# Tell me about Stanislaw Lem **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 27, 2001, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721 "2001-03-27T19:37:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/1 "2001-03-27T19:37:28Z")
Next Thursday on the campus on which I work there is going to be a talk on Stanislaw Lem, the Polish Science Fiction Writer. > [@](#): > > “Stanislaw Lem’s Science Fiction: > Linkages between science, philosophy and literature” > > A lecture and discussion with Professor Leszek Koczanowicz (Opole University, Poland, & SUNY at Buffalo) Here’s the thing: I’m a pretty big Science Fiction Fan, but I’ve never read anything by Lem and so know very little about him and his work. (I may, at some time, have run across a short story or 2 in an anthology, but I don’t know). So, what can you tell me about this guy’s work? Is there a book I could read this week that would give me an idea of what this guy’s about? Is his work worth the trouble? I should also point out that I am an American of Polish descent, so I’m pretty interested in attending the talk. I just don’t know if it’s worth it if I have no idea about this guy or his works. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/2 "2001-03-27T23:28:02Z")
Lem is actually the most popular sci-fi author in the world. His work is different than the stuff you get in America. It’s REAL sci-fi. Most of American sci-fi is fantasy mascarading as sci-fi, due to the influence of Joseph Campbell. His works have a common theme, which is how humans deal with complex unknown systems. This manifests itself in themes depicting how science is more of a reflection of the scientists than any real truth. Another theme is the futility and impossibility of communications with other life forms. His works vary widely. Not all are serious, some are great comedies, some are little trifling tales to amuse, some are satires of human folly, and some are veiled critiques of the Communist propaganda. I’d recommend reading “Fiasco”. It starts out very slow and not that interesting, but it gets much, much better. I think this is one of the most important books in all of science fiction, and ends up being harsh critique of game-theory, and convential views of “contact”. Another one of my favorites is “Memoirs Found in a Bathtub”, a satire on the CIA / KGB type of spy-game. It will blow your mind. His most famous work is Solaris, which is also great, but I like Fiasco a little better. For some laughs, read “Diaries of a Space Traveller” (I think that’s the title). These are part of the “Ijon Tichy” stories, which tend to be short and funny. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2001, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/3 "2001-03-27T23:57:54Z")
I don’t exactly know what you mean when you say Lem wrote “real” science fiction. Most of his works are satirical fables, with nothing resembling science. (Where was the science in “How the World Was Saved,” for instance?) Most of his work is pure fantasy with robots performing the magic. Joseph Campbell is not a major influence on American science fiction literature, BTW. It’s John Campbell who is the most influential editor in the field, and who insisted on scientific accuracy and plausibility. (If you thinking about Star Wars – forget it. Despite it’s strengths as a movie, it was dealing with themes that had been passe for decades; no one was – or is – writing that sort of stuff, other than with tie-ins.) Lem writes a different type of SF than you see in the U.S., and his books tend toward being heavyhanded (which many claim is the fault of the translators – evidently he uses a lot of wordplay, which doesn’t translate). The closest to him are people like Zamyiatin, though Lem is better, more imaginative, and wittier (though his humor often comes off as clumsy and obvious). I’d say a good start is “Memoirs Found in a Bathtub.” “Solaris” is OK, if a bit turgid at times. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/4 "2001-03-28T04:47:46Z")
It’s called _The Star Diaries_. I don’t know about any complex themes, but it’s outrageously funny. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/5 "2001-03-28T10:44:47Z")
[Lem bibliography link](http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/lem/) I have my right hand strapped up at the moment, due to twinges which might be incipient RSI. Have you ever _tried_ typing “Stanislaw Lem bibliography” with one hand bandaged…? I make the effort because Lem is one of my favourite writers - fercociously intelligent, often enthrallingly funny, always thought-provoking. In addition to being an SF writer, he has a substantial reputation as a critic and futurologist… hmm. If you want to know where he’s coming from, intellectually, why not skip the SF and pick up _Microworlds_, a collection of his critical essays, published by HBJ? Granted, it’s a heavier read than _The Cyberiad_ (my first Lem book) or _The Star Diaries_, but… FWIW, my favourite is _His Master’s Voice_. Okay, it’s dry and academic in tone, and quite slow-moving… but the ending just sends chills down my spine. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/6 "2001-03-28T12:54:00Z")
If you’re looking for something short that you can read quickly before the lecture, I suggest _The Cyberiad_ and _A Perfect Vacuum_, both of which are collections of short stories, but extremely different in subject matter. _The Cyberiad_ is a collection of fables set in a universe of robots, centered on the adventures of two constructor robots who get hired to perform engineering miracles. _A Perfect Vacuum_ is a collection of reviews of nonexistent books, in which he satirizes various social and literary trends. _Imaginary Magnitude_ also uses this technique, but focuses more on scientific satire and theorizing. Personally, though, my favorites are _The Star Diaries_ and its companion volume _Memoires of a Space Traveler_. –sublight. ---
