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Memoirs Found in a Bathtub 217

Posted by timothy from the ink-was-a-little-runny-that's-all dept.
Brooks Talley writes: "Stanislaw Lem's Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is vaguely reminiscent of Heller's Catch-22 and positively reminiscent of Kafka's The Castle. If you like dystopian works that expose the inherent absurdity of authoritarian bureaucracies, MFiaB is a book for you. I really can't recommend this alternately funny, sad, astonishing, silly, and disturbing book highly enough." Read on for the rest of Brooks' review.
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
author Stainislaw Lem
pages 200
publisher Harvest Books
rating 9
reviewer Brooks Talley
ISBN 0156585855
summary A dizzying voyage into the world of a paranoid bureaucracy

I have some history with Lem's work. Years back, I went on a serious Stanislaw Lem bender. I read and loved pretty much all of his stuff. So it came as a surprise to me to run across Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (hereafter MFiaB). It was published in 1971, so it was certainly out and available when I was reading Lem left and right; I must have just missed it somehow.

And in a way I'm happy that I left accidentally left my future self this treat. MFiaB is a fantastic piece of work. I won't give away any spoilers that happen after the first ten pages or so. The setup alone, though, is pretty representative of what you're in for if you pick up this book.

MFiaB is perhaps the most overtly political thing I've read from Lem, which is saying a lot: Lem specializes in parables and satire that expose the absurdity of modern life in general and politics in particular. MFiaB tells the first-person story of a man who lives in "the Building." The Building is an entirely self-contained society that the book explains was built when the United States and Russia both relocated their critical governmental functions to isolated bunkers after the appearance of a paper-eating bacteria destroyed civilization as we know it.

It seems that the Building is at war with the Anti-Building, and it's a fierce war between two incredible bureaucracies. Everyone is a potential spy, most people could be double agents, triple agents aren't uncommon, and the recent appearance of quadruple, quintuple, sextuple and even septuple agents has really increased the confusion and paranoia level. Of course, agents aren't just working for the Building or anti-Building -- the various departments and fiefdoms within the Building itself spy on each other and attempt to unmask each others' agents.

The story is told in the first-person by a cadet of some sort in the Building. His name is never mentioned in the book, a parallel to Kafka's The Castle where the protagonist is referred to only as "K." As with The Castle, our protagonist is sometimes very sympathetic and sometimes very frustrating; it's clear who we're following, but I was never quite clear what to think of the fellow.

In marked contrast to The Castle, though, our protagonist in MFiaB starts out by receiving a Mission. A Secret Mission, from the Commander in Chief himself. Or maybe it was the Chief Commander - or maybe someone else entirely. Problem is, his superiors won't tell him what the mission is, let alone the proper chain of command to clarify it. Through accidental subterfuge and persistence, he finally corners someone into providing his mission briefing, however some part of the officialdom steals it back before he can read more than the first somewhat disturbing page. (According to the one page he has time to read, phase one of his mission involves cornering his superiors and forcing them to provide the mission briefing.) However, it's possible that pursuing the ambiguity of the mission is his mission, so he's duty-bound to get on about it. Besides, he really doesn't know what else to do.

It goes on from there. A serious reflection of cold-war paranoia and partisanship, MFiaB is an exploration of how a closed, bureaucratic, paranoid society can become dependent on its own closed, bureaucratic, paranoid ways to the point where any attempt to introduce sanity is an act of treason.

While the book centers on the claustrophobic / claustrophilic society in the Building, it's not at all abstract and detached -- there are several fairly violent scenes, and at least one suicide. Not to mention numerous arrests, betrayals which might actually be assistance, and other more ambiguous but just as disturbing events. MFiaB really succeeds in bringing home the mental-health effects of constant vigilance and its inevitable descent into paranoia. Again like Catch-22 or The Castle, MFiaB succeeds as a comedy, a tragedy, a farce, and a cautionary tale. I found myself reading some sentences a couple of times and getting completely different feelings from them each time.

If you haven't read Lem before, this may or may not be a good place to start. MFiaB is dense, and dizzying. If you've got a penchant for traditional literature, MFiaB is probably an excellent introduction to Lem. The use of language, neologisms, and wordplay is amazing, the more so because the book is translated from Lem's native Polish.

If you're looking for a lighter and quicker read that is still representative of Lem at his best, I'd probably recommend the also-excellent Futurological Congress. For short story fans, Tales of Prix the Pilot is an good choice. If you're willing to put some energy into it, though, MFiaB is certainly well worth the investment of time and energy, and really puts all of Lem's formidable skills to use in service of a great story. Highly recommended.

