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Ijon Tichy #1
Sterntagebücher
Pilot Pirx, Ijon Tichy und die beiden Roboter Trurl und Klapauzius sind die bekanntesten Figuren des weltberühmten polnischen Science-fiction-Autors und Zukunftsforschers Stanislaw Lem. Die vorliegenden Sammelbände vereinen alle Geschichten dieser Protagonisten. Lem schickt den Leser weit in die Zukunft, treibt dort ein scharfsinnig-erfinderisches Spiel mit ihm und holt ihn dann wieder belehrt und bestens unterhalten auf die Erde zurück.
528 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
803 people are currently reading
14022 people want to read
About the author
Stanisław Lem
474 books4,481 followersStanisław Lem (staˈɲiswaf lɛm) was a Polish science fiction, philosophical and satirical writer of Jewish descent. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of Solaris, which has twice been made into a feature film. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon claimed that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world.
His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult and multiple translated versions of his works exist.
Lem became truly productive after 1956, when the de-Stalinization period led to the "Polish October", when Poland experienced an increase in freedom of speech. Between 1956 and 1968, Lem authored 17 books. His works were widely translated abroad (although mostly in the Eastern Bloc countries). In 1957 he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogi (Dialogues), one of his two most famous philosophical texts along with Summa Technologiae (1964). The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances. In this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction then, but are gaining importance today—like, for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology. Over the next few decades, he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological, although from the 1980s onwards he tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays.
He gained international fame for The Cyberiad, a series of humorous short stories from a mechanical universe ruled by robots, first published in English in 1974. His best-known novels include Solaris (1961), His Master's Voice (Głos pana, 1968), and the late Fiasco (Fiasko, 1987), expressing most strongly his major theme of the futility of mankind's attempts to comprehend the truly alien. Solaris was made into a film in 1972 by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky and won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972; in 2002, Steven Soderbergh directed a Hollywood remake starring George Clooney.
He was the cousin of poet Marian Hemar.
His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult and multiple translated versions of his works exist.
Lem became truly productive after 1956, when the de-Stalinization period led to the "Polish October", when Poland experienced an increase in freedom of speech. Between 1956 and 1968, Lem authored 17 books. His works were widely translated abroad (although mostly in the Eastern Bloc countries). In 1957 he published his first non-fiction, philosophical book, Dialogi (Dialogues), one of his two most famous philosophical texts along with Summa Technologiae (1964). The Summa is notable for being a unique analysis of prospective social, cybernetic, and biological advances. In this work, Lem discusses philosophical implications of technologies that were completely in the realm of science fiction then, but are gaining importance today—like, for instance, virtual reality and nanotechnology. Over the next few decades, he published many books, both science fiction and philosophical/futurological, although from the 1980s onwards he tended to concentrate on philosophical texts and essays.
He gained international fame for The Cyberiad, a series of humorous short stories from a mechanical universe ruled by robots, first published in English in 1974. His best-known novels include Solaris (1961), His Master's Voice (Głos pana, 1968), and the late Fiasco (Fiasko, 1987), expressing most strongly his major theme of the futility of mankind's attempts to comprehend the truly alien. Solaris was made into a film in 1972 by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky and won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972; in 2002, Steven Soderbergh directed a Hollywood remake starring George Clooney.
He was the cousin of poet Marian Hemar.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 741 reviews
March 20, 2022
One of the best comedic Sci-Fi story collections ever written, incomparable because of its immense complexity, mega length sentence, and intensive asteroid trope bombardment, jumping from one astonishing wordplay to the next deep insight, before one can say global enlightenment event.
Some hard science, but most of it is soft.
This is fun with a bit of conventional physic and theoretical physical concepts, but mostly social criticism, government style experiments, the insignificance of humankind in contrast to the vastness of space, tons of soft Sci-Fi and space opera ideas and tropes, unbelievable language, and one of the biggest potential treasure chests for Sci-Fi authors, because there are jewels inside these masterpieces I haven´t seen in other works and I´ve read tons of Sci-Fi.
Evolution of a prodigy
Lem got better and better, that´s seen when comparing the meh Eden or kind of overrated Solaris with the already better Tales of Pirx the pilot, because it´s the same concept as The star diaries, but not close as brilliant, extremely infodumpy world building and less humor make it not as enjoyable and Lems´ unique sarcastic wit is still warming up to Chuck Norris the heck out of the genre.
Away from infodump and technobabble towards high class criticizing social sci-fi.
He transformed over his career, while the hard sci fi and infodump part with, for the time and genre standard, static protagonists was normal in his early works and makes them nothing I would completely recommend, his later social satire mind game expanding any concept to weird conclusions style, made him an immortal sci-fi god emperor. I´ve condensed at least something between 100 to 200 mind game and satire ideas out of his works I´ve read over the years and am currently rereading.
Owning Dick and Heinlein, at the same level as Clarke and Capek
He, subjectively, completely owns both Dick and Heinlein, not just because they aren´t universally acclaimed masters, but because reproducing Lem´s work is really truly totally impossible, while reinterpreting the paranoid Dick and the weird uncle Heinlein with their sometimes unsatisfying, illogical, and also really bad works, are nothing in contrast. Often, not even a real plot, premise, or character development would be needed and even Lem´s mentioned, not so great, early works are of a complexity and style these 2 are missing all the time.
Subjective ranting that could be inappropriate for many readers who enjoy and love the stuff that makes me suffer. Damned free speech…
I can feel the fanboys troll epic rage s***storm rolling closer with my bookwolf senses, but I have a massive problem with unconventional sci fi writing that isn´t good, but for not understandable reasons hyped as if it was harry pottered, with ist´ worst examples being the Beatnik generation authors, fantastic realism, Noble prize, and close to each ever so culturally important, patriotism fueled European high brow boredom used to torture helpless school kids and students, because nobody else reads that trash except pseudointellectuals who are into self stimulating their mind by interpreting sense in fringe philosophical scam books as if it was the stupid modern art they appreciate so much too, while they are decanting one of their disgusting wines instead of drinking delicious beer and speak like Victorian England snobs. Such mindsets are the reason why some of the best and most astonishing authors with important messages in their works are not read, hardly known, and underrated, while superficial mumbo jumbo culture garbage without deeper social criticism is celebrated by the wannabe intellectual elite.
Calming down and comparing titans
Back from the rant, again on the show: On my personal best of list this is at the top, together with The futurological congress, two works that fused so many brilliant, philosophical sci-fi ideas with both simple, slapstick humor and very deep, ironic insights into human nature like no comparable work. Adams is good, but I would just name Carel Capek as the one coming close to Lem. Clarke wasn´t funny, so he is out of the competition in this case, sorry.
Other of Lem´s unknown, but best, works are
A Perfect Vacuum
His Master´s voice
The Invincible
Just read certain works
Don´t commit the error of reading any piece of Lem´s work, just take the dozen of pearls that should have legitimized him to widen the trio to a foursome, or possibly exclude Heinlein and take Lem instead who was a, subjectively, much better writer. I would even choose Dick before Heinlein and I am not 100 percent sure about what is genius and what fake and hype around these 2. However, read Lem, whose wisdom should be spread as far as possible.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
Some hard science, but most of it is soft.
This is fun with a bit of conventional physic and theoretical physical concepts, but mostly social criticism, government style experiments, the insignificance of humankind in contrast to the vastness of space, tons of soft Sci-Fi and space opera ideas and tropes, unbelievable language, and one of the biggest potential treasure chests for Sci-Fi authors, because there are jewels inside these masterpieces I haven´t seen in other works and I´ve read tons of Sci-Fi.
Evolution of a prodigy
Lem got better and better, that´s seen when comparing the meh Eden or kind of overrated Solaris with the already better Tales of Pirx the pilot, because it´s the same concept as The star diaries, but not close as brilliant, extremely infodumpy world building and less humor make it not as enjoyable and Lems´ unique sarcastic wit is still warming up to Chuck Norris the heck out of the genre.
Away from infodump and technobabble towards high class criticizing social sci-fi.
He transformed over his career, while the hard sci fi and infodump part with, for the time and genre standard, static protagonists was normal in his early works and makes them nothing I would completely recommend, his later social satire mind game expanding any concept to weird conclusions style, made him an immortal sci-fi god emperor. I´ve condensed at least something between 100 to 200 mind game and satire ideas out of his works I´ve read over the years and am currently rereading.
Owning Dick and Heinlein, at the same level as Clarke and Capek
He, subjectively, completely owns both Dick and Heinlein, not just because they aren´t universally acclaimed masters, but because reproducing Lem´s work is really truly totally impossible, while reinterpreting the paranoid Dick and the weird uncle Heinlein with their sometimes unsatisfying, illogical, and also really bad works, are nothing in contrast. Often, not even a real plot, premise, or character development would be needed and even Lem´s mentioned, not so great, early works are of a complexity and style these 2 are missing all the time.
Subjective ranting that could be inappropriate for many readers who enjoy and love the stuff that makes me suffer. Damned free speech…
I can feel the fanboys troll epic rage s***storm rolling closer with my bookwolf senses, but I have a massive problem with unconventional sci fi writing that isn´t good, but for not understandable reasons hyped as if it was harry pottered, with ist´ worst examples being the Beatnik generation authors, fantastic realism, Noble prize, and close to each ever so culturally important, patriotism fueled European high brow boredom used to torture helpless school kids and students, because nobody else reads that trash except pseudointellectuals who are into self stimulating their mind by interpreting sense in fringe philosophical scam books as if it was the stupid modern art they appreciate so much too, while they are decanting one of their disgusting wines instead of drinking delicious beer and speak like Victorian England snobs. Such mindsets are the reason why some of the best and most astonishing authors with important messages in their works are not read, hardly known, and underrated, while superficial mumbo jumbo culture garbage without deeper social criticism is celebrated by the wannabe intellectual elite.
Calming down and comparing titans
Back from the rant, again on the show: On my personal best of list this is at the top, together with The futurological congress, two works that fused so many brilliant, philosophical sci-fi ideas with both simple, slapstick humor and very deep, ironic insights into human nature like no comparable work. Adams is good, but I would just name Carel Capek as the one coming close to Lem. Clarke wasn´t funny, so he is out of the competition in this case, sorry.
Other of Lem´s unknown, but best, works are
A Perfect Vacuum
His Master´s voice
The Invincible
Just read certain works
Don´t commit the error of reading any piece of Lem´s work, just take the dozen of pearls that should have legitimized him to widen the trio to a foursome, or possibly exclude Heinlein and take Lem instead who was a, subjectively, much better writer. I would even choose Dick before Heinlein and I am not 100 percent sure about what is genius and what fake and hype around these 2. However, read Lem, whose wisdom should be spread as far as possible.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
March 26, 2019
Although Solaris is Stanislaw Lem’s most esteemed work, I believe The Star Diaries—the contemporaneous memoirs of star-pilot Ijon Tichy—to be a better representative of his genius, for it is ambitious in scope, inventive, and often profound.
