Solaris (novel)

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Part of the numerous editions of the book (from below): Polish, Russian, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Finnish, Czech.

Solaris is a science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem from 1961. It is considered a masterpiece of the genre , has been filmed three times and often adapted for the stage .

plot

Brief summary

The planet Solaris is almost completely covered by a kind of ocean , which constantly produces bizarre and multicolored formations on its surface. Evidence suggests that the ocean is an intelligent being, but even after around a hundred years of intensive research, mankind has hardly come any closer to understanding it. In this situation, the psychologist Kris Kelvin meets the Solaris Research Station and finds a mentally unstable team, also one of the three researchers has recently suicide committed. Apparently other, strangers are also present on the ward. After initial confusion, Kelvin discovers that the ocean has begun to use the researchers' memory traces to construct apparently living, deceptively real copies of people and to make them appear on the station. In doing so, he apparently selects memories that are associated with deep feelings of guilt. Kelvin soon finds himself facing his girlfriend Harey, who died many years ago, and feels complicit in her suicide. She soon realizes that she is not the original Harey and begins, against Kelvin's will, to work with the other two researchers on a method to make the replicas disappear, which ultimately succeeds.

Detailed description

In search of extraterrestrial life , humanity has so far only come across a strange planet that seems to obey its own physical laws. The international space explorers set up a research station and begin to explore the planet called “Solaris”, especially its peculiar “ocean”, which is apparently a being that almost completely covers the planet. Mankind became aware of this "being" because it is apparently able to stabilize the planet's orbit in the binary star system .

At the time of the actual level of action, “Solaris research” has been going on for over 100 years and has long past its peak. Whole libraries were filled with books on measurements and theories about the ocean, which independently forms bizarre multicolored formations on its surface - without humanity even remotely understanding the essence of this phenomenon or even being able to come into contact with it.

The plot of the book begins with the arrival of the veteran psychologist Kris Kelvin on Solaris. He was sent from Earth to reinforce the research station there. Kelvin quickly discovers that Gibarian, the only one of the three researchers sent to Solaris who was personally known to him, committed suicide on the day of his arrival. Most of the technical devices on the ward are switched off, and the two remaining researchers show strange behavior. The cyberneticist Snaut is friendly, but he seems nervously shattered, in contrast to Sartorius, who appears unfriendly but determined and spiritually fully present.

There also seem to be other people on board. The other two researchers reject his questions for an explanation. Kelvin should be careful and make his own experiences. Kelvin hears voices from the laboratories of his two colleagues and soon meets a barefoot, obese, dark-skinned woman in one of the corridors who is shuffling past him half-naked. Nothing on the ward makes sense to him. He thinks himself insane and tries to prove that his mind is working by making calculations and comparing them with the results of the computer. But the suspicion creeps into him that he would not recognize a deviation, that the test would have no quality of information if he were really crazy.

After a short sleep, Kelvin suddenly finds himself facing his girlfriend Harey, who died ten years ago, with whom he can apparently talk and interact in a completely normal way. Once he freed himself from the difficult-to-bear presence of the woman by locking her in a space capsule and putting her into orbit of the planet, but after one night she returned - although the space capsule remained in place in space. It therefore seems possible to him that what appeared is a kind of copy that has now been made again.

After initial emotional confusion, Kelvin finds out what his two research colleagues already know: the woman is a very realistic, three-dimensional image that was put together from his experiences and feelings and was obviously artificially created from the ocean on Solaris. Everyone who lives on the ward has his own “guest” with whom he has to live: this explains the depressed mood and the nervous situation of his colleagues.

Kelvin quickly finds out that each of the other two has found their own technique for dealing with their "guests". The exact methods are not described, however; In one scene it is only indicated that Snaut has undertaken a very similar "pushing action" with the help of a space capsule: when Kelvin treats the burns that he sustained when the capsule was started with ointment, Snaut comes along and makes some mocking remarks, the Kelvin show that the older brand marks that Snaut wears on his own face come from a similar experience. There are also signs that Sartorius is now and then fighting with his guest (apparently a child) to keep him in check. In contrast to Kelvin, Snaut and Sartorius attach great importance to keeping their respective guests secret from their colleagues until the end.

During his research into the strange occurrences, Kelvin stumbled upon the notes of the pilot Berton in the scientific library of the station, who was involved in the search party for the physicist Fechner , who disappeared on a reconnaissance flight . While searching, Berton experienced things that he almost lacked the ability to describe. After being heard about it before a committee of experts, he was declared mentally disturbed. Only one neurologist recognized connections between the disappearance of the researcher Fechner in the solar ocean and the visions of the pilot Berton. This is a key scene in the novel.

Harey took his own life on earth , for which Kelvin feels responsible, because he did not react understandingly, but dismissively, to threats. Your image, which appears on the Solaris station, vaguely remembers these events, but cannot explain how it came to be on the station. She looks confused. Kelvin and the woman try to fool each other into normality. Only rarely and slowly do they begin conversations about the absurd situation in which they find themselves.