You can purchase Memoirs Found in a Bathtub from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
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Memoirs Found in a Bathtub

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  • Uh... wha? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Raster Burn ( 213891 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:20AM (#3736245)
    Like I've always said, if it isn't a dystopian work that exposes the inherent absurdity of authoritarian bureaucracies, it isn't worth reading.
  • Finally, a decent slashdot book review.
  • Is this the same Stanislaw Lem that wrote Solaris, that Steven Soderburgh is about to/in the process of remaking?

    I must find out more about this Lem fellow. Does he have many other noteworthy pieces?

    • Re:Solaris (Score:4, Informative)

      by tbmaddux ( 145207 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:39AM (#3736371) Homepage Journal
      Is this the same Stanislaw Lem that wrote Solaris... ?

      Yes, it is the same author. "Solaris" is generally thought of as his best novel. I was always particularly fond of "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub;" it was one of the first I'd read, and I was pleased to see it reviewed here.

      Other notable Lem works (IMHO of course) are "Fiasco" (a novel) and "The Star Diaries" (series of short stories). Lem would also write other fascinating truly future-science works of fiction, such as reviews of books that don't exist (e.g. "One Human Minute").

      One note of caution is that many of his oldest works are coming out in recent translations, and they're not as good.

      Vitrifax [std.com] is a very good website dedicated to his work.

    • Yes, that's him.

      If you've never read Lem before, a real good place to start -- complete mindless fun -- is "Cyberiad". It's a series of fables set in a distant past/future concerning a society of robots... in particular, two inventors who constantly try to outdo each other.

      You will no doubt come across snippets that you have seen before in /. sigs.

      MFiaB, tho, is one of my all-time favorites. :-)
      • Cyberiad is also a favourite of mine. I still remember some bits and chuckle, after 30 or so years.
      • I must protest, Cyberiad is a quite sophisticated tale, not mindless fun at all. It's not like His Master's Voice, but it does deal with sophisticated allegories. And it is a work of poetry, even the translatied version keeps the amazing wordplay intact.

        I'm personally more fond of some of Lem's experiments with the writing format. One Human Minute is a review of nonexistent books, it's hilarious. Imaginary Magnitude is a book containing prefaces of nonexistent books. Of course, it has a prefix itself. I will never forget the first line of the preface, "I have often thought the art of writing prefaces deserved more attention."

        Anyway, the SF world to me divides into two poles, represented by Lem and Phil Dick. In fact there was a widely known dispute between Lem and Dick. Lem lashed out at Dick because he thought Dick was dragging SF ideals through the mud. He thought Dick was too lowbrow, too much drugs and puke and mental illness and dystopianism. A lot of writers came to Dick's defense and finally convinced Lem that he was more like Dick than he cared to admit. Someone once called Lem the most intelligent man that ever lived, and that's diametrically opposed to the speed-freak paranoid California PKD we all know and love. To me, they're just two different routes that brought about cyberpunk. Couldn't have done it if either Lem or PKD weren't there first.
        • It's kind of interesting that you mention Lem and Dick, their opposing viewpoints and their being on "opposite poles" as they're my two favorite SF writers. It may be something a lot like the radical right and the radical left moving so far to the extremes that they meet. A good case can be made for Lem being the most intelligent SF writer - but I wouldn't call Dick unintelligent by contrast. I would call him perhaps the most empathic SF writer - there's a deep sense of existential compassion in much of his work. It's true that he was a screwed up human being, but I don't know how he could have avoided being so, having seen the reality that he saw. And as much as I like Gibson and Sterling and Stephenson, I've yet to read anything from them that was as brilliant or compassionate as Lem and Dick. People who haven't read these two aren't really familiar with the best that SF has to offer. I just wish there were people to follow them, although William Vollman's mainstream work is similar, in a much more disturbing way ...
    • Check out his movie Kafka.

    • Re:The BOOKS (Score:2, Informative)

      by red_gnom ( 545555 )
      One of his best books is also "The Futurological Congress".

