/lit/ - Literature

Lem is a hack

It's been a long time since I read it but I remember thinking the characters felt uninteresting or 'empty', though the concepts were really fun; specifically, obviously, Solaris itself.

>>21474916
I haven't read anything else he wrote but Solaris seems pretty well-written, thought-provoking, and original. There's a lot to talk about and it seems like it'd reward multiple readings. What are we supposed to take away from the whole G-formation thing and Kelvin's attachment to Harey?

>>21474949
I get that, aside from Kelvin and eventually Harey it's difficult to understand why the characters act the way they do aside from in order to further the plot. We don't learn too much about Snaut or Sartorius

I like Lem

Thats the whole point of the book. They were embarassed about their innerselfves and their projections. The book symbolizes how humanity behaves. We all have something embarassing we want to hide, so we cant coexist in peace. We are try to conceal something

>>21475170
That's a part of it for sure; I think Lem was pretty insistent that the movie adaptations were never heavy enough on the limitations of man to understand what's around him. The imagery of that one speech about how mankind is only looking for a mirror sticks out in my mind, as does the dream after the station blasts Kelvin's consciousness into the ocean, where it seems Kelvin experiences the contact from the perspective of the ocean (or what he thinks is the perspective of the ocean?)

Am I the only one who felt really moved by the love story?

>>21475599
No, that's why the George Clooney movie focused exclusively on it

>>21474952
That’s a troll, Lem is one of the most brilliant and celebrated sci fi authors ever. That guy probably just got filtered because he wanted Star Wars

>>21475228

>from the perspective of the ocean

Funny idea actually ... to the ocean a human might appear like something similar to its symmetriads. Just a single fleeting thought.

>>21475754
Yeah, it's difficult to comprehend and maybe I'm just being retarded, but that might what Lem is getting at as far as the couple references to the ocean's failure to copy human machines (from hand tools to Harey's zipper, and who knows what happened to the robots at the station?)

>>21475781

Certainly is, and just as much guesswork as from the scientists examining the ocean (of whom some think the "forms" it produces are simply its thought processes). So how would that look to the ocean then, all those people and machines? Perhaps like some far away entity (another one like myself the ocean might assume) sending single thoughts, words, sentences ... at first the ocean replies by creating replica of the "thoughts" it receives, without getting much of an answer out of it, only more "thoughts" being sent. Then it figures out that certain types of these "thoughts" do actually contain more complex patterns hidden inside them ... so it tries to reply again, by answering with the strongest pattern inside each of these "thoughts". And creates the "guests". Yet the entity it assume behind the "thoughts" still gives no meaningful reply ...

I like the movie. No not that version, the good one.

I love this book and am working to get some copies printed and bound so I can distribute them to my friends.

I think the first half is fun as a mystery but I prefer the middle into the second half, where it really turns into a musing on the limits of scientific exploration. The descriptions of how humanity was unable to come to an understanding of the planet and eventually gave up is so bleak. Then there’s this seismic change with the visitors but all the protagonist can feel is horror.

>>21475932
They’re both good

>>21475932
The Clooney one or the Tarkovsky one is good?

>>21475754
I knew you were gonna be in this thread

>>21475932
>>21476102
They're both bad

>>21476154
>Tarkovsky

>>21476158
Now that someone as intellectual as retarded Mike Tyson has come out complimenting Mussolini I feel comfortable finally doing the same!

>>21476612
i'd pay a million dollars to see mike tyson beat deleuze or whoever your favorite is into sausage meat

>>21476622
my favorite is hitler

>>21474916
You're a hack

>>21476625
they would befriend immediately

>>21476299
all that but unironically AND it's a good thing

>>21475826
Interesting take.

I really enjoyed it. Nothing else Lem wrote deemed to grab my attention but this book I couldn't put down.

>>21475826
That brings up an interesting path of inquiry. But then are we potentially anthropomorphizing the ocean again in a manner we should not? The question is raised more than once whether the ocean can even have a concept of plurality, or of the existence of other conscious organisms. I think to Kelvin's working theory that he discusses with Snaut at the end of the novel, the emphasis and import he places in the fact that, unlike us, the ocean's actions cannot have a purpose beyond what the ocean itself creates (or at least could not until it "discovered" us).

What was sent in the original X-ray bombardment (not somebody's consciousness I assume), and why did it provoke the appearance of the g-formations? Why can't the g-formations be apart from their "hosts"? This might be evidence in favor of your theory, as it might be evidence of the recognition of distinct individual conscious entities outside of itself. But who knows? I think now to that dream I mentioned earlier, it's timing (after the consciousness bombardment), the notion that the two parties only discover themselves and not the other through the contact. But was that the important contact, the best that could be done? The first step? The g-formations stop afterwards.

I dunno, I'm rambling and probably overthinking it. Lem seemed to like to talk about the impossibility of communication. But what a great book. There's a ton to discuss. I'll have to re-read it soon while all my questions are still fresh.

>>21474949
That is literally all of sci-fi

>>21477518
Nuh uh

>>21476158

Ah geh moast eppa ... ;)

>>21476672

Never tried to think this from the ocean's perspective until it had been mentioned above.

>>21477193

>whether the ocean can even have a concept of plurality

Yes exactly. And here the question is also how much of a sense of "self" it even has (for whatever consciousness it might even have to begin with). Could have indeed imagined it a bit all too human there ... it could by all possibilities simpy be a very advanced and elaborate amoeba. Well, up until the g-formations, these did afaik appear just too elaborate of a "reply" to be the instincts of an amoeba. The first bX-ray bombardment must have somehow make it look "inside" the humans' minds. If going by the initial idea that it perceives humans as single "thoughts" that might have been like the ocean becoming aware these "thoughts" might be some kind of riddle, with the strongest memory it could pick out possibly being the answer ... and that answer it tried to send with the g-formations. Btw why they seem to be bound to their host ... hmm ... perhaps they still sustain their coherency somehow from their host, which might require a certain proximity.

>the notion that the two parties only discover themselves and not the other through the contact

Yeah, that is still a very good point! Discovering themselves ... if one as an "outsider" could participate in such a process (and in our case do so mutually) it might just be the only way of overcoming the communication barrier we have in our case here. That is actually quite a beautiful thing.

>I'll have to re-read it soon while all my questions are still fresh.

Same ... :)

>>21474913
All i can find is the old english translation on libgen (polish to french to english from the 70s). Link?

>>21477690

>https://ipfs.io/ipfs/bafk2bzacea3aew3cdaiqmdv4owla42yee2hyjyz36fmrg3n6so6m4moialu4q?filename=solaris-stanislaw-lem-2011--annas-archive--zlib-16859228.pdf

>>21477736
Amazing, thanks anon. I thought I had no choice but to listen to the audiobook for this one. Cheers.

>>21477777

Czeched and cheers too!

Bump

I LIKED the 70s translation

>>21480151
NO

>>21474913
It's been a long time since I read it but I remember thinking the characters felt uninteresting or 'empty', though the concepts were really fun; specifically, obviously, Solaris itself.