SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

The beginning of this is so terrifying. I honestly love it. Poor Kelvin wondering through the station, driven to the point of questioning his sanity. It's genuinely so impressive how terrifying some of these ideas must of been back in the 60's. We normalise alien life (in thought) so often by humanising it to make it more tolerable. Yet the thought it could be something so different and indifferent to us is something I'm sure alot of people find unsettling about this book as well as amazingly thought provoking. Even though I know the ending, I find myself racing towards it this time, for the comforting despair and bittersweet route I know Kelvin will take by choosing to stay on Solaris. <3 my heart breaks for him. I think it was a very clever ending as we all experienced that painful love that was toxic yet we wish to cling on to. And to make Solaris nothing more than an idea of a infantile god like life form hence all the issues in communications and mimicking behaviours 🤯🤯

I read the book when I was a teenager and did not remember what happened. I probably didn't understand most of what Kelvin was going through. I liked the ending. There were two tedious spots where he read past "studies" on Solaris which went on for too long. I guess they were needed to set up the ending of the book, but they could have been condensed and still given the same effect.

I read this quite a few years ago, and as Johannah said, the atmosphere of the beginning is so oppressive and you can simply feel the unease and on-the-cusp of fear and dread. It's really good writing.

So finally got started on the re-read (or in my case listening) and two things stand out. 1. What is Kelvin doing on Solaris in the first place, we never hear of any mission or research? 2. The clunky and derelict condition of the space station, this is far from Clarke’s shiny spaceships

Lars wrote: "So finally got started on the re-read (or in my case listening) and two things stand out. 1. What is Kelvin doing on Solaris in the first place, we never hear of any mission or research? 2. The clu..."

1. Well he used to be Gibarian's assistant if I remember right or at least student so it would make sense Gibarian would have invited him but then he is dead so instead Kelvin takes as a mission discovering what happened and what is going on I suppose. There is mention of Gibarian doing some research beforehand.

2. Yeah it's obvious the interest in research declined and the mental state of people in past week probably didn't help with keeping order. Also they shut off robots that were probably responsible for the cleaning. It just adds to the creepy atmosphere.

Which makes me think why they shut off the robots. Was it to protect the phantoms (there is this one sentence about robots getting rid of what's in their way?) or was it because robots moving around was startling them too much, always thinking if it's the phantom coming.

Also I had one thought about Harey. She was kind of created from Kelvin's memories of her. She knows things she shouldn't have. So is she may be the idealised version? That she was the way he remembered her, forgetting about her flaws? Might explain why Kelvin is that crazy for her while with his wife he seemed to have been at breaking point.

Here are some study questions that might help to focus my thoughts.

1. If you went to Solaris, who or what would your visitor be?
2. How would Solaris be different if the protagonist were a woman? Would she have a male visitor? Is the Solaris ocean female? Why or why not?
3. Solaris includes a lot of information about the planet, particularly in the form of long scientific digressions. Would there have been a better way to give you this information? Do you even need this information at all? Why is it there?
4. Is Rheya real? Why or why not?
5. Kelvin narrates Solaris. Could the book instead have had multiple narrators, or be told in third person? How does having Kelvin as the sole speaker fit with the novel's themes?

Thank you Cynda! :)

Welcome Anna. I am trying to pay back some of the help I get here.
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In the second chapter "Solarists," the narrator Kelvin considers the nature of the ocean in terms of its nature. In 1951, ten years before publication of Solaris, Rachel Carson marine biologist and conservatist wrote of the nature of the ocean in many of the same terms in her book The Sea Around Us (1951). Except Rachel Carson is being straightforward in her musings and the narrator Kelvin in Solaris is leaving the topic open-ended, maybe maybe a bit discredited. . . . .Oh what does it mean?

I am gathering that Stanislaw Lem is leaving the reader space to cinsider the nature of any and all topics introduced in Solaris.

In 1961 after some years into the Space Race, the Russians successfully launch Yuri Gagarin into orbit. So the who space travel of both Kelvin and the space travel books he is reading from seem to be part of a rhetorical dialogue,again turned on its ear. Through Kelvin it seems that Stanislaw Lem is making fun of the ineffectiveness of the USSR and the USA to get men into space.

Cynda wrote: "Here are some study questions that might help to focus my thoughts.
I liked your questions and thought about an answer for them. I finished the book today, so it hasn´t really had so much time to sink in however.

