The melancholy Polish sci-fi sage was obsessed with the dark places where technology veers into incoherence. Have we reached that juncture today? Consider the recent UFO news reports. . . .
As Polish I am so sorry English readers are not able to read his untranslated pieces. His Summa Technologiae he was extremely proud of (eg. he discussed in 60s VR!!!), would make him like Fukuyama if published then. He also used strange formats to publish his ideas- for example "Ideal Vacuum" or "Imaginary Number" (?) are set of reviews or Intros of fake books, where some ideas are really mind-blowing. His "Golem XVI" is discussing AI future in really different way we can see even now (he did not believe in "AI would kill us" at all).
You would realize he was SF writer by accident and after mid-60s he was really bored with that label. He was more like a philospher or thinker, trying to look into humanity's future.
In last few years we could finally read some more detailed biographies of Lem in Poland. For example his traumatic experiences from Lwów(Lviv as per today's spelling) where he witnessed executions. Lem was born in Jewish family (not particularly religious though) and life has taught him not to talk about it if not necessary. But he had lot of a scholar studying kabbalah in himself. I am happy to see people from other countries reading and admiring my beloved Lem and simultanously I am sad that you don't have access to his interviews, letters etc. He was absolutely unique in writing in Polish. No one wrote like him and never will. Totally unique, very irritating at times, sometimes chaotic (on purpose!). But I am also sad for myself. Unfortunately I do not read yiddish nor hebrew language. And thus the original mindset of Lem, his very roots, will remain impenetrable for me. I think it would be great if some serious Jewish philologists and philosophers should learn about Lem and shed some light. Help us who do not see...
Unlike you and probably Lem, I know exactly why and how this extraterrestrial stuff is playing out. The meta organism sometimes called GAIA is willfully guiding the forms of life on earth with the intention of reproducing itself in another form in a barren part of the universe. Humanity is the reproductive organ of GAIA. Our purpose from the beginning was to look at the stars and dream. Then to become sufficient to the task of breaking free from the solar system. This required billions of humans and trillions of tons of resources and resulted in a mass extinction event. But, yo, we did it. Now GAIA is tired, needs to sleep for an eon.
Lem never described himself as SF writer and indeed he was not. It's necessary to know his biography and reality of times he lives to understand meanings of many of his works. Also satire is not a comedy and his works was the first ones.
Lem has always been one of the great writers to never have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I do have to do disagree with your recommending a pass on the Cyberiad which might be too witty for some readers (wink). A final note: his most popular work in English, Solaris, is also one of the worst translations in history since it is an English language translation of a French translation from the original Polish. To my knowledge, there aren't any readily available direct to English translations from the Polish. I hated Solaris and only later found out about the translation issue and chalk my disdain for that novel to that reason.
Thank you for this wonderful and insightful look at the work of Stanisḻaw Lem, one of the best writers in the SF genre in any language. I’ve read a number of his novels, but you’ve mentioned a few I obviously need to catch up with. You’re hard on his amusing works, though. Though it’s decades since I read it, I recall enjoying “Cyberiad” greatly.
As for UFOs, I don’t feel at all convinced that they are little green men. But you are right to consider such sightings as evidence that we don’t understand everything. Lem is telling us, did J. B. S. Haldane: “the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose”.
These things only apparently violate the laws of physics if you completely ignore the optics and operation of the cameras, and badly misjudge the distances. That looks like an infrared lens flare due to a distant jet disappearing below the horizon. Ho hum. Amazing how distant blurry things are so mysterious, and mysterious things are always distant and blurry.
Those UFOs near the water are unambiguously real. I wonder about their provenance. Without knowing about that it's really hard to divine a motive, nor could you validate any assumption.
In the '70s a friend who owned an SF bookstore had to special order Lem books from the UK and they didn't sell as well as he had hoped.
40 years later I helped another friend sell some of his huge SF collection on Amazon. The same UK Lem editions sold almost as fast as I could list them.