The Star Diaries, a series of interplanetary adventures ranging in size from mere vignette to long novella, was written over a period of twenty years, and therefore--no surprise!—these pieces vary considerably in seriousness and depth, moving from the playful to the satiric and eventually the philosophical. Yet even the earliest, like “The Twenty-Second Voyage”—the numbering bears no relation to the date of composition—are often surprising and memorable (part of its plot resurfaced, more than a decade later, in Borges’ “The Gospel According to Mark”).
Although these stories are remarkably original, they also show a clear progression of influences. Ijon Tichy, who begins as the Baron Munchausen of space travel, soon resembles Swift’s Gulliver more closely as he begins to comment on the hypocrisies of society, but eventually Lem’s tone darkens and deepens as Tichy becomes less a star-pilot and more like the disembodied narrative voice of Stapledon’s Starmaker.
The Star Diaries contains excellent examples of each type of story. “The Twenty-Second Voyage,” for example, is a very Munchausen-like tale, organized around Tichy’s search through the planets for his missing pipe. “The Eleventh Voyage,” a satire of the totalitarian state in which people dressed as robots inform on other people dressed as robots, is Lem in his classic Swiftian mode. Even better, though, are the later Swiftian tales where Tichy, still a hero, begins to explore more philosophical topics: “The Seventh Voyage” (a hilarious send-up of time travel tales in general, where Tichy attempts to travel back in time to help himself fix his damaged spacecraft), and “The Eighth Voyage” (in which Tichy, delegate to The United Planets, represents earth, a candidate for admission).
Also worthy of attention are the later tales, of which a quintessential example is “The Twenty-First Voyage,” the last in order of composition and also the longest. I’ll admit I found it rough-going in places, but the startling difference between the two peoples presented here—nonreligious human consumed with a fad for body-engineering contrasted with robot monks who reverence the classic human form—was haunting and thought-provoking. It presented elements of the “pro-choice” and “right to life” philosophical positions in an extremely different context, and gave me much to think about.
If you love science fiction, you must read this book. It is a classic of the genre, crowded with invention and full of ideas.
Read
April 2, 2024
Preposterous squared. Screwball cubed.
Fans of Ijon Tichy’s spaced-out space explorations, twelve in number, appearing in The Star Diaries, will be pleased to know Stanislaw Lem’s gallant galactic zoom-boy recounts nine more adventures in Memoirs of a Space Traveler. However, it should be noted, the majority take place in the nuttiest fruitcake in the universe – right here on planet Earth.
I enjoyed each and every one of Ijon's revealing reports and count the following pungent probes among my favorites:
WASHING MACHINE WONDERS
In the spirit of free enterprise and capitalist competition, two jumbo washing machine manufacturers, Newton and Snodgrass, continually outdo each other for market share. American ingenuity on display as Snodgrass creates a washing machine that can help with the kid's homework, assist Dad with family finances and offers a Freudian interpretation of dreams at the breakfast table.
Not to be outdone, Newton creates a beautiful, sexy washing machine only to witness Snodgrass' latest seductive model that is more than willing to have sex with either Mom or Dad. By the way, there is no mention of ménage à trois since, after all, washing machines are an all-American household appliance.
Things quickly get out of hand. Empowered with an ability to work in concert (picture ten washing machines in a laundromat), washers form gangs and engage in criminal activities, especially those models equipped with rapid-fire rifles (the prevailing right to bear arms).
However, as we all know, violence has dire consequences. A number of machines have fits of insanity and begin to imagine they are human. Meanwhile, washers with more female qualities enter the Miss Universe Washing Machine Contest while others adopt human pseudonyms and begin publishing essays and novels. Goodness! At this rate, some washing machines might even begin writing book reviews.
Events escalate until some washers instigate a mutiny on a rocket ship and establish their own robot state on a neighboring planet. So much for Isaac Asimov's law of robotics. Can Ijon Tichy save the day? Only his washing machine knows for sure.
METAPHYSICAL MAYHEM
Would you believe there is evil in the world due to the influence of Eastern Europe's version of the Three Stooges? Would you believe a mosquito distracted the creator, thus causing flaws in what could have been an otherwise perfectly harmonious universe? And lastly, would you believe Ijon Tichy himself is the prime mover of the entire cosmos? To explore these profound cosmological questions and more, put on your thinking cap (or beanie) and blast off with Ijon on his Eighteenth Voyage.
SPINE-CHILLER
On the topic of Artificial Intelligence and Robots, Steven Hawking warned, “If they become that clever, then we may face an “intelligence explosion," as machines develop the ability to engineer themselves to be far more intelligent. That might eventually result in machines whose intelligence exceeds ours by more than ours exceeding that of snails.”
Ijon Tichy encounters precisely this chilling prospect in his Twenty-Fourth Voyage to the distant planet of the Phools. Cruising over the planet’s surface, Ijon is baffled: all the vast continents are covered with small shiny disks configured in stunning geometric patterns.
On further investigation, our zoom-boy discovers three enormous cities, all glowing with dazzling beauty but when he touches down in the middle of one, Ijon is even more flummoxed: the city is completely deserted, not so much as one sign of life.
More flying and Ijon comes upon a plateau with a gleaming palace and signs of movement - ah, at long last, here are the inhabitants. After landing and gaining their confidence (fortunately they look like humans, sort of), by and by one of the Phools relates their planet’s history.
What Ijon learns from this knowledgeable Phool highlights two important lessons humans back on his home planet are well to heed: 1) the disastrous consequences of unswerving belief in an economic or political system when such belief spells oblivion for its citizens, 2) what results when power is naively handed over to Artificial Intelligence machines.
A spooky, unnerving science fiction tale, one that should be required reading as we move deeper into 21st century hyper-technology.
IMPASSIONED PLEA
An open letter written by irate Ijon entitled Let Us Save the Universe urges humankind to knock off treating the universe alternately as amusement park, tourist destination or interstellar garbage dump. Oh, humans, must you carve your initials or scrawl graffiti on every rock in an asteroid belt? Need you recklessly toss beer bottles, tin cans, eggshells and old newspapers out rocket ship windows so astronauts following in your wake will have to play dodgeball with all your trash? Besides which, as Ijon points out: "Such species as the blue wizzom and the drillbeaked borbot have disappeared; thousands of others are dying out." To underscore the dilemma, Stanislaw Lem includes drawings of, among others, a swallurker, brutalacean rollipede, scrbblemock and the deadly deceptorite.
FURTHER REMINISCENCES OF IJON TICHY
Tichy tells of a mad professor who has constructed metal boxes equipped with electronic brains and consciousness, each one thinking itself a living, breathing human being. Another Ijon reminiscence features a gent who has invented the soul, case in point: he shows skeptical Ijon a box containing the soul of his wife. And still another recollection showcases a scientist who has mixed chemicals in a test tube to generate his own double.
Go for it - expand your mind. Read this book.
Read
February 8, 2019
Bold adventurer Ijon Tichy zooms across the universe in his midget rocket ship as if zipping around Poland (Stanislaw Lem’s home country) in a midget racing car. Are we talking here about another Flash Gordon or Hans Solo? Hardly. Ijon is more like your prototypical college math instructor with his skinny tie, wrinkled shirt, corduroy pants, scuffed up loafers and nerd eyeglasses held together by tape. But, it must be admitted, Ijon Tichy keeps a level head as he deals with a string of challenges bizarre and Borges-like. The Star Diaries recounts a dozen separate kooky, bugged out, way-out voyages of our undaunted explorer. A batch of snapshots of Ijon in action:
IN THE TIME LOOP
The exterior of Ijon's mini rocket ship is damaged and must be repaired but unfortunately this is a two-man job and Ijon is flying solo.
That night, while asleep, a slightly familiar looking man shakes Ijon and demands he get out of bed and join him in repairing the rocket. Ijon knows he's flying solo and tells the intruder he's nothing more than a dream.
The next morning Ijon consults textbooks and maps to calculate his present location since his damaged rocket has veered off course. Looks like he could be ensnared in a heap of trouble - he's in a mysterious gravitational vortex with incalculable relativistic effects.
A misty human shape cooking an omelet appears at the stove in his kitchen and just as quickly vanishes. Mystified, Ijon consults another book on the General Theory of Relativity that explains how in certain gravitational vortices there can be a complete reversal of time causing a duplication of the present.
Following a trip to the engine room to produce a slight change in the rocket's direction, Ijon returns only to see himself asleep in bed. "I realized at once that this was I of the previous day, that is, from Monday night." Ijon tries to rouse his Monday self so they can both go out together to repair the ship. His Monday self gruffly informs him that he is only a dream.
The time loop expands over the next fourteen pages in ways of duplication and multiplication only Stanislaw Lem could imagine (apologies to Jorges Luis Borges but with this fictional doozy Lem outpaces the Argentine man of letters). One of the most zany, convoluted and imaginative tales a reader will ever encounter.
Stanislaw Lem's drawing of Ijon caught in the time loop
WATERY SOLUTION
Ijon has many confabs and dealings with a Professor Tarantoga, astrozoologist, a quirky genius credited with a string of phenomenal discoveries, including a fluid for the removal of unpleasant memories. A true psychic quantum leap! The ingenious professor will quickly put a number of psychiatrists and counselors out of business. Men and women will be able to live in the present without having to rehash all those times when they were slapped around by an abusive parent or picked on by the schoolyard bully or traumatized in a war zone or a thousand other painful experiences.
TARANTOGA TIME MACHINE
Holy H.G. Wells! Our stupendous astrozoologist invents a time machine Ijon can take on his next voyage to planet Amauropia. Along the way beyond the Milky Way, explorer Tichy encounters the Gypsonians who roam around the cosmos ever since they destroyed their own planet by continuous strip mining, turning the entire surface into one vast pit. I Tichy to the rescue! Ijon obtains a secondhand moon, fixes it up and, thanks to his stellar connections (no pun intended), upgrades it to the status of a planet. The Gypsonians are elated but it remains to be seen if they learned their lesson about greed and natural resources.
Once on Amauropia Ijon encounters a race of Microcephalids crawling around on all fours. Using his time machine, Ijon propels their evolution to tool using hunter gatherers and then to agrarian civilization. Of course, accelerated evolution contains both pros and cons - the Microcephalds alternately worship Ijon and send him off to be tortured. Ah, civilized society! At one point Ijon escapes and begins preaching love and universal brotherhood. Not long thereafter, a cult forms around his teachings. Predictably, the king and his royal court despise Ijon's revolutionary ideas and demand his Earthly blood. By the skin of his astronomical teeth, Ijon blasts off, leaving the planet far behind but his time on Amauropia provides Stanislaw Lem oodles of opportunities to make piquant philosophical observations about the universal tendencies of politics and religion, war and peace, customs and ideologies.