      There are many more:

      Stanislaw Lem [rpi.edu]

      The writing of Stanislaw Lem [std.com]
    • i didn't enjoy MFIB or the futurological congress, they seemed to go on interminably and i found them frustrating, but i have loved some of lem's other books. HIS MASTER'S VOICE is a good one, scientists pick up coded signals from space and start decoding them, uncovering fantastic new scientific principles, but, to the reader's chagrin, and typically of lem, we never find out throughout the whole book where the signals are coming from or who is sending them. another entertaining one is PEACE ON EARTH, about a guy with a split personality on the moon (Lem makes a connection between the Lunar Excursion Module and his name).
    • Cyberiad is one of his funniest books. It is the story (mainly) of two robot constructors (robots who construct all sorts of amazing things). It's rather like an Arabian Night for Robots. The translation, by Michael Kandel (despite the shared initials, no relation) is superb. When browsing Lem on the shelves, pay attention to the translator, if the translator is Kandel (who now writes his own SF) pay special attention. Unfortunately, the translation for Solaris (which was not made directly from the Polish original, but from a French or German translation) is deadly.

      MEK

  • My personal vector (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 )
    to Lem's work was thru reading Hofstadter & Dennett's Mind's I [2think.org]. Obviously SciFi worthy of leading edge philosophical musings.
  • the recent appearance of quadruple, quintuple, sextuple and even septuple agents has really increased the confusion and paranoia level

    I think this is excellent proof of the following statement...

    If you haven't read Lem before, this may or may not be a good place to start. MFiaB is dense, and dizzying.

    I'm not sure if I would pick up this book. I prefer my reading to be casual and entertaining if not intriguing. I wouldn't want to have to keep scrap paper /w me at all times just trying to keep track of which side the secret agents were really on!
    • I wouldn't want to have to keep scrap paper /w me at all times just trying to keep track of which side the secret agents were really on!

      piece of paper wouldn't help you at all; no figure in the book knows it's own side...


      seriously, i read about 20 books by lem (probably many more than published in the us?); he greatly shaped my sense for irony and positive sarcasm. his style is for me on one side connected with the strugazki brothers (sci-fi), on the other side there are duerrenmatt and kafka (paranoia, institutions, labyrinth).


      in general, the comments in this thread by people who have read some of his books are in line with some of my experiences.

      • Furthermore, there's really no point in trying to keep score. Think of Alice's Wonderland -- there's a steady tone of giddy whimsy underlying the whole affair. Nothing quite adds up add the end, nor is it meant to. It's a send-up of an espionage mystery but one which never gets solved.

        To my recollection, the best bit in the novel is Lem's parody of the canonical "spy seduced by spy babe" scene. It's a little cheesy but a great deal of fun.
    • Write it on a Mobius strip.

      In invisible ink! :D

  • From the amazon review....
    "It is as if Jorge Luis Borges, Kafka, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and Orwell got together to write a sci-fi novel..."

    Now, call me old fashioned, but I'm more of a RH/Pohl/Asimov/Smith fan.

    If Borges, Kafka, Vonnegut and Orwell got together to write a scifi novel, we'd have a surrealist oppressive society trying to decide how paranoid to be about it's own growing internal facism.


    And it would really, really suck.

    • If Borges, Kafka, Vonnegut and Orwell got together to write a scifi novel, we'd have a surrealist oppressive society trying to decide how paranoid to be about it's own growing internal facism.

      That's fairly close to what Lem's Memoirs is ...

      And it would really, really suck.

      Except that it DOESN'T suck.
    • > we'd have a surrealist oppressive society trying to
      > decide how paranoid to be about it's own growing
      > internal facism.

      Wow, just the the U.S. today! And yes, it sucks.

  • Isn't this the RPG Paranoia? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MagikSlinger ( 259969 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:29AM (#3736297) Homepage Journal
    I wonder if the RPG was inspired by this book?

  • Reminds me of a Phillip K Dick book... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shoppa ( 464619 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:29AM (#3736304)
    I went on a Lem reading kick myself 15 or so years ago.

    Around the same time I read a Phillip K Dick book whose title I cannot recall but whose premise sounds similar, with a couple mind-bending twists. In it the two forces are going forward and backwards in time, reading (and maybe changing) a history book about the war they're fighting. Anyone remember this?

    • so you claim there really are books out there other than "TechnologyX and how to implement it properly"?!? wow, i've gotta expand into other isles of the book store/library...
    • The book you are thinking of is Now wait for Last Year a review of which can be found here [philipkdick.com].

      A Scanner Darkly is my all time favorite PHD novel, I can't recommend it highly enough.

  • prefer non-fiction (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tcd004 ( 134130 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:31AM (#3736321) Homepage
    for uncovering the absurdity of bureauocracies and the marketplace. Try reading Liar's Poker, by Michael Lewis, or Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. You get the benefit of learning something about reality.