1. If you went to Solaris, who or what would your visitor be?

This question is very hard to answer as I didn´t quite get what the rules for these visitors where. I leaned towards the ocean trying to fix their minds at the beginning. Like Harley (or Rheya) where missing from Kelvin´s life and the ocean put her back. In that case it would probably be someone I lost. If it´s more like they talked about at the end, with the ocean being a youngster playing around it would probably be the person you think about most, like my boyfriend. I wonder if the persons would have to be dead in order to be "awakened"?.

2. How would Solaris be different if the protagonist were a woman? Would she have a male visitor? Is the Solaris ocean female? Why or why not?

I don´t think the Solaris ocean has a gender as it´s so clearly explained that it has nothing to do with human nature or follow human laws. If it had a gender it would be able to propagate, and there would be more of it. Maybe the author chose a man as a protagonist because he is a man, and has it easier writing about a man. I think another protagonist would change the story completly no matter the gender as this man didn´t actually do much in this story. He could have gone home for example, I didn´t see anybody trying to stop him?

3. Solaris includes a lot of information about the planet, particularly in the form of long scientific digressions. Would there have been a better way to give you this information? Do you even need this information at all? Why is it there?

I wasn´t a fan of this long passages of information, and I think it would have been sufficient with much less, as there where a lot of difficult words I didn´t get. But maybe I missed some vital part of the story because of that. Some political notions maybe? I usually miss those.

4. Is Rheya real? Why or why not?

In my copy (In swedish) she´s called Harley, but no matter. I think she was real but somehow a part of Kelvin at the same time. There was one sequence when she came back the second time and knew things she hadn´t been a part of wich suggests that the things she knew came directly from Kelvin´s brain. I also agree with "Marie" about her maybe being his perfect memory of her. It makes a lot of sence, but at the same time it was as if she was becoming her own person.

5. Kelvin narrates Solaris. Could the book instead have had multiple narrators, or be told in third person? How does having Kelvin as the sole speaker fit with the novel's themes?

I haven´t read many older books with multiple narrators and feel like that´s a more modern way of writing. But I could be wrong. It would have been very interesting to know what the other scientist saw and by piecing that together learning more about the rules and laws of the Solaris Ocean. It would also have been nice with a view of the future, maybe someone else coming to the space station and finding Kelvin and the others, to get a notion of where the story line is headed. But I think it´s a bit scarier in this way, knowing so little.

Lars wrote: "So finally got started on the re-read (or in my case listening) and two things stand out. 1. What is Kelvin doing on Solaris in the first place, we never hear of any mission or research? 2. The clu..."

I thought about this too. What´s he even doing there and why didn´t he go home before things got rough? Instead of sending Harley (or Rheya) of in a spacerocket, why didn´t he go himself? We got to know very little about this man, except that he was a psychiatrist. Did he have family back on earth? Friends? Usually when a character is this bland it could be symbol for something else entirely. Humanity maybe?

Cynda wrote: "In 1961 after some years into the Space Race, the Russians successfully launch Guru Gagarin into orbit. .."

Firstly, it was Yuri, not Guru :)
Secondly, Soviets, not Russians, the simplification already led Russians to try to "return" other countries under their control, so do not blindly follow the erroneous naming, just because it is still a common practice.
Finally, the early 1960s were full of space 'conquering' optimism, sop I doubt that the book from 1961, published in Russian translation in the USSR the same year, was making fan of space programs, I guess it was making fun of fate of projects that over lasted their initial fame

Oleksandr I fixed the autocorrect. Thanks.

I will note to use word "Soviets".

Okay now about the space race. I think we might be near to understanding each other. The space race lasted some years. It did feel to some/many that finally a human in orbit. As far as the novel Solaris--I was mostly thinking of the space race, not so much the orbiting. So I am keeping the idea of the space race 👍 as part of the dialogue.

Glad to be of service Elin. I will answer some/all after I finish reading the book.

My thoughts on the complex scientific and historical digressions… yes, they are difficult to read, but they add to the realism, as this is first person narration by a solarist scientist. Also, it’s a way to get good information about the ocean in a sort of cryptic way, with all these cryptic scientific and mystical competing theories.