SAME O' SAME O'
Ijon travels to the remarkable world of Panta wherein all the inhabitants have identical smiling faces. As an elderly Pantan pontificates,"we have completely eliminated individuality on behalf of the society. On our planet there are no entities - only the collective." Turns out, the roles of engineer, gardener, mechanic, ruler, physician are rotated among the Pantans every day; in other words, there are no differences within their society, these Pantans have achieved the highest degree of social interchangeability. Ijon asks more questions and the elderly one is more than happy to provide answers, even how on his planet the reality of death has been transcended via the absence of individual identity. I'm sure you sense Stanislaw Lem poking a long, sharp satirical needle at the prevailing 1960s Communist states. Ouch!
HOMO SAPIENS OR SUB-NEANDERTHALS?
Ijon is present as a room filled with wise, peace-loving alien life forms from all over the cosmos debate if humans from planet Earth should be admitted to the solar assembly. After once speaker portrays homo sapiens as a species of monsters wallowing in an ocean of blood - massacres, wars, pogroms, crusades, genocide, torture - looks like the vote might be a mighty "NO." But an objection is raise - certainly the current human population is above not below the level of Neanderthal. All look toward Ijon Tichy. Can our outer orbit Odysseus come through for us?
QUICK ZAPS FROM MY REVIEWER RAY GUN
Many more voyages; many more encounters. Blast off with Ijon Tichy to read all about the metaphysics and magic of potatoes, robot theologians, how compassionate aliens make sure a missionary is granted his wish to become a saint and martyr and thus go to heaven, an electric brain with an infinite number of stand-up comic jokes that can be inserted into the wall of an astronaut's rocket in order to alleviate boredom (a sort of George Carlin/HAL) and a planet where travel is done by Star Trek-like beaming (the brainy Polish author's beaming predates the famous TV series). All written with a light, comical touch. Thanks, Stanislaw.
Stanislaw Lem, 1921-2006
May 30, 2020
Memoirs of a Space Traveler isn’t really a new book; it is the completion of an old book. It prints under separate cover all the material from Lem’s The Star Diaries (1982) which the original English translation—for some unexplained reason—left out.
Like the rest of The Star Diaries, it is filled with intriguing—often totally mad—philosophical and scientific theories, and horrific, sometimes poignant, examples of their practical consequences. For example, in “The Eighteenth Voyage” star pilot Ijon Tichy explains why he had to go back in time and make the universe, and he also tells us the mistakes he made trying to do so. In “The Twenty-fourth Voyage”—perhaps my favorite—Tichy tells a tale of how Libertarian principles, when pursued ruthlessly by a well-meaning guardian robot, may produced a world of sterility and terror.
Over two-thirds of the book (“Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy” and “Doctor Diagoras”) involve no extraterrestrial travels whatsover, but are merely Tichy’s accounts of his meetings with various mad scientists, and his accounts of their theories and experiment. My favorite of the five “reminiscences are I and II (both involving human consciousness contained in a small box) and IV (an interesting take on an H.G. Wells type of time machine).
This second volume of short pieces is slightly inferior to the first, principally because it is less varied and more confined (too many mad scientists, not enough trips to the stars). Still, it reveals more of the fascinating, baroque mind of Stanislaw Lem. That in itself is enough to make it worthy of your attention.
February 8, 2017
I need to reread this to review the book properly, but I know I liked it a lot, and even made a out of one story, just for fun. Since I read it first in Finnish, the English reading experience will no doubt feel different :)
January 20, 2023
I've been a long-time fan of Stanislaw Lem but I feel ashamed that I never got around to reading these wonderful collections of short stories that are all connected by the intrepid space traveler, Ijon Tichy.
I cannot recommend these enough. They're light-hearted, insanely creative, and each adventure gives us all the great cannons of SF, including time travel, cloning, artificial intelligence, robots, and of course, tons of people being idiots. Indeed, the whole wacky universe is full of great idiocy.
It's not the mess I make it sound. He's just always curious and always willing to get into trouble. Of course, most of the time, trouble always drags him in, but I have to say that this holds up wonderfully.
The spirit of wonder is quite alive. So is the humor. :)
If you've read others of Lem, such as the The Cyberiad, you'll know what you're getting into here.
I cannot recommend these enough. They're light-hearted, insanely creative, and each adventure gives us all the great cannons of SF, including time travel, cloning, artificial intelligence, robots, and of course, tons of people being idiots. Indeed, the whole wacky universe is full of great idiocy.
It's not the mess I make it sound. He's just always curious and always willing to get into trouble. Of course, most of the time, trouble always drags him in, but I have to say that this holds up wonderfully.
The spirit of wonder is quite alive. So is the humor. :)
If you've read others of Lem, such as the The Cyberiad, you'll know what you're getting into here.
August 6, 2016
Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.
What a fantastic book! One of the best ones that I have read this year!!! If you have not read it, and I assume that is the situation, I highly recommend it!
What a fantastic book! One of the best ones that I have read this year!!! If you have not read it, and I assume that is the situation, I highly recommend it!
"I sat at my desk today, to write, and the chair said to me: 'What a strange world this is!"
I will put this bluntly: I am highly aware that the English speaking world generally neglects the literature of the rest of the world, which is the idea behind the Reading the World challenge to begin with. I am also aware that among the world literature that does gain some fame, the Eastern block is not in focus. HOWEVER, I think that by not reading certain novels, The Star Diaries among them, people are committing literary crime. Because this book is brilliant in its writing, ideas and sense of humor, achieved through satire.
I read it in Michael Kandel's translation, my Polish not being great as of yet(though I consider myself a good student), and I thought the writing was beautiful. I can only begin to imagine how lovely Lem's original expressions are, because translations, no matter how good, always take away something from the original.
The language, overall, was very rich, changing between styles, even using a made up version of old and new language, in the Polish version, I assume, Polish, but also, and much credit to Kandel, of course, in the English version, a sensational mix of old and new English that I had some trouble with, but that only attests to it's greatness, because it used expressions long out of use.
I am generally not a fan of satire, but this book was fantastic in that sense. The humor, so gentle and subtle and yet obviously there, was amazing. I usually put some berth between myself and humorous books, but I do not regret a second of reading The Star Diaries. Which brings me to the moment I will acquaint you with the book itself: The Star Diaries tells the story of Ijon Tichy, who travels from one planet to another and gets in all kinds of strange and comic situations. The stories are told in separate journeys, instead of chapters, and the journeys themselves were written out of order for 20 years. Some of them lean more on the philosophy, some more on the humor, but all of them are ultimately rewarding.
Ijon Tichy is a great narrator. What he succeeds at the best is the fact that he takes all of the events that happen to him, no matter how strange or borderline disturbing they are, in a light-hearted and calm manner. He escapes narrowly from crashing his ship on numerous occasions, he is left stranded in space, he gets mixed up in all kinds of weird events, and he does it in an almost graceful manner. Even more so when he ponders whether he really existed, to begin with, when he creates the world, or gets arrested by robot fanatics.
Some of the voyages were better than others, some were longer and some, much shorter. I had trouble with the language, as I mentioned above, of the Eleventh Voyage, but the idea was brilliant and reminded me a lot of The Man Who Was Thursday. I will not let out any spoilers but it was great! If you ever wondered how the world was created, you would enjoy the Eight Voyage, in which Ijon goes to represent Earth in a gathering of the United Planets and understands how we came to be(a silly accident of oil spillage). He creates the history of the planet through a series of work mishaps during a project that he is in charge of in the Twentieth Voyage. The Twenty-first Voyage was admittedly challenging in a philosophical way, but also extremely interesting as it tells the story of how Ijon Tichy crashes on a planet of creatures that used to be human-like, until they started making genetic changes to their bodies and ended up completely robot and unable to return to the way they used to be, because they are torn by conflicts both of philosophical and religious character. (click for original Lem illustration)
I will leave you enjoy the rest of this mad and fantastic book on your own, but if you ever trusted my judgement, you will read it, because it is great! It incorporates all of the flaws of humanity, told in a humorous way, and also, as it seemed to me, though ironic, nevertheless full of the affection that Lem had for the human kind.
February 23, 2016
Stanislaw Lem is an author I should have discovered decades ago. You’d think that somewhere between Wells and Stapledon, Asimov and Clarke, Bradbury and Vonnegut, I’d have come across Lem. But I didn’t. I might have seen some excerpts in The Mind’s I, but that was long after I stopped reading sci-fi and started my studies in philosophy. Then last year I discovered Lem and he single-handedly renewed my interest in sci-fi.
The Star Diaries is the fifth book I’ve read so far. The others are (in order read) The Futurological Congress, Eden, Return From the Stars, and Solaris. The Futurological Congress and Solaris are absolute genius. Eden is interesting as a prototype of Solaris. Return From the Stars, like The Futurological Congress, describes a futuristic Earth, but without the satirical word-play and absurdity that made The Futurological Congress such fun. It had its moments, but overall it was my least favorite.
Although the theme of the alien from Solaris and Eden is present in The Star Diaries, the aliens in these stories are not truly alien to the reader. Like much sci-fi, the aliens encountered by Tichy are all-too-human once you get past their odd shapes and peculiar appendages. Instead, these stories are written in the witty style of The Futurological Congress. And indeed, like The Futurological Congress, they are Ijon Tichy stories.
That said ~ rating The Star Diaries is difficult because some of the twelve stories are better than others, so I will rate each story separately.
