Solaris
Ratings351
Average rating3.8
read it in 4 hours and will not try to review yet (it's 1am) but this book is very very very good and you should probably read it
My soul is so full of this book, it resonates with my desires and my regrets and, perhaps most importantly, my futile need for contact. My Solaris.
Solaris – 4.5 Stars:
Reading this, I immediately noticed a lot of similarities to Sphere by Michael Crichton—and I’m clearly not the first to draw that comparison. The big difference is that Solaris is a vastly superior book on every level.
Lem masterfully blends plot, science, introspection, and internal monologue, resulting in a truly artistic take on science fiction. The book meanders in a few sections, which occasionally distracted me—hence the 4.5 instead of a full 5 stars, though that might be unfair.
On the “Definitive Edition”: I can’t read Polish and haven’t read earlier translations, but I found Bill Johnston’s prose exquisite—clear and easy to read. And Alessandro Juliani’s audiobook narration is among the best I’ve ever heard.
El libro me dejó sentado; describe el esfuerzo humano de entender lo no-humano y toda la mano de preguntas que surgen de ahí. Nunca entenderemos completamente qué monda pasa con Solaris, y creo que esa es la idea.
no es posible conocer nada y aún así nunca nunca nunca dejamos de intentarlo, es una tragedia o es la esperanza?? (estoy un poco rota m ha gustado un montón)
7.5
The aliens we often see in scifi are, to some degree, not really alien. they are comprehendable. they have characteristics we can understand. behaviours we can see.
What about when humanity faces something truly alien? a life without one form? a sentient, unpredictable, uncomprehendable, confusing ocean covering an entire planet?
The book delves into how the crew of the solaris, as well as a technologically advanced humanity tackle coming face to face with this ocean, trying to establish contact. The unbreached barrier of contact with this ocean has been a major obstacle in humanitys pride and space-conquest, and the main objective of the solaris. The book explores this in an extremely creative and interesting way. Trying to piece together the puzzles of the strange happenings on the solaris together with the main character is extremely fun and sometimes quite scary.
Was not particularly a fan of many of the writing aspects. an over-abundant use of unnecessarily confusing words that are literally just “scientific” synonyms of words we use everyday had me whipping up google every page (at least). There are also some chapters of pure scientific jargon and infodumping which is extremely heavy and confusing.
Overall a worthwhile experience!
Now, that was interesting.
It's a fascinating combination of what happens inside the MC, and the science of Solaris.
It's quite heavy of science, so if you don't like scientific theories of things that don't exist - or that we don't yet know exist - then you won't like this book.
I was a little bothered by the mindset of the characters that doesn't quite match mine. On the other hand, isn't that one reason why we read? :-D
Now I'm going to watch the two movies made of this book. I can think the movie makers had their own ideas about this.
I saw the Tarkovsky movie many years ago but his movies are so slow and dreamlike it was difficult getting into the story. I chased up the book but the English translation had come from the French translation and everybody bagged it out. This direct to English translation by Bill Johnston came out in 2011 and this was the one i read. Now I've got to go back to the movie, I'm sure it will make more sense.
It's a book that deals with mankind's inability to handle failure, and with no hero in sight.
I didn't like it yeah some parts were not that bad but altogether it wasn't as good to me
it explained a lot of stuff that I didn't want to know and yeah some sci fi lovers may like it but to me it was meh
I am dumbfounded that this was published in 1961. I would've been impressed had you told me it was 1981. With that said, this is one of those books where I enjoy the discussion, analysis, and art more than the book itself. Such a great concept. I would love for others to continue this; there's so much more to do here. More, please.
Forgot to write a review for this.
I don't know what I just read...... This was so confusing! And I like confusing sci-fi. The research discussions between the scientists were my favourite part. Not so favourite parts were the scary things the visitors did
Le reconozco lo bien que ha envejecido, ya que la tecnología futurista que describe no es ridícula y obsoleta.
Lo que no me gustó es que no se siente realmente como una novela de ciencia ficción, sino como un drama sicológico un poco rebuscado.
Acel moment cand citesti mai mult Solaris decat Caragiale inainte de bac =((
Enjoyed the ideas. Lingered on fictional scientific history a bit too much. Show don't tell?
First off I need to say I read the edition, while most common, is an English translation of the French translation that the author himself considered “poor” from the original Polish it was written in. The fact this exists is cuckoo and I'm sad I didn't know better to look for the 2011 Bill Johnston Polish to English translation.
I'm sure I've gotten the gist of it anyways. Lem hated traditional science fiction dismissing it as superficial. It's a similar complaint my wife has of Star Trek, dismissing it as adults dressed in pyjamas pretending they're in space. Hurtful.
Lem takes our anthropomorphized galactic view of bipedal creatures with eyes and mouth at recognizable positions where our only impediment to communication is learning the language and throws that out the window. Instead we get a sentient ocean with the power of “seeing into the deepest recesses of human minds and then bringing their dreams to life.” Communication in the form of near perfect human replicas pulled from the minds of the scientists sent to observe the planet. It's a baby God playing at creation, stumbling toward understanding. The ocean is poking at these planetary interlopers with tools that are in sharp contrast to the scientists resorting to blunt instruments, bombarding the ocean with x-rays modulated by human brain waves. We're cavemen in the face of this new lifeform and our century of human research is confined to leather bound volumes that speak more of superstition and creative interpretations than real scientific progress and understanding.