**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2001, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/7 "2001-03-28T13:39:50Z")
Thanks Folks. I’ll head to the used bookstore tonight . . . And actually, I found [this interesting site](http://www.lem.pl), which is in both Polish and English. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2001, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/8 "2001-03-29T18:10:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > I don’t exactly know what you mean when you say Lem wrote “real” science fiction. Most of his works are satirical fables, with nothing resembling science. Most? I don’t know the percentage of his serious work to his sataritical work, but certainly his most famous novels are very insightful commentaries on real science-fiction themes. THat’s what sci-fi is supposed to be like. > [@](#): > > Joseph Campbell is not a major influence on American science fiction literature, BTW. It’s John Campbell who is the most influential editor in the field, and who insisted on scientific accuracy and plausibility. He certainly was a big influence by having been the most influential editor. Everyone had to write to please him. That’s why all the American sci-fi has the same concepts of the psychics in the future, and other such nonsense that he like to see. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2001, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/9 "2001-03-29T20:20:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Avumede \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > > Joseph Campbell is not a major influence on American science fiction literature, BTW. It’s John Campbell who is the most influential editor in the field, and who insisted on scientific accuracy and plausibility. > > He certainly was a big influence by having been the most influential editor. Everyone had to write to please him. That’s why all the American sci-fi has the same concepts of the psychics in the future, and other such nonsense that he like to see. \*\* Maybe **RealityChuck** wasn’t clear enough: **Joseph** Campbell is not the same as **John W.** Campbell. **Joseph** Campbell is the author of _Hero With a Thousand Faces_ and other works on storytelling and mythology. I won’t deny that he’s been a large influence on the fantasy field, but his influence on American Science Fiction is minimal at best. (He also was the subject of a puffy Bill Moyers special about ten years ago, which is the main source of his fame.) **John W.** Campbell was the most famous magazine editor in Science Fiction history (rivaled only by Hugo Gernsback). He edited _Astounding_ (which later changed its name to _Analog_) from the late '30s until his death in about 1971. He was known for demanding logical consistency in plots and realistic characters (in contradistinction to the majority of the pulps of the day). In his later years, he did fall for a series of pseudo-scientific ideas, such as the Dean Drive and Dianetics, but his major hobby-horse was that humans would always win out over aliens. (Which is why Isaac Asimov’s two most famous series – the Robots stories and the Foundation novellas – are both set in a Galaxy with no intelligent life other than humanity.) In short, I believe **Avumede** is conflating two very different personalities. The question of how science fictional a writer Lem is, is not something I want to touch (it’s not an argument anyone can win). He wrote works that came out of his readings in SF and that speculate about possible futures, and can thus be profitably be read as SF. But he also wrote other sorts of things as well. ---
**Author:** ![Avumede](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/avumede/32/7235_2.png) [@Avumede](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avumede)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2001, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/10 "2001-03-30T15:31:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by G.B.H. Hornswoggler \* > > Maybe **RealityChuck** wasn’t clear enough: > > **Joseph** Campbell is not the same as **John W.** Campbell. Doh! OK, I get it now. Thanks for making that clear - I didn’t read RealityChuck’s post well enough. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/11 "2021-11-30T22:04:49Z")
Bumped. This may be of interest: > **[A Century in Stanislaw Lem’s Cosmos (Published 2021)](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/books/stanislaw-lem.html)** > > The “Solaris” author’s centenary is being celebrated from Poland to the International Space Station. The range of his work is similarly dizzying. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2021, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/12 "2021-11-30T22:27:10Z")
The modern author who reminds me most of Lem is Ted Chiang, but that might just be me. Lem was also involved in a strange SFWA controversy which led to him losing his honorary membership in the organization. I wasn’t paying attention to SFWA issues at the time, so all my information about the kerfuffle is second-hand, but apparently there was annoyance at some of the statements Lem had been reported as making about American SF, and some anticommunist paranoia as well (I eagerly await correction and elaboration from people who were more closely engaged at the time). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/13 "2021-12-01T01:54:03Z")
The short version is that Lem wasn’t eligible for honorary membership because he was in fact eligible to become an actual member. So after his remarks got him noticed, his honorary membership was rescinded and he was asked if he wanted to join. He wasn’t and loudly. Nobody was pleased at this outcome but it was all the rules allowed. Lem’s fiction wasn’t available outside Europe in those days. They were translated into German and the first English-language translators translated that into English.\* Nobody was pleased at this outcome either, because his tricky language and wordplay disappeared into boring sludge. I never could read through that stuff and the thought kept me from ever trying again. Today he’d be lionized and well-known, but the weird circumstances of his history meant that he was disdained by the sf community and ignored by the mainstream who despised anything tainted with sf cooties. \* I went back and reread that Times essay. My memory was slightly off, at least for Solaris, which was re-translated from the French. Other works may have come through German, though. One of his early translators - not of Solaris - was [Michael Kandel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kandel), who wrote some absolutely delightful oddball sf novels in the early 90s. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/14 "2021-12-01T02:07:03Z")