In “The Seventh Voyage,” Tichy gets caught in a time loop with hilarious results. This is the first story in the book, and the funniest. Unlike many of the stories (which contain multiple barely-related episodes), “The Seventh Voyage” is a well-rounded narrative. ★★★★★
In “The Eighth Voyage,” humanity is seen from the point of view of aliens. Spoiler alert: We don’t look so good. This story also includes a lesson in human evolution very different from the one we learned here on Earth. The word-play in “The Eighth Voyage” is in the style of The Futurological Congress, but not quite as masterfully done. ★★★★☆
“The Eleventh Voyage” shows what sell-outs aliens can be. Whew! Glad it’s not us humans that act like that! This story features a language described in the book blurb as “a dialect remarkably close to Chaucerian English” which became tiresome to read after a while. ★★★☆☆
“The Twelfth Voyage” features time dilation and acceleration as an alien civilization quickly evolves and then reverses. I liked the concept, but the story was not one of his best. ★★★☆☆
“The Thirteenth Voyage” tells the story of two worlds, Pinta and Panta. Like “The Eleventh Voyage” and “The Twelfth Voyage,” it reveals much of human nature. But this story, unlike those, delves into philosophy as Tichy meets a people who have completely rejected individuality. ★★★☆☆
“The Fourteenth Voyage,” like “The Seventh Voyage,” raises questions of personal identity. On a planet where people are frequently killed in meteor showers, “spares” are made of each individual. I like Lem best when he is philosophical and this story resembles the Teletransporter thought experiment in philosophy. In short, the Teletransporter breaks down the traveler’s body, transmits the information to the traveler’s destination, and recreates the traveler’s body down to the exact detail. Although this story doesn’t actually have a Teletransporter (like “The Twenty-Third Voyage”), it involves the same problem. ★★★★☆
“The Twentieth Voyage” is a time travel story. Tichy goes to the future to fix the past. What could possibly go wrong with that? This story traces all of human evolution and history back to the screw-ups of Tichy’s bumbling staff. ★★★★★
“The Twenty-First Voyage” is the most philosophical story in the book, dealing as it does with the mind/body problem, artificial consciousness, the nature of faith, and the dogma of the soul. This story also introduces autoevolution and the idea of the “self-made man” where people wrest control from nature and recreate their bodies in whatever outlandish forms suit them. However, what is most intriguing about this story are the theological musings of the robot friars and the nature of their religion, which can best be summed up in the line: “Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible” (190). ★★★★★
Like the previous story, “The Twenty-Second Voyage” is about religion, but instead of philosophy, it is a work of irony. A missionary brings religion to an alien world, only to find his congregation all too eager to practice what he preached. ★★★☆☆
“The Twenty-Third Voyage” introduces the process of atomization which people use for repose as well as for travel. It is like the Teletransporter from the thought experiment, or more familiarly, the transporter from Star Trek. Tichy was persuaded to give it a try. I wouldn’t. ★★★★☆
“The Twenty-Fifth Voyage” includes a spoof of philosophers and their theories. This story lampoons physicalists, semanticists, neopositivists, Thomists, and neo-Kantians alike. What could be better than that? Killer potatoes, that’s what! Lem has the remarkable ability to make sentient and hostile potatoes seem totally believable, as he does in this line describing a plan to capture one of the crafty space spuds: “The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes” (242). ★★★★★
“The Twenty-Eighth Voyage” is an account of Tichy’s family from his mysterious ancestor Anonymous down to his own father ~ each Tichy as unusual as Ijon. The chronicle concludes with the diary entries of Tichy’s grandfather, Cosimo Tichy. ★★★☆☆
Next on my Lem reading list is Memoirs of a Space Traveller, the continuation of The Star Diaries.
The Star Diaries is the fifth book I’ve read so far. The others are (in order read) The Futurological Congress, Eden, Return From the Stars, and Solaris. The Futurological Congress and Solaris are absolute genius. Eden is interesting as a prototype of Solaris. Return From the Stars, like The Futurological Congress, describes a futuristic Earth, but without the satirical word-play and absurdity that made The Futurological Congress such fun. It had its moments, but overall it was my least favorite.
Although the theme of the alien from Solaris and Eden is present in The Star Diaries, the aliens in these stories are not truly alien to the reader. Like much sci-fi, the aliens encountered by Tichy are all-too-human once you get past their odd shapes and peculiar appendages. Instead, these stories are written in the witty style of The Futurological Congress. And indeed, like The Futurological Congress, they are Ijon Tichy stories.
That said ~ rating The Star Diaries is difficult because some of the twelve stories are better than others, so I will rate each story separately.
In “The Seventh Voyage,” Tichy gets caught in a time loop with hilarious results. This is the first story in the book, and the funniest. Unlike many of the stories (which contain multiple barely-related episodes), “The Seventh Voyage” is a well-rounded narrative. ★★★★★
In “The Eighth Voyage,” humanity is seen from the point of view of aliens. Spoiler alert: We don’t look so good. This story also includes a lesson in human evolution very different from the one we learned here on Earth. The word-play in “The Eighth Voyage” is in the style of The Futurological Congress, but not quite as masterfully done. ★★★★☆
“The Eleventh Voyage” shows what sell-outs aliens can be. Whew! Glad it’s not us humans that act like that! This story features a language described in the book blurb as “a dialect remarkably close to Chaucerian English” which became tiresome to read after a while. ★★★☆☆
“The Twelfth Voyage” features time dilation and acceleration as an alien civilization quickly evolves and then reverses. I liked the concept, but the story was not one of his best. ★★★☆☆
“The Thirteenth Voyage” tells the story of two worlds, Pinta and Panta. Like “The Eleventh Voyage” and “The Twelfth Voyage,” it reveals much of human nature. But this story, unlike those, delves into philosophy as Tichy meets a people who have completely rejected individuality. ★★★☆☆
“The Fourteenth Voyage,” like “The Seventh Voyage,” raises questions of personal identity. On a planet where people are frequently killed in meteor showers, “spares” are made of each individual. I like Lem best when he is philosophical and this story resembles the Teletransporter thought experiment in philosophy. In short, the Teletransporter breaks down the traveler’s body, transmits the information to the traveler’s destination, and recreates the traveler’s body down to the exact detail. Although this story doesn’t actually have a Teletransporter (like “The Twenty-Third Voyage”), it involves the same problem. ★★★★☆
“The Twentieth Voyage” is a time travel story. Tichy goes to the future to fix the past. What could possibly go wrong with that? This story traces all of human evolution and history back to the screw-ups of Tichy’s bumbling staff. ★★★★★
“The Twenty-First Voyage” is the most philosophical story in the book, dealing as it does with the mind/body problem, artificial consciousness, the nature of faith, and the dogma of the soul. This story also introduces autoevolution and the idea of the “self-made man” where people wrest control from nature and recreate their bodies in whatever outlandish forms suit them. However, what is most intriguing about this story are the theological musings of the robot friars and the nature of their religion, which can best be summed up in the line: “Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible” (190). ★★★★★
Like the previous story, “The Twenty-Second Voyage” is about religion, but instead of philosophy, it is a work of irony. A missionary brings religion to an alien world, only to find his congregation all too eager to practice what he preached. ★★★☆☆
“The Twenty-Third Voyage” introduces the process of atomization which people use for repose as well as for travel. It is like the Teletransporter from the thought experiment, or more familiarly, the transporter from Star Trek. Tichy was persuaded to give it a try. I wouldn’t. ★★★★☆
“The Twenty-Fifth Voyage” includes a spoof of philosophers and their theories. This story lampoons physicalists, semanticists, neopositivists, Thomists, and neo-Kantians alike. What could be better than that? Killer potatoes, that’s what! Lem has the remarkable ability to make sentient and hostile potatoes seem totally believable, as he does in this line describing a plan to capture one of the crafty space spuds: “The whole plan hinged upon the natural curiosity of potatoes” (242). ★★★★★
“The Twenty-Eighth Voyage” is an account of Tichy’s family from his mysterious ancestor Anonymous down to his own father ~ each Tichy as unusual as Ijon. The chronicle concludes with the diary entries of Tichy’s grandfather, Cosimo Tichy. ★★★☆☆
Next on my Lem reading list is Memoirs of a Space Traveller, the continuation of The Star Diaries.
December 7, 2024
Como su propio nombre indica, se trata de una especie de diario de viajes, pero no por Almería ni los pueblos de la Alpujarra, sino por otras galaxias y sistemas planetarios. Además, en la segunda parte del libro, se narran también los encuentros del protagonista con una serie de personajes curiosos, inventores y científicos mayormente, y las divagaciones derivadas de sus creaciones y especulaciones.
En cierta forma no deja de ser un libro de relatos independientes. Muchos de ellos tienen un cierto tono satírico o de humor crítico, y otros resultan relativamente más serios, reflexivos, filosóficos y con connotaciones sociales y religiosas.
Lo cierto es que aunque a priori todos los relatos me resultaban interesantes de inicio, luego la deriva y desarrollo que le iba dando Lem no ha terminado de convencerme en casi ningún caso, y el resultado final no ha sido satisfactorio.
2.5
En cierta forma no deja de ser un libro de relatos independientes. Muchos de ellos tienen un cierto tono satírico o de humor crítico, y otros resultan relativamente más serios, reflexivos, filosóficos y con connotaciones sociales y religiosas.
Lo cierto es que aunque a priori todos los relatos me resultaban interesantes de inicio, luego la deriva y desarrollo que le iba dando Lem no ha terminado de convencerme en casi ningún caso, y el resultado final no ha sido satisfactorio.
2.5
January 31, 2021
Some of these stories I found wonderfully amusing and inventive, many being absurdist satire of government, religion and human ineptitude in general. Yet, while all have amusing and ridiculous premises, the longer stories in particular felt like a fire hose of wit and absurdity coupled with ceaseless speculation on philosophy, science, etc and endless diversions that became fatiguing and difficult to keep straight. These are probably best digested in small bites, rather than consumed all at once as I did. While enjoyable on the whole, I've had better success with Lem's longer works, particularly Solaris and The Invincible.
February 4, 2020
I totally got this mixed up with memoirs Found in a Bathtub when I first posted my review. Only happened because I listened to the audiobook. Which form I recommend for this.
Lem's comedic sensibility is occasionally reminiscent of the Strugatsky's. In this well-framed, light-hearted set of tales, the wordplay and quirky charm are ever-present, though some gags and concepts overstay their welcome. I preferred the couple other mind-altering books I've thus far read by the Polish s-f master thus far.
There is an old fashioned Golden Age feel to many of the scenarios he describes. For a few of the Easter eggs, you'll want to pay attention - for instance, fixing a rudder on a spaceship. A rudder. It took me till half-way through the story to get it. Lem's framing device allows for many liberties to be taken with science in the pursuit of humor. Lem is always clever, and works in time travel scenarios like a pro. Far-fetched in the extreme, but his satirical schemes are always relatable. I am still figuring out what gives Lem's work that timeless quality. More so than the Strugatsky's or even Heinlein, Lem seems to rise above his own time, and to speculate in logical ways.
Lem's comedic sensibility is occasionally reminiscent of the Strugatsky's. In this well-framed, light-hearted set of tales, the wordplay and quirky charm are ever-present, though some gags and concepts overstay their welcome. I preferred the couple other mind-altering books I've thus far read by the Polish s-f master thus far.
There is an old fashioned Golden Age feel to many of the scenarios he describes. For a few of the Easter eggs, you'll want to pay attention - for instance, fixing a rudder on a spaceship. A rudder. It took me till half-way through the story to get it. Lem's framing device allows for many liberties to be taken with science in the pursuit of humor. Lem is always clever, and works in time travel scenarios like a pro. Far-fetched in the extreme, but his satirical schemes are always relatable. I am still figuring out what gives Lem's work that timeless quality. More so than the Strugatsky's or even Heinlein, Lem seems to rise above his own time, and to speculate in logical ways.