    Don't get me wrong, nothing brightens my day more than an Orwellian dystopia where people are reduced to robotic flesh and emotions have been run through an authoraritarian meat grinder--I just like my gloom and doom with a dose of reality.

    Funny, This inteview with Tom Cruise was found in a Bathtub too. [lostbrain.com]

    tcd004
    • Don't get me wrong, nothing brightens my day more than an Orwellian dystopia where people are reduced to robotic flesh and emotions have been run through an authoraritarian meat grinder

      I think that you misunderstand the nature of this book. While parts of it definately have a dystopian nature, that is just one of the many facets. This excellent novel is also a wonderful philosophical discourse that explained the central ideas behind Post-Modernism to me better than a stack of formal treatises (how Post-Modern is that!!). What's more, the protagonist himself does not go on a dystopian style quest against/with the structures of the Building as is characteristic of most Dystopian novels. As is typical of many Eastern European and Slavic novels, he seems to be unaware of many of the greatest absurdities in his life while dwelling (absurdly dwelling you might say) on others.

      I'm not arguing against non-fiction, or for fiction, or whatever; but this has got to be one of the greatest novels of all time. The contradiction that "Gloom and Doom" never enter into the story and are integral to it is just one of the many pleasures that this tomb holds.

      Imediatly after reading this novel (several years ago) I was surprised to notice that I was keeping all of my notes and hand-outs for the semester in a Yellow Folder! :-)

  • Lem at his best (Score:5, Informative)

    by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:34AM (#3736340)
    While nearly everything Lem writes is worthy, the one I keep going back to is The Cyberiad [forum2.org] (with obligatory Amazon pointer). [amazon.com]

    It is like an Odyssey (either Homer's or James Joyce's) for the cybernetic age.
  • Perhaps some would argue that this is not necessarily "News for Nerds," but it's certainly stuff that matters.

    When one thinks of the ways that the world has changed since World War II, how many of the changes that occurred came about through reasons of war and political machinery, it is staggering to realize that we really are in a "new world," where the new military-industrial complex [msu.edu] is cloaked by bureaucracy and the old, corrupt political machines are replaced by the new, corrupt rhetoricians and wordsmiths. If Politicians, Priests, and Poets are the only real leaders, then the paradigm that separates them has changed.

    Remembering Kafka's writings from college was really disturbing and revealing--nearly illuminating. Franz Kafka [levity.com] was one of the few brave souls of his period to declare through his writings that humankind had lost its rightful place in the world, and as a result, humans would become increasingly isolated, alienated, and cynical. I believe that the world is increasingly cynical and apathetic, and in many ways, our own private and public attitudes feed the modern conspiracy theorists and doomsayers. I don't think that the world is "All Doom and Gloom," but I shudder to think of being conquered by ideas rather than by guns. That's real bondage.

    • I shudder to think of being conquered by ideas rather than by guns.

      Or, in other words: `I finally have to admit that I'm not actually being opressed -- in fact as a citizen of the US I live in the most free, most democratic, and most prosperous society on earth. But if I think really hard, maybe I can come up with a weird theory in which the very lack of oppression I am experiencing is itself a form of oppression, `the real bondage', if you will.'

      I guess I'm not buying it.

      • You're perfectly right. I mean, it's not like the United States would ever hold one of her own citizens in captivity without formally charging said citizen with a crime or allowing said citizen to speak to a lawyer. And even were such a thing to happen the government would surely at least guarantee that said citizen would eventually get a trial by jury.

        Oh, wait . . .

        • Or rather, `it's not like those with an axe to grind would carefully ignore the facts and instead spread their own version of events'.

          Let's look at the facts of Mr. al-Muhajir's case, shall we? Mr. al-Muhajir was picked up on other charges, and has had a lawyer at every stage of the process. Even as we speak, he is contesting his transfer to military jurisdiction in a Manhattan courtroom. As with any judicial procedure, he has the right to contest the ruling that he is a combatant, and appeal as often as he may wish, to the Supreme Court if he deems it necessary.

          In his appeals, the main precedent which will be referenced is Ex Parte Quirin, an extremely similar case from 1943, in which the US Supreme Court upheld the precedent, stretching back to the earliest days of our republic, that persons entering the US to commit acts of war in the service of a foreign power are subject to military jurisdiction. In particular, the court ruled in Quirin that

          Citizenship in the United States of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him from the consequences of a belligerency which is unlawful because in violation of the law of war. Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, [317 U.S. 1, 38] guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war. Cf. Gates v. Goodloe, 101 U.S. 612, 615, 617 S., 618.
          and
          petitioners here, upon the conceded facts, were plainly within those boundaries, and were held in good faith for trial by military commission, charged with being enemies who, with the purpose of destroying war materials and utilities, entered or after entry remained in our territory without uniform-an offense against the law of war. We hold only that those particular acts constitute an offense against the law of war which the Constitution authorizes to be tried by military commission.