But Kelvin's “guest” is capable of self-knowledge . So she thinks and acts like a real person. While Kelvin searches the station library for information about what is going on on Solaris, she too begins to understand that she is not an original, but a being formed from Kelvin's memories. This realization depresses her and she tries to kill herself by drinking liquid oxygen . The attempt fails: it is designed in such a way that all of your wounds and self-inflicted injuries heal within seconds. Kelvin and the woman live side by side without really dealing with the situation: instead, they plan to leave the station together and start a new life on earth. However, it is clear to both of them that this dream will never come true.

Kelvin soon realizes that the beings that the ocean has created are artificially built up from neutrino collections, a form of exotic matter that resembles real matter down to the atomic level . The other two researchers, Snaut and Sartorius, therefore soon develop a plan for eliminating the “guests” created by the ocean. With the help of a physical reaction, the two hope to be able to destroy the structure of the "guests". When Kelvin finds out, he tries to sabotage the plan . At first he succeeds too. Instead, the three researchers are carrying out other experiments: for example, Kelvin's brain waves are sent into the ocean on Solaris using hard X-rays - but initially with no discernible reaction.

One night the woman secretly meets with Snaut and asks him to carry out the experiment against Kelvin's will, which would destroy all “guests”. The following night she gave Kelvin a sleeping pill and helped Sartorius and Snaut with the experiment, which was successful. The next morning, Kelvin realizes that all of the “guests” have been destroyed and - due to the ocean's reaction to previous radiation experiments - will not return.

At the end of the book, Kelvin undertakes his first journey on solar "ground". He leaves the space station in a small helicopter and visits the ocean. He spends hours on its surf, watching it and trying to touch it. He was very impressed by this experience.

Interpretation and reviews

Lem's own attitude towards the interpretation of his book

Lem himself was often asked about interpretations and explanations of his novel. He refused his own profound explanations and once wrote in a statement on his website:

“I have a hard time adding a comment to this book. I think I managed to say what I wanted to express. "

In the same text he described the spontaneity of his approach to writing the book based on the beginning. When he led the newcomer Kelvin into the Solaris station and let him meet the frightened and drunk Snaut, as an author he did not yet know what so frightened Snaut. He had no idea why Snaut was afraid of an ordinary stranger. But he would have "found out soon" because he continued to write.

Lem's stance on the book's criticism

In line with his attitude described above, Lem expressed himself rather negatively or sometimes ironically about texts by critics who had tried to interpret the book. The novel was "a hit for critics" and he studied many of these essays intensively, but "hardly understood any of them". For this he cited as a negative example a US Anglisten who had made a "very bad mistake": Led by the linguist interpretation based on the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud was purely made on the basis of certain phrases in the English translation of the novel - According to Lem, however, the author did not know that the same text passages in the original Polish text did not allow the diagnoses made.

additional

  • Solaris has been translated into 31 languages.
  • The publication of Solaris in the GDR was rejected in 1962 as part of the printing approval process by the publishing house and book trade headquarters . The reason was that all readings of the novel resulted in "pessimism and negation". A later rejection pointed to a "shaky" logic. A GDR edition did not appear until 1983.

expenditure

Polish

  • Stanisław Lem: Solaris . Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej (MON), Warsaw 1961 (first edition).

German

Adaptations

literature

  • Jacek Rzeszotnik: Not seeing, not hearing, not speaking - not understanding. The epistemological impotence of man according to Stanisław Lem. In: Walter Delabar, Frauke Schlieckau (Ed.): Bluescreen. Visions, dreams, nightmares and reflections of the fantastic and utopian. Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-89528-769-5 , pp. 145-168.
  • Franz Rottensteiner : "Solaris". A novel and its film adaptations. In: Franz Rottensteiner: In the laboratory of visions. Notes on the fantastic literature. 19 essays and lectures from 2000–2012. Verlag Dieter van Reeken, Lüneburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-940679-72-7 , pp. 174-188.
  • Manfred Geier : Stanisław Lem's Fantastic Ocean. A contribution to the semantic interpretation of the science fiction novel "Solaris". In: Werner Berthel (Ed.): About Stanisław Lem. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-518-37086-3 , pp. 96-163.

Web links

Commons : Solaris (Roman)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual references and comments

  1. ↑ The planetary orbits of hypothetical planets in multi-solar systems were considered unstable until 2012. Jerome Orosz et al .: Kepler-47: A Transiting Circumbinary Multiplanet System . In: Science . tape 337 , 2012, p. 1511–1514 , doi : 10.1126 / science.1228380 , arxiv : 1208.5489 .
  2. ↑ a b Stanislaw Lem: Commentary on Solaris. solaris.lem.pl, accessed on December 21, 2020
  3. ↑ Official website of Stanisław Lem ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 25, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / english.lem.pl
  4. ^ Simone Barck, Siegried Lokatis: Zensurspiele. Secret literary stories from the GDR. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-89812-539-0 , p. 210.
  5. ^ Review by Philipp Loehle in the taz
  6. ↑ Review by Tobias Schwartz in the Tagesspiegel
  7. ↑ Description of the Burgtheater's work, cast, press reviews ( Memento of the original from May 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.burgtheater.at
  8. ↑ Description of the works of the Schauspielhaus, cast, press reviews ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.schauspielhaus.ch
  9. ↑ SOLARIS. (No longer available online.) In: www.stadttheater-giessen.de. Archived from the original on April 22, 2016 ; Retrieved April 22, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadttheater-giessen.de