February 1, 2015
The morning I started reading this edition of Lem’s Star Diaries, I got about a hundred pages into it. When I put it down, I felt like I had over-indulged at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Each of Ijon Tichy’s intergalactic adventures in the 23rd century comes so packed with jokes, adventure, word play, hairsbreadth escapes, satire, and sophisticated scientific and philosophical speculation, they are best absorbed one at a time. They are going to all run together in the end, leaving the reader as dizzy as Lem’s hero when caught in a time loop, but it’s best to work your way slowly into that condition.
Tichy is a freelance space explorer who takes his rundown spaceship out of storage whenever the mood for adventure hits him. Usually he is intrigued by reports of some far distant galaxy, but along the way he is frequently blown off course and finds himself in comically dire straits with aliens who may celebrate his arrival or toss him jail or both. The one time he serves as Earth’s official representative to a conference on intergalactic relations, he gets off to a poor start by mistaking his host for a vending machine. Gulliver’s Travels may provide Lem’s literary template, but his humor is more Monty Python than Johnathan Swift. Perhaps that comparison is compromised by the fact that Lem’s stories were written in the two decades before Monty Python, but given the slippery nature of time in Lem’s work, who knows who influenced whom?
Time travel, both intentional and accidental, fuels many of Tichy’s adventures. Lem takes the sf chestnut of time travelers’ attempts to change history – this usually involves killing Hitler – and spins it into one of his longest stories. TIchy is dragged into the 27th century to work on cleaning up history. This is a vast, bureaucratic enterprise where the punishment for screwing things up is to be stranded in the past. It’s these worst bumblers that become the leading forces in Western history from Homer to Einstein. This fits well with what seems to be Lem’s basic premise: (A) Things always go wrong. (B) Most things work out.
At times I wondered how Lem’s satire made it past Polish censors in the 1960’s. On one planet, Tichy encounters a civilization facing a serious problem of rising ocean levels. The government solution is that people learn to breath underwater. A scientist explains to Tichy
The published diaries are the recovered fragments of a larger work. In this book there are twelve voyages with numbers ranging from seven to twenty-eight. The numerical order does not reflect the order in which Lem wrote them. When looked at chronologically, you see Lem moving from knockabout space comedy, to more pointed satire, to philosophical speculation. The last-written and longest story, Voyage Twenty-One, is almost entirely a philosophical discussion between Tichy and a priest on a planet where things have gone horribly wrong. I confess I never made it through this one, but skipping to the end I found that Lem finished his tales on a serious down note. The priest says, “Nothing remains then for us but to sit here among the fossils of rats, in this maze of dried-up sewers.”
Perhaps this is Lem’s final position, but I prefer the story where Ijon Tichy reveals that he may be a figment of his father’s imagination.
Tichy is a freelance space explorer who takes his rundown spaceship out of storage whenever the mood for adventure hits him. Usually he is intrigued by reports of some far distant galaxy, but along the way he is frequently blown off course and finds himself in comically dire straits with aliens who may celebrate his arrival or toss him jail or both. The one time he serves as Earth’s official representative to a conference on intergalactic relations, he gets off to a poor start by mistaking his host for a vending machine. Gulliver’s Travels may provide Lem’s literary template, but his humor is more Monty Python than Johnathan Swift. Perhaps that comparison is compromised by the fact that Lem’s stories were written in the two decades before Monty Python, but given the slippery nature of time in Lem’s work, who knows who influenced whom?
Time travel, both intentional and accidental, fuels many of Tichy’s adventures. Lem takes the sf chestnut of time travelers’ attempts to change history – this usually involves killing Hitler – and spins it into one of his longest stories. TIchy is dragged into the 27th century to work on cleaning up history. This is a vast, bureaucratic enterprise where the punishment for screwing things up is to be stranded in the past. It’s these worst bumblers that become the leading forces in Western history from Homer to Einstein. This fits well with what seems to be Lem’s basic premise: (A) Things always go wrong. (B) Most things work out.
At times I wondered how Lem’s satire made it past Polish censors in the 1960’s. On one planet, Tichy encounters a civilization facing a serious problem of rising ocean levels. The government solution is that people learn to breath underwater. A scientist explains to Tichy
The upshot was…that what was to be controlled, controlled us. No one, however, would admit this, and of course the next logical step was the declaration that things were exactly the way they ought to be.
The published diaries are the recovered fragments of a larger work. In this book there are twelve voyages with numbers ranging from seven to twenty-eight. The numerical order does not reflect the order in which Lem wrote them. When looked at chronologically, you see Lem moving from knockabout space comedy, to more pointed satire, to philosophical speculation. The last-written and longest story, Voyage Twenty-One, is almost entirely a philosophical discussion between Tichy and a priest on a planet where things have gone horribly wrong. I confess I never made it through this one, but skipping to the end I found that Lem finished his tales on a serious down note. The priest says, “Nothing remains then for us but to sit here among the fossils of rats, in this maze of dried-up sewers.”
Perhaps this is Lem’s final position, but I prefer the story where Ijon Tichy reveals that he may be a figment of his father’s imagination.
November 24, 2021
"Το Σολάρις είναι το καλύτερο βιβλίο του Λεμ, Ταρκόφσκι αφού". Εχμ, κοίτα, ναι, δηλαδή όχι. Τα ημερολόγια των άστρων είναι το πιο αντιπροσωπευτικό του έργο, τέλος. Και έπρεπε να το ξαναδιαβάσω μετά από κάποια χρόνια, στα ελληνικά αυτή τη φορά, για να το καταλάβω. Και σε αυτό σίγουρα έπαιξε τον ρόλο της η μετάφραση. Για την ακρίβεια, μια παλιά, μέτρια αγγλική και μια πιο to the point ελληνική (εύγε στους Τσακνιά, Πολυκανδριώτη, Ζαχαριάδου).
Στο δια ταύτα, το βιβλίο αποτελείται από διαπλανητικές περιπέτειες - κεφάλαια, διαφορετικής έκτασης η καθεμία, άλλες πιο παιχνιδιάρικες και αστείες και άλλες πιο φιλοσοφικές, με πρωταγωνιστή τον Ίον Τίχι, aka Γκιούλιβερ του διαστήματος.
Όλα τα κεφάλαια (και τα σκίτσα) αξί��ουν, αλλά προσωπικά έχω 3 favs. Το 11ο ταξίδι, που σατιρίζει ένα ολοκληρωτικό καθεστώς όπου βλέπεις ρομπότ να στρέφονται εναντίων ρομπότ, το 20ο ταξίδι, μια σκοτεινά αστεία ιστορία όπου ο Τίχι συναντά τον μελλοντικό εαυτό του, και φυ σι κά το επικό (και thought-provoking) 21ο ταξίδι, όπου η θρησκεία μπαίνει στο επίκεντρο και διαβάζεις ένα φιλοσοφικό ντιμπέιτ πάνω σε κάτι που θυμίζει τη σημερινή κουβέντα για το pro-choice/δικαίωμα στη ζωή.
Με λίγα λόγια, ένα βιβλίο για το οποίο δεν ξέρεις αν πρέπει να του βάλεις καρδούλες ή αστεράκια.
Στο δια ταύτα, το βιβλίο αποτελείται από διαπλανητικές περιπέτειες - κεφάλαια, διαφορετικής έκτασης η καθεμία, άλλες πιο παιχνιδιάρικες και αστείες και άλλες πιο φιλοσοφικές, με πρωταγωνιστή τον Ίον Τίχι, aka Γκιούλιβερ του διαστήματος.
Όλα τα κεφάλαια (και τα σκίτσα) αξί��ουν, αλλά προσωπικά έχω 3 favs. Το 11ο ταξίδι, που σατιρίζει ένα ολοκληρωτικό καθεστώς όπου βλέπεις ρομπότ να στρέφονται εναντίων ρομπότ, το 20ο ταξίδι, μια σκοτεινά αστεία ιστορία όπου ο Τίχι συναντά τον μελλοντικό εαυτό του, και φυ σι κά το επικό (και thought-provoking) 21ο ταξίδι, όπου η θρησκεία μπαίνει στο επίκεντρο και διαβάζεις ένα φιλοσοφικό ντιμπέιτ πάνω σε κάτι που θυμίζει τη σημερινή κουβέντα για το pro-choice/δικαίωμα στη ζωή.
Με λίγα λόγια, ένα βιβλίο για το οποίο δεν ξέρεις αν πρέπει να του βάλεις καρδούλες ή αστεράκια.
March 23, 2014
Stanislaw Lem es conocido mundialmente sobre todo por la magnífica ‘Solaris’. Sin embargo, la obra corta de Lem quizás no sea tan conocida. Diarios de las estrellas reúne en un solo volumen los Viajes y las Memorias de un curioso personaje, Ijon Tichy.
A través de sus extraordinarios viajes (que me recordaron poderosamente a Gulliver y Munchausen), siempre en su inseparable cohete, Tichy descubrirá las más absurdas e inverosímiles formas de vida, así como las sociedades más disparatadas. El humor de Lem es de lo más irónico y satírico. Pero lo absurdo no está reñido con lo trágico, y un humor ciertamente absurdo puede dar un giro hacia lo sombrío. Mediante las múltiples situaciones en las que Tichy se ve envuelto, Lem nos está hablando en realidad, a través de la extrapolación, de nuestro planeta y de los absurdos y estupidez de nuestra sociedad. Discusiones sobre sexo, religión, política, cibernética, inteligencia artificial, ciencia, teorías cosmogónicas, etcétera, ponen de relieve la variedad de temas y la fértil imaginación de Lem. Para el recuerdo queda el viaje séptimo, en el que Tichy se encuentra con múltiples versiones de sí mismo; el viaje decimoctavo, donde Tichy nos relata cómo creó el universo; o el viaje vigésimo primero, que habla de teología y clonación, entre otros temas.
En resumen, un libro divertido, aunque espeso en algunos pasajes, hard incluso, que se deja leer muy bien, y además mueve a la reflexión.
A través de sus extraordinarios viajes (que me recordaron poderosamente a Gulliver y Munchausen), siempre en su inseparable cohete, Tichy descubrirá las más absurdas e inverosímiles formas de vida, así como las sociedades más disparatadas. El humor de Lem es de lo más irónico y satírico. Pero lo absurdo no está reñido con lo trágico, y un humor ciertamente absurdo puede dar un giro hacia lo sombrío. Mediante las múltiples situaciones en las que Tichy se ve envuelto, Lem nos está hablando en realidad, a través de la extrapolación, de nuestro planeta y de los absurdos y estupidez de nuestra sociedad. Discusiones sobre sexo, religión, política, cibernética, inteligencia artificial, ciencia, teorías cosmogónicas, etcétera, ponen de relieve la variedad de temas y la fértil imaginación de Lem. Para el recuerdo queda el viaje séptimo, en el que Tichy se encuentra con múltiples versiones de sí mismo; el viaje decimoctavo, donde Tichy nos relata cómo creó el universo; o el viaje vigésimo primero, que habla de teología y clonación, entre otros temas.