          So, if you wish to make an argument that the law should be changed from what it has been since the birth of our nation, go ahead -- but don't try to convince us that the law is being changed by this case.

      • Actually, that would be Switzerland, but the US, as a Republic, is an * improvement * on democracy, which, on the whole, does not result in a great deal of freedom.

        Athens was, at least for those with suffrage, a true democracy, hence the English word 'ostracize.'

        Such a thing is common under democracy, and forbiden under American Republicanism.

        KFG

        • Yes, you are correct. Ironically, a democratic republic, as opposed to a direct democracy is much more democratic -- which is to say that it better weighs the opinions of more of the population than direct voting would.

          On any sort of large scale, direct democracy is subject to domination by regional cliques, overrepresentation of those with the most free time, and so forth.

    • Perhaps some would argue that this is not necessarily "News for Nerds," but it's certainly stuff that matters.

      How's this for you? Lem is the guy that coined the term robot.

      • Lem is the guy that coined the term robot.

        Nope. The term "robot" was coined by the Czech writer Josef Capek, and popularized in his brother Karel's play, titled "Rossum's Universal Robots." It's derived from the Czech word robota, which means "drudgery" or "servitude."
  • Not Prix, altho it's a common mistake, I guess because so many pilots [barnesandnoble.com] are.

  • about Stanislaw Lem (Score:4, Informative)

    by grouchomarxist ( 127479 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:39AM (#3736369)
    Stanislaw Lem has a homepage here [cyberiad.info]. He's 80 years old, but he is still writing. During WW II he lived through the Soviet and German occupations. His bio is here [cyberiad.info].

  • Dystopian (Score:3, Informative)

    by zoombat ( 513570 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:39AM (#3736372)
    For all you other non-philologers out there:
    From Dictionary.com:

    Dystopian adj. Of or relating to an imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror.

    • neologism (Score:2, Interesting)

      by glitchvern ( 468940 )
      Neologism \Ne*ol"o*gism\, n. [Cf. F. n['e]ologisme.]
      1. The introduction of new words, or the use of old words in a new sense.
      --Mrs. Browning.
      [1913 Webster]

      2. A new word, phrase, or expression.
      [1913 Webster]

      3. A new doctrine; specifically, rationalism.
      [1913 Webster]

      That's my new word for the day.
    • Ahh... So in geek terms, which I liken to my former job, it's when they take away the coffee maker change your permissions and cutoff your cell phone all before you get to work on a Monday morning. Then after you have gotten to work and you make it to the head/open source library you notice brown stains all over the rim cause your boss, who's a closet alcoholic, was in just before you leaving you to clean behind him so you can relieve yourself all while your idiot sys-admin is yelling at you because now he has screwed up the permissions and wants you to fix it. Right......right.... dystopian....
  • First off - Lem is one of the greatest science-fiction authors in our time. I often refer to his works as "serious science-fiction", the reason being that most of his novels come absolutely realistic. (I am not talking about Pirx here ... :-)

    MFiaB however was the first of Lem's books I didn't finish - and I have read nearly all of them. The unlogical behavior of the characters sometimes made me scream - "How could ANYONE be so STUUPID?!?"

    But anyways - if your looking for decent science-fiction (far away from Star Trek and sorts that is) - read Lem. And Lem. And Lem.

    "Fiasko" might be a little hard at first, but boy, just too incredible ...
  • Let's not forget Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy. Kafa was the cartographer of the post industrial, paranoid, alienated, disenfranchised; and, Stanislaw Lem and Gold are latecomers, fun to read but just picking up the thread where the master left off. Strange Kafka wanted all his works burnt because he felt them deficient.
  • STANISLAW as in STAN not STAIN
  • For those who are interested in the author, Vitrifax [std.com] is a very good website dedicated to Lem.

  • Lem style (Score:2, Interesting)

    by plexxer ( 214589 )
    I find Lem's writings to shine when he focuses on human interactions within closed enviroments (Hospitial of the Transfiguration, Solaris). Don't get me wrong, I like the Tales of Pirx the Pirate, but then not quite as engrossing as stories of people 'trapped'.
    • like the Tales of Pirx the Pirate

      That's "Pirx the Pilot".

