Futurološki kongres

by Stanisław Lem, Tatjana Jamnik (Translator)

V znanstvenofantastičnem romanu Futurološki kongres (1971) se znova srečamo z Ijonom Tihim, junakom slovitih Zvezdnih dnevnikov (1954; prev. Janez Zor, 1968). Kot je značilno za prejšnje prigode vesoljskega popotnika, je tudi ta pripoved polna bizarnih situacij, nepričakovanih paradoksov in absurdov, pa tudi jezikovnih akrobacij, ki jih Stanisław Lem z užitkom izvaja pri poimenovanju pojavov zamišljene resničnosti.

Tokrat se Ijon Tihi odpravi na znanstveno konferenco, ki poteka v fiktivni latinskoameriški republiki Costaricani. Futurologi z vsega sveta so se zbrali v hotelu Hilton, da bi na posvetu predstavili svoje zamisli, kako rešiti problem prenaseljenosti Zemlje. Lem ne bi bil Lem, če si ne bi pošteno privoščil znanstvenega diskurza in parodijo pritiral do grotesknih skrajnosti. Medtem ko učenjaki predstavljajo svoje referate, se v mestu začnejo anarhični izgredi in država za dušenje revolucije uporabi posebna plinska sredstva. Tihemu se začnejo dogajati stvari, ki si jih ne zna razložiti, toda ker je bil od nekdaj skeptik in pozoren opazovalec, ve, da je nekaj narobe. Postopoma odkrije, da je fizična realnost povsem drugačna od tistega, kar se kaže umu. Kolektivno utvaro povzroča t. i. psikemija, ki je oblast ne razpršuje le po zraku, ampak jo tudi dodaja vodi in kajpada distribuira v tabletah.

Britje norcev iz futurologije – psevdoznanosti v službi tehnokratov, ki se ima za znanost in je obsedena z »mejami rasti« in napovedovanjem katastrofalne prihodnosti z računalniškimi modeli, pri čemer pozablja upoštevati, da je človek ustvarjalno in sočutno bitje – je, kot je pri Lemu običajno, zgolj površinski sloj pripovedi. V globljih plasteh se odvija resno premišljanje o krizi vrednot v hedonistični potrošniški družbi in nagnjenosti človeka k »razdoru z resničnostjo«, skratka, o družbenem inženiringu in neznosni lahkosti manipulacije z množicami. Lemov pristop je izviren: napisal je jezikovno bravurozno besedilo, kjer se v tragično-komičnem spletu okoliščin obenem realizirata utopična in antiutopična različica zgodovine prihodnosti.

Stanisław Lem je tudi s tem delom dokazal, da ni le mojster fantastike, temveč predvsem pronicljiv mislec, ki ne mara ubirati bližnjic. Možni svetovi, ki jih je ustvarjal z nebrzdano silo imaginacije, namreč vrejo iz erudicije in vselej pripovedujejo o človeštvu tukaj in zdaj.

Tatjana Jamnik

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Stanisław 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.