En resumen, un libro divertido, aunque espeso en algunos pasajes, hard incluso, que se deja leer muy bien, y además mueve a la reflexión.
June 11, 2016
Sencillamente es una obra maestra. Lem puede mezclar la ciencia ficción más delirante y transformarla en algo divertido y también una obra antropológica que analiza la sociedad contemporánea, sin ser moralizante o pretender dar lecciones. Es imposible odiar a Tichy aunque sea a veces un idiota. Para releer una y mil veces.
September 28, 2022
Jegliche dieser Geschichten ist eine Parabel, ein philosophisches Gleichnis auf unseren Alltag und obwohl - oder vielleicht gerade deshalb - die Erlebnisse Ijon Tichys nun schon vor etlichen Jahren zu Papier gebracht wurden, sind sie trotzdem brandaktuell.
November 26, 2015
È davvero un onore e un privilegio recensire questo stupendo volume, proposto all’attenzione del lettore italiano una decina di anni fa dall’editore Marcos y Marcos e contenente un’antologia necessariamente incompleta dei resoconti di viaggio di Ijon Tichy, illustre esploratore dello spazio, conosciutissimo anche nelle province dell’impero culturalmente e scientificamente più depresse, quale la nostra infelice patria. Mi auguro di dare un piccolo contributo alla diffusione di quest’opera fondamentale della narrativa di viaggio interstellare e intragalattica, che ormai sembra si possa trovare solo nelle biblioteche, anche allo scopo di spingere l’editore a ripubblicarla.
Il volume è diviso in due parti. La prima, circa due terzi del totale, è dedicata ai viaggi veri e propri, una quindicina, numerati specificatamente da Tichy (lascio al lettore il privilegio di scoprire da solo il perché di questa numerazione, assolutamente non casuale). Come ogni grande narratore, Tichy sa mescolare nelle giuste proporzioni la commedia e il dramma, la suspense e il thriller, l’ironia e la satira, la meditazione filosofica e il ragionamento logico, l’approfondimento scientifico e il dettaglio tecnologico, la nota etnologica e la curiosità spicciola. In alcuni viaggi prevale il tono giocoso, (auto)ironico, in altri il puro gusto per l’esotico, per il meraviglioso, in altri ancora lo spunto per una riflessione profonda sull’umanità e sulle sue debolezze, condivise anche da altre forme di vita e persino dalle intelligenze artificiali. Tichy è un osservatore attento, avido di conoscere, non sempre al riparo dai pregiudizi, ma certamente disposto a fare nuove esperienze. Talvolta gli accade di reagire con sorpresa, con disgusto oppure con orrore: non è sempre facile confrontarsi con realtà aliene, con usi e costumi differenti, con valori etici nuovi e inaspettati, per non dire dissonanti, con scelte paradossali e disumane (in senso proprio e traslato). Resta però come punto fermo la rigorosa oggettività del nostro viaggiatore, che in qualità di esperto eso-etnologo non ci nasconde alcun particolare, nemmeno quelli che risultano più imbarazzanti per lui stesso (ad esempio la scazzottata avvenuta nel settimo viaggio fra il Tichy del giovedì e quello della domenica). Di tutti i viaggi è evidente, prima ancora della verosimiglianza, l’assoluta corrispondenza alla realtà: neppure lo spirito più fantasioso potrebbe concepire imprese tanto bizzarre e cervellotiche e, ripercorrendo la prova ontologica di Sant’Anselmo, potremmo senz’altro affermare che non essendo possibile immaginare qualcosa di più fantasiosamente coerente dei racconti di Tichy siamo indotti a implicarne la realtà. E del resto, come dice a conclusione del ventottesimo viaggio, ex nihilo nihil fit: non si può inventare qualcosa dal niente!
La grande esperienza di Tichy in fatto di viaggi nel tempo consente al lettore, anche il più ingenuo, di farsi un’idea concreta e realistica dei paradossi e dei rischi insiti in questa affascinante possibilità: dalla moltiplicazione degli enti nell’istante presente come effetto della permanenza in campi elettromagnetici di eccezionale intensità (nel settimo viaggio) ai pericoli di un rapido invecchiamento (spostarsi nel tempo può significare semplicemente raggiungere più rapidamente il futuro), alle incredibili potenzialità del cronociclo. Questa straordinaria invenzione – illustrata a p. 171 -, che qualche sprovveduto antiscientista potrebbe scambiare per un incrocio tra una scopa volante e un velocipede, costituisce per Tichy lo strumento principe per realizzare un ambizioso ma fallimentare programma di ottimizzazione telecronica della storia universale mediante programmi di intelligenza artificiale (nel ventesimo viaggio, che si configura come una sorta di Grand Tour attraverso l’intera storia umana). Il connubio fra sviluppo storico e innovazione tecnologica si manifesta anche nell’inquietante vicenda della creazione di una macchina in grado di garantire l’ordine politico-sociale (nel ventiquattresimo viaggio).
Non mancano i resoconti dedicati alla cosmologia - in particolare alle teorie cosmogoniche del prof. Razglaz (nel diciottesimo viaggio), secondo il quale l’universo in cui viviamo è nato da una fluttuazione proibita su larga scala che per realizzarsi ha richiesto un debito che prima o poi dovrà essere saldato -, al rapporto fra progresso tecnico-scientifico ed evoluzione della teologia e del sentimento religioso (nel ventunesimo viaggio, uno dei più affascinanti), alle potenzialità offerte alla vita biologica dall’ingegneria cibernetica e informatica (vedi la Teoria Generale delle Protesi del Maestro Oh nel tredicesimo viaggio). Altro resoconto rilevante è il ventottesimo viaggio, in realtà una serie di appunti dedicati agli antenati e ai membri della famiglia di Ijon Tichy, che da bravo viaggiatore del tempo si diletta a ricostruire il cammino umano che ha condotto fino alla sua nascita. Spicca fra i suoi antenati Geremia Tichy, che già a nove anni si era incaponito nel tentativo di formulare una ToE e voleva diventare lo Stephenson del pensiero.
La seconda parte del volume contiene invece alcuni Ricordi di Tichy: i destabilizzanti incontri con menti straordinarie, decise a spingere la ricerca scientifica oltre i limiti umani; il racconto ironico e allucinato della spirale di follia giuridica innescata dalla concorrenza selvaggia fra i due maggiori produttori mondiali di lavatrici, Nuddlegg e Snodgrass; un appello di Tichy alla salvaguardia ambientale del cosmo, ormai invaso dai detriti spaziali e devastato dalla maleducazione dei viaggiatori spaziali della domenica, che con il loro comportamento incivile stanno mettendo a rischio la conservazione di molte eso-specie di flora e di fauna. Ne è un triste esempio il povero scribacchino scimmiottante di Protostenesia:
Su Protostenesia vive un uccellino che corrisponde al pappagallo terrestre, lui però non parla, ma scrive. In genere purtroppo scrive sugli steccati espressioni volgari che ha imparato dai turisti. Quest'uccello viene mandato in bestia da certe persone che gli rimproverano gli sbagli di ortografia. Allora per la rabbia comincia a mangiare tutto quello che vede. […] Quando l'uccellino è morto di indigestione lo prendono per arrostirlo sullo spiedo. Il suo nome scientifico è scribacchino scimmiottante (graphomanus spasmaticus Essenbachii). Questa specie rara è minacciata ora di estinzione, dato che qualsiasi turista che arriva su Protostenesia si lecca i baffi già pensando a quella ghiottoneria che sono per lui gli scribacchini arrosto deliranti. (pp. 450-1)
I Ricordi tichiani sono più meditativi rispetto alle Memorie. Più che viaggiare tra le stelle a bordo di astronavi che si muovono su traiettoria fotonica, si viaggia “nella” e “con la” mente umana, alla ricerca di risposte certamente parziali e incomplete agli interrogativi che ci assillano da sempre: la mente risiede nel cervello? Esiste l’anima? È immortale? È possibile ricostruire o duplicare una mente? E un’anima? La mente può esistere senza il corpo? Un’intelligenza artificiale può presentare i disturbi mentali tipici di un’intelligenza naturale (dall’ipocondria fino alla follia vera e propria)? Possiamo applicare il principio della selezione darwiniana anche alle intelligenze artificiali? Chiude la raccolta il brano “Utilità di un drago”, che mette in scena una società ad economia capitalistica completamente dipendente da un’enorme creatura che abita una parte considerevole delle terre emerse di un pianeta: le implicazioni politiche e sociali di tale dipendenza sono davvero interessanti, soprattutto se le si leggono come prefigurazione dell’evoluzione delle società capitalistiche terrestri.
Il volume è impreziosito dai bellissimi schizzi autografi che provengono dai taccuini di viaggio del nostro e che mostrano l’aspetto di alcune delle più curiose creature incontrate da Tichy nei suoi viaggi (Schizzi). La traduzione in italiano di Pier Francesco Poli è di buon livello, con qualche sbavatura qua e là nei termini tecnici, facilmente scusabile se si pensa alla lunghezza del testo e all’eterogeneità delle esperienze di viaggio di Tichy. Qualche refuso è sfuggito alla revisione: il Luigi di cui Richelieu divenne l’eminenza grigia è il XIII, non il XVI (p. 192).
Che cosa resta da dire? Mi vedo costretto a fare cenno a quella leggenda interplanetaria secondo la quale Ijon Tichy non sarebbe mai esistito e le sue memorie sarebbero opera di un ricercatore dell’Europa orientale, un certo Lem, che tra gli anni Sessanta e gli anni Ottanta del XX secolo, avrebbe inventato di sana pianta tutti i resoconti di viaggio e gli altri scritti di Tichy, dando un saggio di elevatissimo livello delle sue capacità di scrittore di fantascienza. Credo siano sufficienti a fare giustizia di qualsiasi illazione le dure ma incisive parole del prof. A. S. Tarantoga - scienziato di fama galattica e compagno di alcuni dei viaggi di Tichy - che costituiscono la breve e sagace introduzione alla nostra antologia. Del resto, afferma correttamente il professore, Tichy può considerarsi pari ai più grandi viaggiatori di tutti i tempi, un cui piccolo campione è citato nella premessa: fra questi figura, sotto pseudonimo, il famoso Rabelais, della cui realtà storica nessuno potrebbe dubitare. Bisogna osservare, a riprova della realtà del nostro autore, che Tichy non è l’unico grande scrittore a finire sotto accusa da parte degli ingenui e degli stolti: basta pensare al povero Shakespeare, che alcuni sostengono essere la controfigura di Francis Bacon (Il pendolo di Foucault) o addirittura gli attribuiscono un’incongrua origine italiana, nelle vesti di tal Guglielmo Crollalanza o Scrollapera (Lo spettatore addormentato). Queste mistificazioni sono sempre esistite, ma oggi sono purtroppo alimentate vigorosamente dalle autostrade complottiste del web 2.0, e si manifestano a tutti i livelli: del sottoscritto, ad esempio, è stato scritto che sarebbe una pura invenzione letteraria, opera di un misconosciuto scrittore argentino, per di più cieco!
