of science fiction and its authors went from the popularizers of American modernism and imperialism to become the primary opponents of modernism in our times.

Be forewarned that Jameson does not see Marxism as a bad word but rather a critical tool for evaluating society.

Others concur:







With the variance in opinions you can squeeze fifteen or so fine reads out of Dick. Or you can just let all of his work flow over you through the years....

This is a good place to start if you are interested:

Gregg wrote: "There are many concurrent opinions on this subject including Fredric Jameson in his "Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions: ..."

Thanks i've put this on my to read list.

It seems i've read most of the best novels other than Radio Free Albemuth and The Divine Invasion. Funnily enough none of the lists mention the one I remember really liking, The Game-Players of Titan.

I see a lot of readers dislike the science in Solaris, but that's what I love about this book! Lem starts with a concept—a sentient ocean—and then works out the science of it. This is science fiction, or perhaps—fictional science, at its best!

Good answer!

I believe Gameplayers is one of his earn commercial successes. I don't think I have read it...yet.

If y'all are going to keep talking about Dick, you might want to start a thread in the group folder devoted to him.

Lem is pretty different from him, but in both cases they have inspired some good and great films.

Apart from Solaris, Lem inspired the film , based very loosely on The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy. It is a very trippy animated film. Much of it is a halucination. Well, the middle section is. Or maybe it isn't? It is very Dickian in that what seems to be reality shifts frequently.

I don't do linear very well, dude.

Thanks for the recommendation.

I read some about Lem's other books, including The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy,Tales of Pirx the Pilot and Eden. I'm going to look out for this ones. Most of his books are supposed to be SF but mainly because of the scenery, they are not SF 'as we know it', like we've seen with Solaris.

Leo wrote: "I read some about Lem's other books, including The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy,Tales of Pirx the Pilot and Eden. I'm going to look..."

The Invincible is fairly straight forward sci-if as I remember it. The book of the Futurological congress is far better than the film (although film is only loosely based on book), there is a lot of humour in it.

Jo wrote: "The Invincible is fairly straight forward sci-if as I remember it...." Thanks, I found copys of both of them in my collection so I can start my Lem-investigations soon.

Jo wrote: "The book of the Futurological congress is far better than the film..."

I enjoyed the film more, though really only the animated middle section. But I can't be 100% certain I read the book. I read most of my Lem 20 years ago, well before starting to log my reads on this site, so I have to trust my memory, which is quite fallible. Some of his books have such similar descriptions that I'm not sure which ones I've read. Did I read "Imaginary Magnitude" or was it "One Human Minute"? Was it "...Bathtub" or "...Congress" or both? Was it "Pirx" or "More ... Pirx" or even "Cyberiad".

Whichever books I actually read, in all cases I remember thinking I liked the idea of the stories better than I enjoyed reading the stories. I feel the same way about Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The drama of the characters, the mysteriousness of the visitors and what the other members of the station had experienced - I was pretty gripped through most of it. It's science and experience was definitely 'out there' for its time.

Leo wrote: "The long scenes with a description of the science concerning Solaris didn't interest me really, they were too many and too long I think."

I agree. It was disjointed context. In my opinion, it didn't have a direct relationship with the scenes we followed aboard the station and really were not necessary to understand them anyways. I skimmed through those parts, unfortunately. I never feel right doing it, but they were so awfully boring!

Buck wrote: "I borrowed from my library what I thought was the audiobook version of Solaris. It turns out that it was a BBC radio play. It was quite good, only two hours long."

That sounds super interesting! Like War of the Worlds? I'm going to have to hunt this recording down, methinks. :)

Just finished the book this morning, I really liked it!
I mainly liked it thematically on humankind's aspirations to understanding the unknown. It makes clear that in our research and art we necessarily have a human perspective.

I actually liked the imaginary history of Solarist studies a lot. It felt very vivid how obsessed humankind can become with something we do not understand and how the scientific community would deal with setbacks.

2001 A Space Oddyssey is one of my favourite movies and also heavy on this theme. I actually like the descriptions of the encounters with the sea here better than the creepy atmosphere when approaching the monolith.

Theresa wrote: "I actually liked the imaginary history of Solarist studies a lot..."

Me too.

I really enjoyed the part at the very end where the guy goes out and sticks his hand (or foot) into the ocean. The way the ocean reacted was something that had been observed many times before but was no closer to being understood. Really drives home the point that this object is truly alien and perhaps beyond our comprehension.

I fell behind on my reading, and just finished Solaris in one reading last night. I loved it-- the sentient ocean with its fractal structures, the psychological horror of the "visitors" (exactly what did Snow and Sartorius have with them? I got the feeling that maybe they weren't exactly humanesque...), and I really enjoyed the science dumps-- I thought that they really highlighted how far out of their depth the scientists were. This book made me think of Robert L Forward's Rocheworld books-- I'm not sure why, because aside from ocean-covered planets the books are entirely different.

Jim wrote: "I was disappointed in this after all I'd heard about it for so many years. I listened to it last September & gave it a 2 star review here:
/review/show..."

Jim, I liked it more than you did, but I agree about the absence of sex. I kept trying to figure out whether Kris was having sex with Harey, and decided probably not. But it was distracting.