This massive disparity creates a pervasive sense of potential menace and uncertainty that begins to fray at the scientist's minds. They know enough to be a danger to themselves, which feels ever relevant.
So yeah, I grok the ideas explored here, but found the reading experience a bit plodding and felt like I could have gotten the same gist with a well sharpened short story.
Un must. Solaris illustra l'essenza del dibattito e della ricerca scientifica, allo stesso tempo è un thriller psicologico che alterna momenti di tensione, capitoli enciclopedici e altri più introspettivi, dove si arriva a mettere in dubbio la sanità mentale dei protagonisti. Una grande metafora dei nostri limiti e delle nostre fragilità, in un contesto realistico, seppur pseudoscientifico e figlio del suo tempo.
L'autore sa trasmettere il fascino dell'ignoto e rende partecipi nella decifrazione del mistero di Solaris, è tutto ciò che qualsiasi appassionato dei misteri dello spazio può desiderare. A differenza di altri libri che ho letto, trovo che questo sia stato scritto decisamente bene, alcuni capitoli oltre ad essere molto potenti emotivamente, sono anche molto evocativi ed immaginifici.
Tuttavia alcuni capitoli di natura enciclopedica risultano un po' pesantini, considerando che tra qualche nozione veramente interessante e utile per la trama riguardo al mondo di Solaris, c'è un mare di prolissità fine a sè stesso. Questi illustrano bene a volte il mondo della “comunità scientifica Solariana”, e la storia delle ricerche, però son tante (troppe) informazioni che ho trovato poco interessanti.
I had been familiar with the movie Solaris for years and thought it was reasonably interesting. Then one day I had to visit Lviv in Ukraine for work (the hometown of the author, but at the time it belonged to Poland) and decided to give the book a try. Man, absolutely incredible. He describes an encounter with an alien culture the exact way I always thought it should be - incomprehensible.
But while he does it majestically well, this is not even my favourite part of the book. What is really enticing (and just too close to home) is the fact that no “specialist” could come to an agreement whether the “alien” was even conscious or not. Again, exactly how I always suspected it would be.
A must read to any science fiction fan.
La idea de Solaris, un planeta viviente, un organismo líquido de material incomprensible que puede alterar la ruta de traslación de su sistema solar con dos soles y copiar cualquier cosa que entre en sus misteriosas profundidades, me pareció genial. ¿Qué haría la humanidad ante algo que parece tener tanto provecho pero que no tiene ni un indicio de poder aprovecharse? Tal vez se escribirán libros por décadas de teorías sin probar, algunos dirían que el planeta tiene mente propia, que ejerce su identidad en el universo. Otros dirían que sus procesos son orgánicos, como una planta cósmica que sólo se puede apreciar. ¿Y si nos llevara siglos una tarea vacía, y si ese esfuerzo económico, intelectual, no diera frutos o indicios? Quizá el humano es una hormiga para el elefante que es Solaris. No nos nota. Es un vacío infinito e inabarcable que no puede ser explicado. Es un sinsentido más. ¿Qué dice de nosotros, sin decir nada, un lejano planeta que guarda silencio?
An absolutely incredible look into the human mind and the attempt to grasp things beyond human understanding.
This is the first book I've read in one sitting since 2018. It's that compelling.
Solaris (2002) is one of my all-time favorite films, and so I was excited to dive into this book more than half my life later, hoping to understand once and for all what the hell was going on. Lem is on record saying the 2002 film adaptation is terrible and completely misses the point of the book, but I'm going to back Soderbergh on this one. The book is reminiscent of Murakami in that lots of weird things happen and then nothing is explained and the whole book might as well have not happened. The film understands character arcs and human interest, set among a fantastical environment required for exploring its themes. The setting is a vessel for the story.
But the book, it's clear that the the book is a vessel for the setting. Lem has nothing to /say/ here. He manages to describe a completely alien encounter, but... why? What's it all for? We never learn who the main character is, or why he's come to this strange station. The book doesn't deign to tell us why he is so quick to believe his suddenly re-appearant dead girlfriend /is actually who she says she is./ What the fuck? After like two hours of unease, he settles into the idea, cuddling her at night and talking about bringing her back to Earth. And this guy is supposed to be some sort of world-class scientist? OK sure.
If you're looking for a book with great ideas /that completely fails to execute on them,/ and instead are OK with 150 pages of boring technobabble and a make-believe history of science, then this might just be the book for you.
The whole idea of the book was really interesting, but I just couldn't concentrate. Too many pages with descriptions and a lot of techinal stuff (too many random words, in my opinion). Maybe it's too smart for me, who knows
Finished it and afterwards gave a try to Tarkovsky's adaptation just out of curiosity. My first book which was totally outshined by movie! However movie's a different beast in some sense; arguably more lyrical and focused.