I see two benefits to doing it this way (there are probably many more): 1. This way there’s no omniscient narrator who intrudes on the tense first-person narrative in order to explain anything and 2. I feel like a review of the odd/complex ideas gives a feeling for how different this ocean being is, how fantastical, how unfathomably far even the most educated humans are from understanding or interacting with it in any basic way.

But, I confess that I read this book in two different ways. The historical/technical parts, I read quickly, let it wash over me, and picked up general ideas. I definitely did not try to remember any details of names or theories. As opposed to the other parts of the narrative (Kelvin describing experiences, feelings, interactions) — these parts I read slowly, carefully, sometimes rereading to make sure I fully understood everything.

I am reading both ways too. The two ways seem to inform each other.

It’s a long time since I read the book and I may be misremembering, but it seems to me the whole history of the science of Solaristics could be taken as a sort of satirical look at how academic fields develop.

I am glad I am not alone in this satirical viewpoint.

Oh yea, that makes sense, I didn't even think about the satirical view of academia. I totally see that.

I thought it was interesting how we come on to the scene after they've already been studying the planet for a generation or two. With a lot of these types of stories, we come on to the scene and know as little as the protagonist as they are discovering a new world; but in this case we are discovering something that hundreds of scientists have already studied everything they can think of regarding the planet.

Her name is Harey in my translation.

The satirical aspect of the scientific summaries is a great point! It reminds me of Borges who will write an entire fictional by giving an academic account of some fictional person or idea. Also gave me Umberto Eco / Foucault’s Pendulum vibes.

Cynda wrote: "Here are some study questions that might help to focus my thoughts.

Thank you. As soon as I'm done with my library book, I'm going to continue reading. The questions are great.

Dev wrote: "My thoughts on the complex scientific and historical digressions… ."

As a side note: the author later had two books of reviews on books that never were, both fic and non-fic, so he took this parodying of academic text much further

My answers to the study questions.

1. If you went to Solaris, who or what would your visitor be?
Kelvin. He is just about as perfect as can be as being bith insider and outsider, being psychologist (of knowledge) and husband (9of the body, heart, and understanding), being curious about the project, the ocean, and the moral way to live.

2. How would Solaris be different if the protagonist were a woman? Would she have a male visitor? Is the Solaris ocean female? Why or why not?
The protagonist is the correct protagonist for the story, so good with protagonist being a man. The Goddess holds in balance good and evil, and human women often have make difficult choices, balancing family, household, and work needs. So not female or goddess. The Deist God sets things in motion, lets things go as they would. This seems more like the ocean which creates beings from the imaginations of humans and then lets them find their own way in the world. There are such human men in the world. So more like a god. . . .possibly.

3. Solaris includes a lot of information about the planet, particularly in the form of long scientific digressions. Would there have been a better way to give you this information? Do you even need this information at all? Why is it there?
The long digressions show how seriously academicians take themselves, how seriously they challenge each other. When reading academic books or books written by academicians, I often find detailed information supporting an argument, sometimes so much detail that I groan in frustration: Oh these academic types!

4. Is Rheya real? Why or why not?
Rheya is as real as Kelvin's imagination as real as her physjcal form.

5. Kelvin narrates Solaris. Could the book instead have had multiple narrators, or be told in third person? How does having Kelvin as the sole speaker fit with the novel's themes?
About same same answer for Question 1.

My slightly spoiler-ly review is here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Dev wrote: "My thoughts on the complex scientific and historical digressions… yes, they are difficult to read, but they add to the realism, as this is first person narration by a solarist scientist. Also, it’s..."

Even though they were a little slow-going at times, I thought the scientific digressions served a kind of character purpose to. I read them as Kelvin's attempt to ground himself emotionally by rehearsing what he could and could not know, an effort which was, of course, ultimately futile.

BJ wrote: "I read them as Kelvin's attempt to ground himself emotionally by rehearsing what he could and could not know, an effort which was, of course, ultimately futile."

I think that pessimism and futility are what make this novel stand out, so any writer's tricks to emphasize this are understandable

I'm still contemplating about the racist slur of the mc. Can I read it as another emphasis on how he (as stand in for humanity) is not able to begin to understand intelligence outside his very narrow field of imagination? Or is the author's view shining through? (which I hope not)
That threw a bit of shade on the otherwise excellent experience this book was.
The exposition was massive, but in this case it didn't bother me because I loved following the metaphysical discourses and how they contrasted the psychological view on the characters.
This is the kind of SF because of which I fell in love with the genre in the first place. I don't necessarily need answers, I don't need A to Z stories, but I need ideas that make me think and that feel alien. On that front Lem is really good and I'm happy that a novel like his became BotM.

