Solaris (novel)
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| Solaris | |
|---|---|
 1st English edition |
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| Author | Stanisław Lem |
| Illustrator | Jack Gaughan[2] |
| Cover artist | Lena Fong Hor |
| Country | Poland |
| Language | Polish |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction, Novel |
| Publisher | MON, Walker (US)[1] |
| Publication date | 1961, 1970 (US) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) Audio |
| Pages | 204 pp |
| ISBN | 0-804-42994-4 |
| OCLC Number | 10072735 |
| Dewey Decimal | 891.8/537 19 |
| LC Classification | PG7158.L392 Z53 1985 |
Solaris (1961), by Stanisław Lem, is a Polish science fiction novel about the ultimate inadequacy of communication, between human and non-human species. In probing and examining the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris, from a hovering research station, the unaware human scientists are, in turn, being studied by the planet, which is a sentient being. In due course, Solaris probes for and examines the secret, guilty thoughts of the human beings scientifically examining it. Responding to such examination, Solaris realises their secret, guilty concerns — in human form, for each scientist to confront, while Solaris studies their responses to its psychological probing.
The story of Solaris is thematically pervaded by a powerful, poetic sense of the physical remoteness of outer space and the loneliness it engendres are Lem’s philosophic explorations of man’s anthropomorphic limitations. Solaris was originally published in Warsaw in 1961; it is the best-known of the English-translated (1970) works of the writer Stanisław Lem (1921–2006).[3]
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[edit] Plot
Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of the attempted communications with the extra-terrestrial (alien) life on a planet distant from the Earth. Solaris, with whom scientists are attempting communication, is covered with an ocean that studies indicate actually is a single, planet-sized organism, occupying the surface as an ocean.
Cosmonaut Kris Kelvin arrives aboard the scientific research station hovering (via anti-gravity generators) near the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris. The scientists of the research centre have studied the planet and its ocean for years, and have progressed little beyond observing and recording the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean, and have achieved only the formal classification of the phenomena with an elaborate nomenclature — yet do not understand what such activities mean, as science. When psychologist Kelvin and colleague scientists become more aggressive in trying to force communication through contact with the Solaris ocean, their experimentation becomes psychologically traumatic for the researchers, themselves, personally, as men and women.
The ocean's response to their aggression bares the personalities of the human scientists — whilst revealing nothing of the ocean’s nature. To the extent that the ocean’s actions can be understood, the ocean then experiments with the minds of the scientists, by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories, via the materialization of human constructs: Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover, and guilt about her suicide. The torments of the other researchers is alluded, apparently worse than Kelvin’s hell.
In the event, the sentient ocean’s intelligence realises physical phenomena in ways difficult for earth science to explain, psychologically upsetting the scientists. The alien (extra-terrestrial) mind of Solaris is so greatly different from the human mind of (objective) consciousness, that inter-species communication attempts fail, because of the different minds. The “alienness” (non-human nature) of aliens in human–alien encounters is a featured theme of Lem the philosophic novelist; as such, he scorned anthropomorphic portrayals of aliens as “humanoid”, there being, then, no difference.
[edit] Characters
The protagonist, Kris Kelvin, is a psychologist recently arrived from Earth to the space station studying the planet Solaris. He was married to “Rheya” (“Harey” in the original Polish), who killed herself in suicide when he abandoned their marriage; she is his spectral visitor aboard the space station, and becomes an important character.
“Snow” (“Snaut” in the Polish), is the first person Kelvin meets aboard the station; his visitor remains anonymous. The last inhabitant Kelvin meets is “Sartorius”, the most reclusive member of the cosmonaut crew, who occasionally appears, and always is suspicious of the other crew; his visitor remains anonymous, yet there are indications it might be a child.
The secondary characters are “André Berton” and “Gibarian”; earlier, Gibarian had been an instructor of Kelvin’s, at university; he dies early in the story. Gibarian’s visitor was a “giant Negress” who twice appears to Kelvin, in a hallway, soon after his arrival, and whilst examining Gibarian’s cadaver.
