Hoo boy, this one hurts. It was a few years ago. People kept telling me that Solaris by Stanislaw Lem was a real classic of science fiction.
So I picked up a copy, and read it. I didn't really like it much, but it was short and I wasn't really looking too closely. Back on the shelf it went.
Until recently. I picked it up again. I figured, "Hey, I've been reading a bunch and reviewing a bunch and maybe I'll like it more on a second read." I was wrong. Dead wrong.
The second time through, reading the book closely, I'm even less impressed than I was the first time. Honestly, I think this book is genuinely bad, both as science fiction and as literature in general. I end up with the distinct feeling that people like it because they're told to like it, or maybe some of them like it because it's Soviet, and they've conditioned themselves to look with fondness on anything Soviet. In any case, whatever hypnotic suggestion is working on them didn't work on me.
From a general literature perspective, the characters are bland, act in counterintuitive ways, and do not develop. We get to know almost nothing about any characters other than the main. Exposition is delivered in huge, uninteresting chunks as the main character reads a book. In places where character conflicts could occur and could be interesting, either the conflict is completely avoided or a solution is formed when one of the conflicting characters is unavailable. The proximate setting, the space station they're on, is boring and relatively low in detail. The plot is incredibly simplistic and doesn't really satisfy me as a reader.
From a general science fiction perspective, practically no analysis is made of the strange circumstances the scientists find themselves in. The base "sci-fi" idea in the book, that some intelligences may be unable to communicate, is incredibly basic and most of the efforts to open a path for communication are covered only with the faintest detail. Furthermore, the idea itself is kind of faulty, considering that real humans speaking the same language talk past each other all the time. It is perfectly reasonable that some kind of otherworldly intelligence might need more than a few days to figure it out, yet that's all these "scientists" allow it.
Even worse, the book is completely lacking in any sense of wonder, an element that can elevate even mediocre science fiction, if handled properly.
Now, let's look at things a little more closely. The setting is a station hovering over the surface of a strange planet. This planet's surface is almost entirely covered by a strange material that is usually a fluid, but often solidifies in patches to create weird structures. Those structures, historically, have been seen as possible representations of things and places in the human observer's mind(s). Also odd, the fluid seems to move in such a way as to keep the planet's orbit around a binary star system stable.
Our hero, Kris Kelvin, arrives at the station right after a massive experiment that bombarded the planet with electromagnetic waves (X-rays, I believe). One of the other scientists, a friend of his, is dead. The other two are acting very strange. One has completely isolated himself and the other is talking lots of cryptic nonsense.
Kris then sees something odd: an Amazon woman roaming the halls. He doesn't really try to investigate, he hides. And then he finds that this Amazon is apparently connected to his dead friend somehow.
In the morning, Kris finds an entity in his room that resembles his dead lover. His reaction to this is bizarre and confusing. In talks with the scientist named Snow, he discovers that everyone on the station has gotten a companion formed from some more-or-less dormant thought in his brain, and the question of whether these companions are Solaris trying to communicate is raised.
What follows is a series of bizarre events that leads me to question whether any of the people on the station are actually scientists, or merely pretenders. We never learn much about the other scientists' companions. Hell, we learn very little about Kelvin's companion, and even worse, a major question about how to deal with her is completely sidestepped in the least satisfying way possible.
And that's the way of Solaris; everything is as unsatisfying as possible. I won't spoil any more of the plot. I was really expecting to appreciate it more on a second read, and if anything I was more angry and disappointed than after my first read.
You can pick up a copy here, if you want: https://a.co/d/8by795Y
In my next video and post, I compare Solaris to the far superior Roadside Picnic, so be ready for that.
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