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lillilahBook Commentary: Solaris by Stanisław Lem
Publisher: MON, 1961-12-06
Number of Pages: 204
Summary: A scientist goes to an alien planet with a probably-sentient gel-like ocean. The scientists who are already there have just conducted a very invasive experiment. When the new scientist arrives, the characters seem to be losing their minds, and one has committed suicide. It turns out that the ocean has sent "visitors" created from the scientists' thoughts. No one is sure why. There is a lot of drama over the visitors. Ultimately, no one really understands the ocean and no progress is made.
Thoughts: If you look at this book as being about contact with extraterrestrial life, then it is pretty good. The setting is well developed, and Lem's point about alien life being unknowable is a good one. If you look at this book as being about the characters and their relationships, then it seems less good. As is often the case with old SF, I found the characters to be overly dramatic. I do understand that very repressed, conservative men may well have only two settings: pedantic jerk and irrationally angry jerk. However, I find it very hard to want to read about these characters. Watching the main character flail around in a pseudo relationship was painful. On the other hand, it is completely believable that his wife killed herself.
Quotes: The ending is pretty great. "I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past."
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