I have my father’s copy of Memoirs Found In A Bathtub. The back cover promises ‘a world where everybody is a spy. But nobody knows his mission’. It delivers. Boy, does it deliver! I’ve read it I don’t know how many times. If you love the role-playing game Paranoia, you need to read this book. I know of Solaris by its mention in Barlowe’s Guide To Extra Terrestrials. I bought a copy. I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I read the Cyberiad several times before my Dad gave it away without asking me first. I read the love poem from Cyberiad as a toast at a friend’s wedding. Here it is " Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tred the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to _n_, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! Come, every frustrum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze It whispers of a more ergodic zone. In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. Our asymptotes no longer out of phase, We shall encounter, counting, face to face. I’ll grant thee random access to my heart, Thou’lt tell me all the constants of thy love; And so we two shall all love’s lemmas prove, And in our bound partition never part. For what did Cauchy know, or Christoffel, Or Fourier, or any Boole or Euler, Wielding their compasses, their pens and rulers, Of thy supernal sinusoidal spell? Cancel me not–for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. Ellipse of bliss, converge, O lips divine! The product of our scalars is defined! Cyberiad draws nigh, and the skew mind Cuts capers like a happy haversine. I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. Bernoulli would have been content to die, Had he known such a^2 cos(2 \phi) !" It is coincidentally the only wedding I’ve been invited to speak at that has not ended in divorce. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/15 "2021-12-01T13:11:10Z")
By the way, there’s a story by Lem available that was only translated into English this year - “The Truth” [The Truth, by Stanisław Lem | The MIT Press Reader](https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-truth-by-stanislaw-lem/) > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The short version is that Lem wasn’t eligible for honorary membership because he was in fact eligible to become an actual member. So after his remarks got him noticed, his honorary membership was rescinded and he was asked if he wanted to join. He wasn’t and loudly. Nobody was pleased at this outcome but it was all the rules allowed. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/16 "2021-12-01T14:20:50Z")
All I wanna know is, how was the talk? I eagerly await the aptly-named LateComer’s review. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/17 "2021-12-01T14:57:56Z")
I’m not a big fan of Lem’s work. I’ve read quite a bit of it, but I don’t really see the attraction. One reason that I was interested was because Lem had a big, though secondary, influence on me as a kid. Two of his stories were turned into movies by European companies that were translated into English, and that I saw at matinees at our downtown movie theater – **First Spaceship on Venus** , filmed as _ **Der schweigende Stern** _ (The Shining Star) by a German-Polish company in 1960, and based on Lem’s 1951 novel **Astronauci** (“The Astronauts”). The film was riffed by MST3K, but it’s not bad, and features a pretty diverse international crew and a cute robot. – **Voyage to the End of the Universe** , originally **Ikarie XB-1** , filmed in Czechoslovakia in 1963. They dubbed it into English and changed the names of the actors so they would seem less Slavic. They also tacked on a “twist” ending not in the original. The story about a "space ark’ travelling to a distant sun becomes a story about an alien space ark coming to Earth in this new version. In the original, it’s Earth people going to Alpha Centauri, which turns out to have a heavily populated world circling it. Loosely based on Lem’s 1955 novel **The Magellanic Cloud** Many years later I saw Tarkovski’s 1972 film **Solaris** , based on Lem’s 1961 novel of the same name. I later saw the Steven Soderburgh/James Cameron remake from 2002. Both films exclude an awful lot from the noveI (Solaris was an old and heavily-studied phenomenon in the book, with a journal devoted to its study), and Lem didn’t like them. The 2002 film was essentially a remake of the 1972 film, not of the novel. The novel **Solaris** wasn’t directly translated into English – the still only available translation is from the translation from Polish into French, then translated into English. And it’s apparently not a complete translation. Nevertheless (or maybe for this reason), it’s the work of Lem’s I like best. The entire point is the virtual impossibility of communications between humans and the intelligent planet-wide entity (a theme explored at about the same time in Terry Carr’s short story _The Dance of the Changer and the Three_) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/18 "2021-12-01T16:42:59Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > _The Dance of the Changer and the Three_ I know that story from my Dad’s collection as well. I love it because it features aliens whose minds are truly alien. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-stanislaw-lem/59721/19 "2021-12-01T20:11:42Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > …It is coincidentally the only wedding I’ve been invited to speak at that has not ended in divorce. Cause and effect, clearly.