Gabi wrote: "I'm still contemplating about the racist slur of the mc. "

I cannot recall a slur in the original text. If you refer to a giant black woman the mc sees, as I understand the author suggests an image of the pra-mother of mankind, and the Polish term used, "Murzynka" is the same term used in present-day Poland for Black Africans as a neutral term

Oleksandr wrote: "I cannot recall a slur in the original text. If you refer to a giant black woman the mc sees, as I understand the author suggests an image of the pra-mother of mankind, and the Polish term used, "Murzynka" is the same term used in present-day Poland for Black Africans as a neutral term."

Yes, I was referring to that. And I was hoping that somebody with better knowledge of the original text would give me some insight.
The way it reads in my translation (German) it comes across rather derogatory. He thinks of her as ugly.

For all of you with the English translation, how does it read there?

ooohhhh! Yeah, that is not what is communicated in the English. The terms and descriptions used are extremely pejorative, conjuring a grotesque barbarian.

I think I wish that I'd read this in another language. I really loved the hauntings, the sense of being safe and also trapped at the same time. I loved the musings of trying to make contact in human terms, and expecting human results, and that the closest we get is an extremely personal but inhuman response. I think, honestly, most of the problems I had were in the translation--a lot of abrupt switches, no emotive coloring in the words when the scientists and their visitors were talking, philosophy completely divorced from the themes of the book. Given how thoughtful the parts that did mesh well were, I have to assume the book as originally written was much more cohesive and atmospheric, which would have suited it perfectly. It is short, perhaps one day I'll try it in French.

Allison wrote: "ooohhhh! Yeah, that is not what is communicated in the English. The terms and descriptions used are extremely pejorative, conjuring a grotesque barbarian."

Same in German.

What I liked about the German translation though, was the fact that I seem to have picked up a very old translation. The language and some words used therein sounded dated, but at the same time they helped to experience the weird, detached atmosphere of the going ons, because it felt familiar enough, but not quite familiar.

According to this, the only English translation available until 2011 was itself translated from a French translation that Lem had called "poor", and included "unnecessary changes".

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Allison wrote: "ooohhhh! Yeah, that is not what is communicated in the English. The terms and descriptions used are extremely pejorative, conjuring a grotesque barbarian."

Oh, I see. I assume there is a problem of context. If my assumptions about the Mother are correct then I guess the author had in mind something like "Kurgan stelae" (see wiki article - https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kurgan_st... ), about which he was aware and which often are large and ugly in sense inchoate, not 'non-beautiful'. The stela hypothesis is supported by long arms (these stelae often have long arms and short legs) and an overall unfinished feel

Thanks for the link, that really is quite interesting, and I can see that interpretation now. What do you think the inclusion of this meant for Gibarian or Kris?

Allison wrote: "Thanks for the link, that really is quite interesting, and I can see that interpretation now. What do you think the inclusion of this meant for Gibarian or Kris?"

I suppose Kris, for as we later find out the 'visitors' have to keep contact with their 'summoner' and with Gibarian dead and Kris just appearing, the ocean sends the inchoate form that was brought to mind by news about Gibarian's death as an implementation of a birth-death cycle (the Great Mother as a giver of birth). Note that it is just my interpretation, not something I've read elsewhere from the author

I really like that! A visitor that is meant to signify birth (possibly of the Rheya construct?) and a sort of maternal sense in grief that I think is common when you lose someone you care about in some way. I like this interpretation quite a bit, and a lot more than what we were given in the older English translation.

Lars wrote: "So finally got started on the re-read (or in my case listening) and two things stand out. 1. What is Kelvin doing on Solaris in the first place, we never hear of any mission or research? 2. The clu..."

I think it is mentioned somehwhere that he was sent to investigate strange goings-on at the station, potentially even that Gibarian asked for him to be sent because he’s a psychologist.

He doesn’t really try to do much of that, but that’s probably cause Snaut and Sartorious are behaving so weirdly AND because he sees visitors almost immediately and then has to deal with all of that.