Pierre Menard
Disordinario di Letteratura esobiologica comparata presso l’Università del Sistema di Algol
Consigliato a chi spera di andare là, dove nessun uomo è mai giunto prima.
Sconsigliato a chi pensa che la fantascienza sia solo una puerile fantasia.
Il volume è diviso in due parti. La prima, circa due terzi del totale, è dedicata ai viaggi veri e propri, una quindicina, numerati specificatamente da Tichy (lascio al lettore il privilegio di scoprire da solo il perché di questa numerazione, assolutamente non casuale). Come ogni grande narratore, Tichy sa mescolare nelle giuste proporzioni la commedia e il dramma, la suspense e il thriller, l’ironia e la satira, la meditazione filosofica e il ragionamento logico, l’approfondimento scientifico e il dettaglio tecnologico, la nota etnologica e la curiosità spicciola. In alcuni viaggi prevale il tono giocoso, (auto)ironico, in altri il puro gusto per l’esotico, per il meraviglioso, in altri ancora lo spunto per una riflessione profonda sull’umanità e sulle sue debolezze, condivise anche da altre forme di vita e persino dalle intelligenze artificiali. Tichy è un osservatore attento, avido di conoscere, non sempre al riparo dai pregiudizi, ma certamente disposto a fare nuove esperienze. Talvolta gli accade di reagire con sorpresa, con disgusto oppure con orrore: non è sempre facile confrontarsi con realtà aliene, con usi e costumi differenti, con valori etici nuovi e inaspettati, per non dire dissonanti, con scelte paradossali e disumane (in senso proprio e traslato). Resta però come punto fermo la rigorosa oggettività del nostro viaggiatore, che in qualità di esperto eso-etnologo non ci nasconde alcun particolare, nemmeno quelli che risultano più imbarazzanti per lui stesso (ad esempio la scazzottata avvenuta nel settimo viaggio fra il Tichy del giovedì e quello della domenica). Di tutti i viaggi è evidente, prima ancora della verosimiglianza, l’assoluta corrispondenza alla realtà: neppure lo spirito più fantasioso potrebbe concepire imprese tanto bizzarre e cervellotiche e, ripercorrendo la prova ontologica di Sant’Anselmo, potremmo senz’altro affermare che non essendo possibile immaginare qualcosa di più fantasiosamente coerente dei racconti di Tichy siamo indotti a implicarne la realtà. E del resto, come dice a conclusione del ventottesimo viaggio, ex nihilo nihil fit: non si può inventare qualcosa dal niente!
La grande esperienza di Tichy in fatto di viaggi nel tempo consente al lettore, anche il più ingenuo, di farsi un’idea concreta e realistica dei paradossi e dei rischi insiti in questa affascinante possibilità: dalla moltiplicazione degli enti nell’istante presente come effetto della permanenza in campi elettromagnetici di eccezionale intensità (nel settimo viaggio) ai pericoli di un rapido invecchiamento (spostarsi nel tempo può significare semplicemente raggiungere più rapidamente il futuro), alle incredibili potenzialità del cronociclo. Questa straordinaria invenzione – illustrata a p. 171 -, che qualche sprovveduto antiscientista potrebbe scambiare per un incrocio tra una scopa volante e un velocipede, costituisce per Tichy lo strumento principe per realizzare un ambizioso ma fallimentare programma di ottimizzazione telecronica della storia universale mediante programmi di intelligenza artificiale (nel ventesimo viaggio, che si configura come una sorta di Grand Tour attraverso l’intera storia umana). Il connubio fra sviluppo storico e innovazione tecnologica si manifesta anche nell’inquietante vicenda della creazione di una macchina in grado di garantire l’ordine politico-sociale (nel ventiquattresimo viaggio).
Non mancano i resoconti dedicati alla cosmologia - in particolare alle teorie cosmogoniche del prof. Razglaz (nel diciottesimo viaggio), secondo il quale l’universo in cui viviamo è nato da una fluttuazione proibita su larga scala che per realizzarsi ha richiesto un debito che prima o poi dovrà essere saldato -, al rapporto fra progresso tecnico-scientifico ed evoluzione della teologia e del sentimento religioso (nel ventunesimo viaggio, uno dei più affascinanti), alle potenzialità offerte alla vita biologica dall’ingegneria cibernetica e informatica (vedi la Teoria Generale delle Protesi del Maestro Oh nel tredicesimo viaggio). Altro resoconto rilevante è il ventottesimo viaggio, in realtà una serie di appunti dedicati agli antenati e ai membri della famiglia di Ijon Tichy, che da bravo viaggiatore del tempo si diletta a ricostruire il cammino umano che ha condotto fino alla sua nascita. Spicca fra i suoi antenati Geremia Tichy, che già a nove anni si era incaponito nel tentativo di formulare una ToE e voleva diventare lo Stephenson del pensiero.
La seconda parte del volume contiene invece alcuni Ricordi di Tichy: i destabilizzanti incontri con menti straordinarie, decise a spingere la ricerca scientifica oltre i limiti umani; il racconto ironico e allucinato della spirale di follia giuridica innescata dalla concorrenza selvaggia fra i due maggiori produttori mondiali di lavatrici, Nuddlegg e Snodgrass; un appello di Tichy alla salvaguardia ambientale del cosmo, ormai invaso dai detriti spaziali e devastato dalla maleducazione dei viaggiatori spaziali della domenica, che con il loro comportamento incivile stanno mettendo a rischio la conservazione di molte eso-specie di flora e di fauna. Ne è un triste esempio il povero scribacchino scimmiottante di Protostenesia:
Su Protostenesia vive un uccellino che corrisponde al pappagallo terrestre, lui però non parla, ma scrive. In genere purtroppo scrive sugli steccati espressioni volgari che ha imparato dai turisti. Quest'uccello viene mandato in bestia da certe persone che gli rimproverano gli sbagli di ortografia. Allora per la rabbia comincia a mangiare tutto quello che vede. […] Quando l'uccellino è morto di indigestione lo prendono per arrostirlo sullo spiedo. Il suo nome scientifico è scribacchino scimmiottante (graphomanus spasmaticus Essenbachii). Questa specie rara è minacciata ora di estinzione, dato che qualsiasi turista che arriva su Protostenesia si lecca i baffi già pensando a quella ghiottoneria che sono per lui gli scribacchini arrosto deliranti. (pp. 450-1)
I Ricordi tichiani sono più meditativi rispetto alle Memorie. Più che viaggiare tra le stelle a bordo di astronavi che si muovono su traiettoria fotonica, si viaggia “nella” e “con la” mente umana, alla ricerca di risposte certamente parziali e incomplete agli interrogativi che ci assillano da sempre: la mente risiede nel cervello? Esiste l’anima? È immortale? È possibile ricostruire o duplicare una mente? E un’anima? La mente può esistere senza il corpo? Un’intelligenza artificiale può presentare i disturbi mentali tipici di un’intelligenza naturale (dall’ipocondria fino alla follia vera e propria)? Possiamo applicare il principio della selezione darwiniana anche alle intelligenze artificiali? Chiude la raccolta il brano “Utilità di un drago”, che mette in scena una società ad economia capitalistica completamente dipendente da un’enorme creatura che abita una parte considerevole delle terre emerse di un pianeta: le implicazioni politiche e sociali di tale dipendenza sono davvero interessanti, soprattutto se le si leggono come prefigurazione dell’evoluzione delle società capitalistiche terrestri.
Il volume è impreziosito dai bellissimi schizzi autografi che provengono dai taccuini di viaggio del nostro e che mostrano l’aspetto di alcune delle più curiose creature incontrate da Tichy nei suoi viaggi (Schizzi). La traduzione in italiano di Pier Francesco Poli è di buon livello, con qualche sbavatura qua e là nei termini tecnici, facilmente scusabile se si pensa alla lunghezza del testo e all’eterogeneità delle esperienze di viaggio di Tichy. Qualche refuso è sfuggito alla revisione: il Luigi di cui Richelieu divenne l’eminenza grigia è il XIII, non il XVI (p. 192).
Che cosa resta da dire? Mi vedo costretto a fare cenno a quella leggenda interplanetaria secondo la quale Ijon Tichy non sarebbe mai esistito e le sue memorie sarebbero opera di un ricercatore dell’Europa orientale, un certo Lem, che tra gli anni Sessanta e gli anni Ottanta del XX secolo, avrebbe inventato di sana pianta tutti i resoconti di viaggio e gli altri scritti di Tichy, dando un saggio di elevatissimo livello delle sue capacità di scrittore di fantascienza. Credo siano sufficienti a fare giustizia di qualsiasi illazione le dure ma incisive parole del prof. A. S. Tarantoga - scienziato di fama galattica e compagno di alcuni dei viaggi di Tichy - che costituiscono la breve e sagace introduzione alla nostra antologia. Del resto, afferma correttamente il professore, Tichy può considerarsi pari ai più grandi viaggiatori di tutti i tempi, un cui piccolo campione è citato nella premessa: fra questi figura, sotto pseudonimo, il famoso Rabelais, della cui realtà storica nessuno potrebbe dubitare. Bisogna osservare, a riprova della realtà del nostro autore, che Tichy non è l’unico grande scrittore a finire sotto accusa da parte degli ingenui e degli stolti: basta pensare al povero Shakespeare, che alcuni sostengono essere la controfigura di Francis Bacon (Il pendolo di Foucault) o addirittura gli attribuiscono un’incongrua origine italiana, nelle vesti di tal Guglielmo Crollalanza o Scrollapera (Lo spettatore addormentato). Queste mistificazioni sono sempre esistite, ma oggi sono purtroppo alimentate vigorosamente dalle autostrade complottiste del web 2.0, e si manifestano a tutti i livelli: del sottoscritto, ad esempio, è stato scritto che sarebbe una pura invenzione letteraria, opera di un misconosciuto scrittore argentino, per di più cieco!
Pierre Menard
Disordinario di Letteratura esobiologica comparata presso l’Università del Sistema di Algol
Consigliato a chi spera di andare là, dove nessun uomo è mai giunto prima.
Sconsigliato a chi pensa che la fantascienza sia solo una puerile fantasia.
January 18, 2022
Equally satirical and philosophical, hilarious and serious, playful and threatening, Stanisław Lem's The Star Diaries is a brilliantly imaginative short story collection about astronaut Ijon Tichy and his bizarre adventures across the cosmos. Quite simply one of the greatest short story collections you'll ever read. Stories that explore, poke fun and dissect human nature.