      Actually have you read them all? There are several that set up the same situation - a small group of people isolated from the world, forced to deal with an unusual situation.

      The Pirx stories start lighweight, but eventually get much deeper. In fact the novel "Fiasco" is sort of the last Pirx story.

  • Lem (Score:1)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    Hey, this sounds great, I must have missed that one as well. Stanislaw Lem fans might be interested to note that they're coming out with a movie [imdb.com] based on Solaris, another book of his. It's being directed by the guy who did Erin Brockavitch though, so don't get too excited.

    • i cannot believe this (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Edmund Blackadder ( 559735 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @11:55AM (#3736485)
      There already is a movie based on solaris it is russian, by tcharkovsky(sp?) and i have always menat to see it when i have 4 hours free.

      anyway it is quite amazing sodenbourgh (sp?) decided to do a remake on that, it doesnt look like hollywood type novel.

      But of course one thing typical of hollywood is to remake foreign classics.

      anyway i hope its good and not as melodramatic as erin brochovitch.
      • I'm curious about the Soderbergh Solaris movie myself.

        However, I'm hopeful. Even though Brockovitch was hopelessly self-righteous and melodramatic, Soderbergh's other work is pretty good, especially for a mainstream hollywood director.

        And, don't forget that Soderbergh's second movie (after Sex, Lies, and Videotape) was Kafka, a loose adaptation of the Castle, the book that MFiaB is an (even looser) adaptation of.

        So Soderbergh's clearly got good taste in reading material, and he's got enough commercial success that hopefully the hollywood studio system won't interfere with him too much.

        We'll see...

        Cheers
        -b

      • Re:i cannot believe this (Score:4, Interesting)

        by vidarh ( 309115 ) <vidar@hokstad.com> on Thursday June 20, 2002 @12:28PM (#3736714) Homepage Journal
        The russian version [imdb.com] is an absolutely fantastic movie, and is highly recommended viewing, though a bit long for some. I watched the movie years before reading the book, and upon reading the book, the images from the movie seemed to med to match perfectly with how everything was described in the book, which is something that happens all to rarely.

        Solaris is one of perhaps 2-3 science fiction movies from the former Soviet block that are worth watching, and it's easily one of my top 10 favorite science fiction movies ever...

        • Solaris is one of perhaps 2-3 science fiction movies from the former Soviet block that are worth watching


          Another one of the 2-3 is Stalker, by the
          same director. :)

        • I came to it from the other direction, and read the book before seeing the movie. As often happens in these cases, the movie left me very disappointed...partly because the images I had formed in my imagination were completely different from those in the film...and I missed the philosophy and the subtle, dry humor in the accounts of the early history of the exploration of Solaris that were in the book.

          However, one thing that the movie got exactly right was the plight and the pathos of poor Rheya...one of the most poignant characters in all science fiction, she's like a ghost come back to haunt herself. Blade Runner slightly touches on her plight with the character of Rachel, but only fleetingly and timidly; it never engages the emotions as they are engaged in the book and movie versions of Solaris.

          Humm...now you're making me want to go reread Solaris, and then watch the movie :-)

          Vince

          chente@attbi.com
    • Check IMDB further, and you'll find that Steven Soderbergh also did a movie called Kafka. And, one of his early shorter films was apparently a rather disturbing Kafkaesque film (I haven't seen it).

  • News for ? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by asv108 ( 141455 )
    How this book review relevant to anything normally discussed on Slashdot?
    • Its science fiction. Many nerds enjoy science fiction.

    • Re:News for ? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Xarin ( 320264 ) on Thursday June 20, 2002 @12:38PM (#3736792)
      From the following summary:

      In marked contrast to The Castle, though, our protagonist in MFiaB starts out by receiving a Mission. A Secret Mission, from the Commander in Chief himself. Or maybe it was the Chief Commander - or maybe someone else entirely. Problem is, his superiors won't tell him what the mission is, let alone the proper chain of command to clarify it. Through accidental subterfuge and persistence, he finally corners someone into providing his mission briefing, however some part of the officialdom steals it back before he can read more than the first somewhat disturbing page. (According to the one page he has time to read, phase one of his mission involves cornering his superiors and forcing them to provide the mission briefing.) However, it's possible that pursuing the ambiguity of the mission is his mission, so he's duty-bound to get on about it. Besides, he really doesn't know what else to do.