Psychologist Kris Kelvin’s dead wife, Rheya, killed herself with a lethal injection, after quarrelling with him; she is his visitor. Overwhelmed with fear from confronting her, Kelvin lures the Rheya visitor into a shuttle, and launches it to outer space, to be rid of her. Her fate unknown to the other scientists, Snow suggests hailing Rheya’s shuttle, to learn her condition; Kelvin objects. None the less, Rheya soon reappears, like the first visitor, but with no memory of the shuttle matter. Moreover, the second Rheya (“repeated Harey” in the Polish)[citation needed] becomes aware of her transient nature, and is haunted by being Solaris’s means-to-an-end for causing an unknown effect upon Kelvin. After listening to a tape recording by Gibarian, and so learning her true nature, she attempts suicide by drinking liquid oxygen, at which she fails, because her body is of an unknown matter. In the event, she convinces Snow to kill her, with a Sartorius-developed device that disrupts the sub-atomic structure of the constructs (visitors), so preventing their reappearance.
[edit] Cinematic adaptions
The Polish science fiction novel Solaris (1961) has been visually interpreted three times; (i) the 1968 Russian television film Solaris (1968 TV film), directed by Boris Nirenburg; (ii) the Russian cinema film Solaris (1972), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, that loosely follows the novel’s plot, emphasizing the human relationships instead of Lem’s astrobiology theories — especially Kelvin’s Earth life, before his space travel to the planet; and (iii) the American film Solaris (2002), directed by Steven Soderbergh, emphasizing the relationship between Kelvin and his dead wife — again excluding Lem’s scientific and philosophic themes. As a novelist, Stanisław Lem noted that neither movie much depicts the extraordinary physical and psychological “alienness” of the Solaris ocean: “I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images”. [4]
- Solaris (1968 TV film), directed by Boris Nirenburg.[5][6]
- Solaris (1972 film), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, won the Grand Prix at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.
- Solaris (2002 film), directed by Steven Soderbergh, produced by James Cameron.
[edit] Cultural allusions
- The Hungarian progressive rock band Solaris named themselves after the novel.
- The German Solaris opera, by Michael Obst.
- Życie Warszawy of 25 August 2009 reports on p. 8 that TR Warszawa (former Teatr Rozmaitości at Marszałkowska Street) is preparing a theatrical adaptation of Lem's Solaris. The working title is Solaris. Raport (Solaris. The Report), directed by Natalia Korczakowska; the slated premiere was October 2009.
- Musician Photek released an album titled Solaris in 2000; track 7 is the Solaris title track.
- Track 9 of the 90s space rock band Failure's third album, titled Fantastic Planet, is named after the novel, and summarizes some events; Ken Andrews composed the Solaris song.
- Isao Tomita’s 1978 album Kosmos features a track titled “The Sea Named ‘Solaris’ ”, based upon the character-thematic J. S. Bach music selections in Tarkovsky’s film.
- The planet Solaris is an entry in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, by Wayne Barlowe.
- In the video game Xenogears, Solaris is a floating city that controls the land-dwelling humans.
[edit] English editions
An English language translation of the French language translation (therefore a dual translation) has gone through a number of reprints:
- ISBN 0-8027-5526-7 (1970)
- ISBN 0-15-683750-1 (1987)
- ISBN 0-15-602760-7 (2002)
- ISBN 0-571-21972-1 (2003)
[edit] See also
- Science fiction
- Stanisław Lem
- Some of other Lem's novels with a theme of futile attempt at communication with alien intelligence: His Master's Voice, The Invincible, Fiasco
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- List of sentient fictional planets
[edit] References
- ^ http://solaris.lem.pl/ksiazki/beletrystyka/solaris?start=5
- ^ http://www.shapero.com/rare/book/dept/Literature/cat/modern+literature//item.72004
- ^ Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, fourth edition (1996), p. 590.
- ^ The Solaris Station
- ^ Video clip with English subtitles.
- ^ Video clip with German subtitles.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Solaris (novel) |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Solaris |
- Solaris book page on Stanisław Lem's official site
- Stanisław Lem's essay on Solaris, ibid.
- Study Guide for Stanisław Lem: Solaris (1961), by Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University
- Solaris by Stanisław Lem, reviewed by Ted Gioia (Conceptual Fiction)
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