Both the original Polish version of the novel (published in 1961) and its English translation are titled Solaris.Jean-Michel Jasiensko published his French translation in 1964 and that version was the basis of Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox's English translation in 1970 (published by Walker & Co., and republished many times since). citation needed. The first ever direct translation into English of the Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem's most famous novel, Solaris, has just been published, removing a raft of unnecessary changes.
Solaris is a 1961 philosophical science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. Its central theme is the complete failure of human beings to understand an extraterrestrial intelligence.
Overview[edit]
A team of human scientists is probing and examining the oceanic surface of the planet Solaris from a hovering research station. Solaris manifests an ability to cast their secret, guilty concerns into a material form for each scientist to personally confront. All human efforts to make sense of Solaris' activities ultimately prove futile. As Lem wrote, 'The peculiarity of those phenomena seems to suggest that we observe a kind of rational activity, but the meaning of this seemingly rational activity of the Solarian Ocean is beyond the reach of human beings'.[2] He also wrote that he deliberately chose the ocean as a sentient alien to avoid any personification and the pitfalls of anthropomorphism in depicting first contact.[3]
The novel was first published in Warsaw in 1961. The 1970 Polish-to-French-to-English translation of Solaris is the best-known of Lem's English-translated works.[4] It has been adapted for the screen in 1968, 1972, and 2002.
Plot summary[edit]
Solaris chronicles the ultimate futility of attempted communications with the extraterrestrial life inhabiting a distant alien planet named Solaris. The planet is almost completely covered with an ocean of gel that is revealed to be a single, planet-encompassing entity. Terran scientists conjecture it is a living and a sentient being, and attempt to communicate with it.
Kris Kelvin, a psychologist, arrives aboard Solaris Station, a scientific research station hovering near the oceanic surface of Solaris. The scientists there have studied the planet and its ocean for many decades, mostly in vain. A scientific discipline known as Solaristics has degenerated over the years to simply observing, recording and categorizing the complex phenomena that occur upon the surface of the ocean. Thus far, the scientists have only compiled an elaborate nomenclature of the phenomena, and do not yet understand what such activities really mean. Shortly before Kelvin's arrival, the crew exposed the ocean to a more aggressive and unauthorized experimentation with a high-energy X-ray bombardment. Their experimentation gives unexpected results and becomes psychologically traumatic for them as individually flawed humans.
The ocean's response to this intrusion exposes the deeper, hidden aspects of the personalities of the human scientists, while revealing nothing of the ocean’s nature itself. It does this by materializing physical simulacra, including human ones; Kelvin confronts memories of his dead lover and guilt about her suicide. The 'guests' of the other researchers are only alluded to.
Characters[edit]
Criticism and interpretations[edit]
In an interview, Lem said that the novel 'has always been a juicy prey for critics', with interpretations ranging from that of Freudism to anticommunism, the latter stating that the Ocean represents the USSR and the people on the space station represent the Soviet satellites. He also commented on the absurdity of the book cover blurb for the 1976 edition, which said the novel 'expressed the humanistic beliefs of the author about high moral qualities of the human'.[5] Lem noted that the critic who promulgated the Freudian idea actually blundered by basing his psychoanalysis on dialogue from the English translation, whereas his diagnosis would fail on the idioms in the original Polish text.[6]
English translation[edit]Solaris Novel Pdf File
Various translations of Solaris, including the English one.
Both the original Polish version of the novel (published in 1961) and its English translation are titled Solaris. Jean-Michel Jasiensko published his French translation in 1964 and that version was the basis of Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox's English translation in 1970[7] (published by Walker & Co., and republished many times since).[citation needed]
Lem, who read English fluently, repeatedly voiced his disappointment with the Kilmartin–Cox version, and it has generally been considered second-rate.[citation needed] In 2011 Bill Johnston completed an English translation. Lem’s wife and son reviewed this version more favorably: “We are very content with Professor Johnston's work, that seems to have captured the spirit of the original.”[8] It was released as an audio book and later in an Amazon Kindle edition (2014, ISBN978-83-63471-41-5). Legal issues have prevented this translation from appearing in print.[9]
Reprints[edit]
Solaris Novel SummaryAdaptations[edit]Audio[edit]
Theatre[edit]
Opera[edit]
Cinema[edit]
Solaris has been filmed three times:
Lem himself observed that none of the film versions depict much of the extraordinary physical and psychological 'alienness' of the Solaris ocean. Responding to film reviews of Soderbergh's version, Lem, noting that he did not see the film, wrote:
Cultural allusions and works based on Solaris[edit]
See also[edit]Solaris Book Pdf Download
Solaris BookReferences[edit]
External links[edit]
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Solaris Novel Pdf Converter
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