Oleksandr wrote: "Gabi wrote: "I'm still contemplating about the racist slur of the mc. "

I cannot recall a slur in the original text. If you refer to a giant black woman the mc sees, as I understand the author sug..."
Thank you for adding this context! That reframes the scene very much. It’s interesting that the translator took such a liberty. (Or did not properly research the implications of the original term.)

I find it interesting that the visitors are a Black woman, a white woman, and (potentially) a child. I also wonder who Snaut’s visitor was and how they might have reframed what we know about the visitors and how/why they come to be.

As for the question of whether Harey is real…..I guess she’s real in a material sense, right? She interacts with the world and with Kelvin, after all.
But whether she’s real in the sense of being exactly like the dead Harey, that’s a whole other question. If she’s a copy based on Kelvin’s memories, she’s whatever he has made of her in his head. Does that make her less real? It makes her less “faithful” to the real human being maybe, but that’s different than not real.
This could be read as a commentary on how our ideas about other people are never an objective assessment or faithful to who those people are/how they see themselves.

Stephen wrote: "It’s a long time since I read the book and I may be misremembering, but it seems to me the whole history of the science of Solaristics could be taken as a sort of satirical look at how academic fie..."
I’m inclined to agree, there was a hint of irony in those summaries and also in the depictions of scientific debates are disseminated into wider culture.

I read this book not too long ago and here is what I thought of it.

I'm going to be contrarian because I did not enjoy this book. I know all too well how important it is considered as one of the great works of science fiction. Nevertheless I found it mind-numbingly boring.

The premise of the book is certainly interesting - namely an alien being that is an entire ocean. But Lem's long-winded descriptions of all the different types of formations that are found on the ocean, or his in-depth dissertation on all the scientific literature on the study of said ocean was not interesting at all. There's hardly any actual action to hold ones interest. All the characters in the book are extremely strange in the way they behave. I couldn't relate to any of them. The book presents many questions but provides little to no answers, making it's reading a largely unsatisfactory experience.

You will enjoy this book if you are interested in pseudo-intellectual pondering on what constitutes intelligence.

The only other thing which I found mildly interesting was the incongruity of the technology being used in the book. The futuristic, spacefaring humans are still using books and libraries and tape recorders. Of course this is a product of the era in which Lem wrote the book, so I don't hold that against him.

As much as they were able to study the strange activities scientifically, detailed in every way possible, there were no answers. That is the point.

The psychology of Solaris was always the most fascinating thing about it, beyond the dated tech, beyond the simplistic notions of space research, etc. And even the extensive descriptions about the mimoids and various of the planet's creations only mask the real question: What is the mind of Solaris doing?

But that mysterious question takes a back seat to the existential crises caused by the humanoid creations on board the station. Cynda hits the nail on the head when she asks, if you were on that station, what (who) would be created? And why? It's obviously not enough to create a person from someone's past; the men seemed outright traumatized by their visitors. Think about it: Who would be conjured out of your past, forcing some hidden and painful memories to the surface and exposing them to others, that would traumatize you? And then it begs the original question: Is there a reason Solaris is doing that to you?

That's why Solaris has always been one of the singular most fascinating books, more personally thought-provoking and unsettling than any other in my experience.

Steven wrote: "The psychology of Solaris was always the most fascinating thing about it, beyond the dated tech, beyond the simplistic notions of space research, etc. And even the extensive descriptio..."

The men were utterly devastated, unable to work, crippling the station. Maybe it was an attack, or maybe it was just an entity exploring the mentality of mankind, or a little of both?

Been wanting to read this book for awhile. My copy was the translation Lem was not a fan of, unfortunately. The ideas in this book are so big it's kind of amazing this book is only 204 pages.

There are so many unanswered questions in this book which is the point, i know, but i still want the answers so badly.

The genius of this book is that it shows that, however unknowable a creature like this ocean is to us humans, we are just as unknowable ourselves. Can we ever truly know ourselves? Lem seems to suggest we can't. Which is kind of terrifying.

I have no idea who the ocean would make visit me. Rheya, with her backstory, is an obvious choice somewhat for Kris. But for Snow and the others without, presumably, such a tragedy in their lives, who appeared to them?

So many thoughts and ideas in this book. This is the first book I've read by Lem and it definitely won't be the last. I'd be interested if anyone knows of any essays about Solaris that explore the themes and the book further. I still am thinking through this book and would love to read other's thoughts.