As Polish I am so sorry English readers are not able to read his untranslated pieces. His Summa Technologiae he was extremely proud of (eg. he discussed in 60s VR!!!), would make him like Fukuyama if published then. He also used strange formats to publish his ideas- for example "Ideal Vacuum" or "Imaginary Number" (?) are set of reviews or Intros of fake books, where some ideas are really mind-blowing. His "Golem XVI" is discussing AI future in really different way we can see even now (he did not believe in "AI would kill us" at all).
You would realize he was SF writer by accident and after mid-60s he was really bored with that label. He was more like a philospher or thinker, trying to look into humanity's future.
In last few years we could finally read some more detailed biographies of Lem in Poland. For example his traumatic experiences from Lwów(Lviv as per today's spelling) where he witnessed executions. Lem was born in Jewish family (not particularly religious though) and life has taught him not to talk about it if not necessary. But he had lot of a scholar studying kabbalah in himself. I am happy to see people from other countries reading and admiring my beloved Lem and simultanously I am sad that you don't have access to his interviews, letters etc. He was absolutely unique in writing in Polish. No one wrote like him and never will. Totally unique, very irritating at times, sometimes chaotic (on purpose!). But I am also sad for myself. Unfortunately I do not read yiddish nor hebrew language. And thus the original mindset of Lem, his very roots, will remain impenetrable for me. I think it would be great if some serious Jewish philologists and philosophers should learn about Lem and shed some light. Help us who do not see...
Unlike you and probably Lem, I know exactly why and how this extraterrestrial stuff is playing out. The meta organism sometimes called GAIA is willfully guiding the forms of life on earth with the intention of reproducing itself in another form in a barren part of the universe. Humanity is the reproductive organ of GAIA. Our purpose from the beginning was to look at the stars and dream. Then to become sufficient to the task of breaking free from the solar system. This required billions of humans and trillions of tons of resources and resulted in a mass extinction event. But, yo, we did it. Now GAIA is tired, needs to sleep for an eon.
Lem never described himself as SF writer and indeed he was not. It's necessary to know his biography and reality of times he lives to understand meanings of many of his works. Also satire is not a comedy and his works was the first ones.
Lem is one of my faves too, partly because I think he does humor much better than other sci-fi authors. I also greatly enjoyed “Cyberiad”.
Lem has always been one of the great writers to never have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I do have to do disagree with your recommending a pass on the Cyberiad which might be too witty for some readers (wink). A final note: his most popular work in English, Solaris, is also one of the worst translations in history since it is an English language translation of a French translation from the original Polish. To my knowledge, there aren't any readily available direct to English translations from the Polish. I hated Solaris and only later found out about the translation issue and chalk my disdain for that novel to that reason.
Thank you for this wonderful and insightful look at the work of Stanisḻaw Lem, one of the best writers in the SF genre in any language. I’ve read a number of his novels, but you’ve mentioned a few I obviously need to catch up with. You’re hard on his amusing works, though. Though it’s decades since I read it, I recall enjoying “Cyberiad” greatly.
As for UFOs, I don’t feel at all convinced that they are little green men. But you are right to consider such sightings as evidence that we don’t understand everything. Lem is telling us, did J. B. S. Haldane: “the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose”.
These things only apparently violate the laws of physics if you completely ignore the optics and operation of the cameras, and badly misjudge the distances. That looks like an infrared lens flare due to a distant jet disappearing below the horizon. Ho hum. Amazing how distant blurry things are so mysterious, and mysterious things are always distant and blurry.
Those UFOs near the water are unambiguously real. I wonder about their provenance. Without knowing about that it's really hard to divine a motive, nor could you validate any assumption.
It is telling that many of these sightings take place near water or the ocean. It brings to mind C.G. Jung's essay on UFO's.
In the '70s a friend who owned an SF bookstore had to special order Lem books from the UK and they didn't sell as well as he had hoped.
40 years later I helped another friend sell some of his huge SF collection on Amazon. The same UK Lem editions sold almost as fast as I could list them.