      It sounds like every software project I have worked on. Especially since most software projects are "a comedy, a tragedy, a farce, and a cautionary tale". That should be enough to make it relevent.
    • your not a true /.er if you dont like discussing science fiction even if its just a book review. Why complain about what is news and what isnt, sit back and enjoy something once in a while. BTW I will be makin a trip up to my fav. book store to get MFiaB..I dont have it yet...thanks for reminding me everyone. We need more book reviews so I know what I am missing out on!!hahaha
  • Our protagonist in MFiaB starts out by receiving a Mission...Problem is, his superiors won't tell him what the mission is, let alone the proper chain of command to clarify it. Through accidental subterfuge and persistence, he finally corners someone into providing his mission briefing, however some part of the officialdom steals it back before he can read more than the first somewhat disturbing page.

    REWRITE:

    Our protagonist in MS starts out by receiving a Mission to update some code...Problem is, his superiors won't show him the rest of the code, let alone the proper chain of command to clarify it. Through accidental subterfuge and persistence, he finally corners someone into providing him with the code, however some part of the officialdom steals it back before he can read more than the first somewhat disturbing line./B)

  • Which book of his has a character whose brain has been cut in half, and the narrator is the left side of that brain? I remember that the guy has control of his speech and the right side of his body, and eventually communicates with the other side of his brain through tapping Morse code on his left hand.

    Now I remember..."Peace on Earth". Interesting read. The Cyberiad is also excellent.

  • talley's tally (Score:2, Funny)

    by witort ( 92504 )
    I really can't recommend this [...] book highly enough.
    rating: 9

    Whoa, talk about Kafkaesque!
  • (* dystopian works that expose the inherent absurdity of authoritarian bureaucracies *)

    The last thing geeks need to hear is complaints about how stupid bureaucracies and PHB's are. Many of us are already aware and frustrated by such.

    What we really need is either a practical book on how to *fix* those problems, or a book on how to *tolerate* and live comfortably with bureaucracies and PHB mentality so that we don't keep having urges to rage against the machine and end up getting fired or demoted.
    • What we really need is either a practical book on how to *fix* those problems, or a book on how to *tolerate* and live comfortably with bureaucracies and PHB mentality so that we don't keep having urges to rage against the machine and end up getting fired or demoted.

      The problem with all bureaucracies is their necessary assumption that all human activity can be regulated with a narrow set of rules that could fit in a book. Providing a book claiming to fix that set of rules only makes the problem all the worse.

      What's truly needed is a practical book on eliminating all bureaucracy, all formal social order, without replacing it with a new one. Lacking that, no solution to leading a tolerable existance within organized society can be published--the Machine is really adaptive when it comes to crushing people's dreams. We're all on our own, and your fellow geek getting upset and disturbing the social order can only help.

  • I am surprised nobody has mentioned the circumstances ounder which this book has been written. At the time, the Soviet Union was still intact and very much influential in Poland. A huge body of Lem's work is thinly veiled satire critisizing totalitarian givernments in general and USSR in particular (USA also got a fair beating at his hands). When you compare Lem to Orwell, keep in mind that Lem was writing in the face of potential immediate persecution. He walked a fine line, balancing satire, obscuring his ideas from censors but not general public and using his popularity with readers as a deterrent to his arrest. That takes guts.

    MFIAB is fabulous, and so is everything else Lem has written. Pick it up, you won't regret it.
  • ... that reflects the typical goverment employee-for-life is the fat man who decrypted the message - "There is no answer".

    The Cyberiad is also very good - sort of a cybernetic Grimm's fairy tales. I think it was the second sally where the two constructors built the multimortal polypolice beast with laser eyes that was used to kidnap King Korodulan. Along with a green gig with a lantern on the left side for a diversion.

    The translation of that book was outstanding - all the terms, rhymes, puns, and alliterations came through very well.

    Chip H.
  • I do think that MFiaB is a great book, but I would definitely not recommend it as an introduction to Lem. It's really quite a trip and takes a lot of patience to get through. The paper-eating blight history and archeological view is a great quick start but it gets somewhat hard to follow after that.

    As others have said the Cyberiad may be the place to start, although I think the Chain of Chance is especially good to introduce people that aren't normally inclined to SF.

    Another thing that's great about Lem is how easy it is to find used copies for cheap. Used Book Central [usedbookcentral.com] has MFiaB for $2!.

    • Agreed. I think it is definitely not a "typical Lem" book. I would recommend "Solaris", "Eden", "Cyberiad" or "Pirx..." for a more typical Lem start.

