Week Thirteen Literary Speculation

Week Thirteen Literary Speculation

This week I read the novel Solaris written by Stanislaw Lem. This story put us right into the middle of a space exploration mission set on a distant planet. I really enjoyed the in depth back story and history of the exploration of the planet.

 This story is interesting because it asks questions about how humanity would react when interacting with intelligent alien life. And what if the life form was so alien to us that it surpassed our biological understanding of life itself? In the story Solaris seems not only to deify the scientists understanding of the universe, but also any attempts made to analyze it. The back-story of the exploration of the planet illustrates a brief history of the several hundred years of work on trying to understand the planet.

After reading Solaris I did some research on Stanislaw Lem, he is the most famous Polish writer around the world, and one of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time. Reading about his other works it seems that there are several common themes throughout his stories. His work often revolves around the limits of human understanding and intelligence, this theme is clear in Solaris as the characters struggle to understand the consciousness of the alien life form of the ocean.

Another recurring theme seems to be a sort of anti-heroism, or the idea that apparent heroism might not be what it appears. Unlike previous sci-fi works I have read I feel like this book deeply explores the psychology of the characters rather then just taking us on a space opera adventure trip. The characters experience contact with the planet in the form of their personal lives and inner most thoughts becoming realized on the space station. It is as if the ocean consciousness has the ability to realize the inner psychological issues of the characters.

Stanislaw Lem: "Behind every glorious facade, there is always hidden something ugly."