July 13, 2022
Only one story out of all the collection failed to interest me. The rest are outstanding, creative, philosophical and incredibly funny. Ijon Tichy is a fantastic creation by Stanislaw Lem. To English language readers, this collection is usually seen as a sequel of sorts to Lem's first major Ijon Tichy short story collection The Star Diaries. Although a few of the stories feature Tichy's adventures across the cosmos, most of the stories have our hapless and inquisitive space pilot on Earth interacting with scientists and their inventions which allows Lem to enter into philosophical debates on the nature of reality, determinism, consciousness, cybernetics and consumerism. Lem completely changed my views on the concept of the afterlife.
January 9, 2011
I have decided that I can't finish this book, I got about half-way through. Though it is slightly funny, the science is just wrong and it bugs me to much. It is broken up into twelve voyages that have nothing to do with each other and I don't care what happens.
June 27, 2024
Absolutely amazing - this book is such a wild sci-fi porn, it could hands down feed off a couple dozen movie and TV series scripts. Incredibly creative and continuously innovative and fresh despite the elapse of time - wonderful.
October 7, 2012
Едно от най-добрите неща, които съм чел някога. Горещо препоръчвам да ги прочетете, ако искате да научите:
-защо нас, Земляните, не ни приеха в ООП (Организажията на обединените планети) и как всички членове започнали да припадат и повръщат след като гледали на монитора как върви историята на човечеството, тези трупоядци.
- как звезден проповедник изпитвал трудности при разпространението на религията на други планети, особено на една, на която средната температура е -200 C, а населението й не иска и да чуе за Рая, но с удоволствие и радостни възгласи посреща историите за Ада и големия пек там…
- как Великият Ох разрешил спор на една планета между тамошната религия, според която планетата е неподвижна е центъра на Вселената, и учен, който твърди, че планетата се върти – ами измислил планетарната спирачка, която разрешила спора….
http://lammoth.wordpress.com/2011/01/...
и ей такива забавни истории
-защо нас, Земляните, не ни приеха в ООП (Организажията на обединените планети) и как всички членове започнали да припадат и повръщат след като гледали на монитора как върви историята на човечеството, тези трупоядци.
- как звезден проповедник изпитвал трудности при разпространението на религията на други планети, особено на една, на която средната температура е -200 C, а населението й не иска и да чуе за Рая, но с удоволствие и радостни възгласи посреща историите за Ада и големия пек там…
- как Великият Ох разрешил спор на една планета между тамошната религия, според която планетата е неподвижна е центъра на Вселената, и учен, който твърди, че планетата се върти – ами измислил планетарната спирачка, която разрешила спора….
http://lammoth.wordpress.com/2011/01/...
и ей такива забавни истории
December 2, 2021
Önsözünü hayali bir bilim adamı olan Prof. Tarantoga'nın yazdığı güncelerinde Ijon Tichy, sık sık zaman döngüsünde farklı zaman dilimlerindeki kendi halleriyle karşılaşıyor. Bir yolculuğunda insan türünün uzaylılarca sorgulandığı ve aslında bir hata sonucu evrimleştiğinin gösterildiği gezegenlerarası toplantıya katılıyor. Başka bir yolculuğunda uzay gemisinin robotları üretip kontrolü ele geçirdiği bir gezegende robot kılığına girerek sorunu anlayıp çözüyor. Gezegenin birinde doğal felaketlerde yok olan kişilerin yerine hızla yedekleri yerlerine geçebilirken, bir başka yolculukta gittiği gezegende atomlarına ayrılan kişilerin kopyaları tegrafla gönderiliyor. Duygularını renk değişimleriyle gösteren uzaylılar, aşırı sıcakta yaşayabilen, başka türden bir yaşamın olabileceğine inanmayan gezegen sakinleri, dünyada yaşamın olanaksızlığına inanan uzaylı bilim adamları, kendilerine ait Tanrı inancı geliştiren uzaylı rahipler Stanislaw Lem'in yaratıcılığının sınırsız olduğunu düşündürüyor...
August 3, 2018
This was good fun. I read "Solaris", saw the two versions of the movie, one Russian and the other, American starring Mr. Clooney. My impression based on that was that he was serious, very philosophical and very trippy as well. This book was initially unexpected as it was very humorous, but yet, it had all the elements mentioned about Solaris. It is a different type satirical humour than that of Vonnagut Jr. but on par. This book was equally smart, clever, very funny and introspective all at once.
December 12, 2024
I get the feeling that in order to fully appreciate the Star Diaries, I should've read a good amount of pulp sci-fi shorts. I still enjoyed many of the stories, like the one where Tichy fiddles around with a tiime acceleration device and witnesses the progress of a civilisation, or the one with the rogue robot state, or the intergalactic conference where we learn our true name, the stinking meemy, and a few others. As the book went on though, I found myself increasingly tired of his bureaucratic farces, even worse, his send-ups of the academy (which were rarely funny). Or maybe it's that I have a certain threshold when it comes to humorous texts? And the Star Diaries, since it uses the same tricks over and over despite its considerable inventiveness in content, was too long for me to sustain a sense of amusement. It got increasingly silly, with even the pretence of realism for interstellar travel going out the window (of the rocket even, as objects do from time to time in this book). Rockets behaved much like a car, with interstellar voyages being no more complex than long car trips. Tichy needed no astronaut food, for example, he had a fully stocked larder on the ship! Complete with eggs and steak.
One thing I found a bit nostalgic, I'm a fan of Hergé's Tintin. And Ijon Tichy reminded me of the titular character, in the way that they're both great explorers and conduits to adventure, with not much in the way of characterisation, but instead allow one to experience fantastic, over-the-top stories vicariously.
One thing I found a bit nostalgic, I'm a fan of Hergé's Tintin. And Ijon Tichy reminded me of the titular character, in the way that they're both great explorers and conduits to adventure, with not much in the way of characterisation, but instead allow one to experience fantastic, over-the-top stories vicariously.
September 4, 2025
Kocham Lema, jaka szkoda, że żaden potrafiący napisać choć jedno sensowne zdanie nigdy nie istniał 💔
July 14, 2018
Pametna, duhovita i zanimljiva diskusija o religiji, ljudskoj prirodi, moralu, etici, generalno filozofiji, zamaskirana naučnom fantastikom. Sigurno ću čitati ponovo.
November 5, 2024
Краще пізно, ніж ніколи, або Пробнік Лема
Колись дуже-дуже давно, коли трава була зеленіша, небо синіше, а світ більше, я спробувала почитати Станіслава Лема і зі старту так замахнулася на його magnum opus «Соляріс». Погортала, понудилась і пішла робити «домашку» з природознавства.
І цілих тридцять років Лем чемно, як і годиться гарним письменникам, чекав мене у Всесвіті своїх світів. Ризикував не дочекатися, якщо чесно.
Збірка «Зі спогадів Ійона Тихого» стала для мене наче пробніком його творчості. Я проковтнула ці майже 200 сторінок і сказала «хочу все!». Так мій вішлист поповнився ще на десяток пунктів.
Немає нічого дивного, що у свої дитячи роки я мало що зрозуміла у Лема, адже до нього треба підходити підготовленим, як і до будь-якої зірки.
Книга містить кілька розповідей мандрівника і героя Ійона Тихого, славетного зореплавця, який постійно зустрічається із найрізноманітнішими мешканцями Землі та Космосу, і яких він намагається пізнати та зрозуміти.
З кимось Ійон починає товаришувати, з кимось – просто тримати епістолярні стосунки, а декого він щиро побоюється або відверто жалкує. Професор, що винайшов справжню машину часу і загубився у власному майбутньому. Робот, який впевнений, що він – людина, тільки його справжнє тіло вкрали, а його засадили у цю жестянку. Злий геній, що виростив гомункулюса. Або ціла країна, що вигодовує дракона на своїх полях, що пожирає все навколо.
Кожне оповідання – це зустріч Тихого із новим героєм, що несе або розвагу, або смуток, але всі вони однаково філософські, що смішні, що страшні. Той самий зразок короткої прози, який запам’ятовується надовго і стає інколи джерелом для власної творчості.
Колись дуже-дуже давно, коли трава була зеленіша, небо синіше, а світ більше, я спробувала почитати Станіслава Лема і зі старту так замахнулася на його magnum opus «Соляріс». Погортала, понудилась і пішла робити «домашку» з природознавства.
І цілих тридцять років Лем чемно, як і годиться гарним письменникам, чекав мене у Всесвіті своїх світів. Ризикував не дочекатися, якщо чесно.
Збірка «Зі спогадів Ійона Тихого» стала для мене наче пробніком його творчості. Я проковтнула ці майже 200 сторінок і сказала «хочу все!». Так мій вішлист поповнився ще на десяток пунктів.
Немає нічого дивного, що у свої дитячи роки я мало що зрозуміла у Лема, адже до нього треба підходити підготовленим, як і до будь-якої зірки.
Книга містить кілька розповідей мандрівника і героя Ійона Тихого, славетного зореплавця, який постійно зустрічається із найрізноманітнішими мешканцями Землі та Космосу, і яких він намагається пізнати та зрозуміти.
З кимось Ійон починає товаришувати, з кимось – просто тримати епістолярні стосунки, а декого він щиро побоюється або відверто жалкує. Професор, що винайшов справжню машину часу і загубився у власному майбутньому. Робот, який впевнений, що він – людина, тільки його справжнє тіло вкрали, а його засадили у цю жестянку. Злий геній, що виростив гомункулюса. Або ціла країна, що вигодовує дракона на своїх полях, що пожирає все навколо.
Кожне оповідання – це зустріч Тихого із новим героєм, що несе або розвагу, або смуток, але всі вони однаково філософські, що смішні, що страшні. Той самий зразок короткої прози, який запам’ятовується надовго і стає інколи джерелом для власної творчості.
May 10, 2013
-Edición revisada por el Instituto Tichológico y los Institutos Reunidos de Tichografía y Tichonomía Descriptiva, Comparativa y Prognóstica-.
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Recopilación de relatos manuscritos de Ijon Tichy sobres sus viajes, revisada por los principales expertos en el tema (descartando definitivamente el controvertido viaje 26 por considerarlo apócrifo), que con académica seriedad nos confirman las teorías de proporcionalidad directa entre velocidad y grado de parentesco, descartan de una vez la autoría de Lem y retratan a Ijon Tichy como el modesto genio y titán humanista que realmente fue. Un paso más hacia la opera omnia de Tichy.
¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Recopilación de relatos manuscritos de Ijon Tichy sobres sus viajes, revisada por los principales expertos en el tema (descartando definitivamente el controvertido viaje 26 por considerarlo apócrifo), que con académica seriedad nos confirman las teorías de proporcionalidad directa entre velocidad y grado de parentesco, descartan de una vez la autoría de Lem y retratan a Ijon Tichy como el modesto genio y titán humanista que realmente fue. Un paso más hacia la opera omnia de Tichy.
¿Quiere saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
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