      Back in 1980s in Russia I was stunned by "Eden" - how did the authorities let this book out when it so obviously denounces the Soviet-style total information control? Great book indeed...

  • Unlike the holy trinity usually espoused (Heinlein, Asimov,Clarke), the real ruling triumverate of scifi is Lem, PKD and Cordwainer Smith.

    There have been plenty of posts on the first two so I'll just expound on the latter. CS was the man who wrote the Army's Psychological Warfare book (real name Col. Paul Linebarger). He already had a career as a Chinese studies professor, and was given a Chinese name by Sun Yat Sen. Obviously he had a full career outside of scifi but chose to write it as a hobby.

    His stories revolved around a future government called the Instrumentality. No one messes with the Instrumentality- they are so way more dangerous then any other scifi government it's not funny.

    The Instrumentality has been so successful at making people 'happy', using a slave race of bio-engineered ehanced humanoids from animal stock for economic activity and defending humanity that everyone is stagnating. So a lot of the main timeline stories have to do with the Rebirth, in which disease, accidental death, and misery is intentionally reintroduced and the slave races are treated right.

    He also had non-Instrumentality stories, including two bizarre communist science stories, and War No. 81-Q in which wars are settled by fighting robotic zeppelins on TV (this was written in 1928!).

    Most of his stuff was short stories, but he did write a novel called Norstrilia, about a boy from a superwealthy planet selling a crucial drug found on no other planet, who buys Earth. All of it.

    Norstrilia and Dune came out the same year. Norstrilia is better.

    Vance, LeGuin and Silverberg come close, but everyone else is an acne-pocked teenager compared to these folks.
    • Personally I can't stand PKD. Some of his ideas are interesting, but I don't like the style of writing. I think he might be medically insane.

      Heinlein is competent, but all his books seem to follow more or less the same patterns (the hero is usually filthy rich, there's always some battle in court, etc.). Somewhat like Hollywood cinema, they're always extraordinary stories about extraordinary people. Personally I prefer extraordinary stories about ordinary people.

      Silverberg has one good book (The Labyrinth) and the rest (the ones I've read, at least) are painfully bad.

      Another author I like is John Varley. He usually has interesting, original ideas, and writes quite well. But in some of his books I have a feeling he just got lost and couldn't come up with an ending that made any sense.

      Lem is definitely one of my favourite authors, and I'd recommend him to anyone who likes SF (and most people who don't as well). Memoirs is not a good place to start, though. Most of his books are much "lighter" and easier to read. I wouldn't recommend Memoirs (or His Master's Voice, or even Solaris) to someone who doesn't know any of his work.

      Fiasco is a more or less conventional novel, where Lem's usual cynicism is woven into the story in a way that won't put off the casual readers.

      Futurological Congress, Star Diaries and Memoirs of a Space Traveler are very funny books, and a good introduction to Lem's habit of creating new words to give a shape to new concepts. The same applies to a lot of his short stories. The Invasion from Aldebaran is brilliant.

      Return from the Stars is (like Solaris) more about people than it is about the world, and will probably appeal to people who don't like SF, as well as to those who do.

      Here are links to a couple of sites dedicated to Lem's work:

      http://www.k26.com/solaris [k26.com]

      http://www.cyberiad.info/english/main.htm [cyberiad.info]

      RMN
      ~~~

    • the real ruling triumverate of scifi is Lem, PKD and Cordwainer Smith

      It's kind of funny, because Lem thinks that most of Western SF is pure crap. The only writer he likes is Philip K. Dick. In Lem's book "Microworlds" he even has an essay titled: Philip K. Dick: A Visionary among Charlatans.

  • Thanks so much for reviewing this, I've been thinking of rereading Lem's work...as well as looking into Phillip K. Dick again.

    I recently reread Lem's "The Futurological Congress" and was struck with how horrifyingly funny it is when read in the context the post Sept. 11 world. Lem's description of standard hotel emergency (anti-terrorism) gear is a hoot.

    "Some of the hotel furnishings puzzled me---the ten-foot crowbar propped up in a corner of the jade and jasper bathroom, for example, or the khaki camouflage cape in the closet, or the sack of hardtack under the bed. Over the tub, next to the towels, hung an enormous spool of standard Alpine rope, and on the door was a card I first noticed when I went to triple-lock the super-yale. It read: "This Room Guaranteed BOMB-FREE. From the Management."

    The thing that is most striking to me about Lem is how incredibly creative the man is. He tosses off more ideas per chapter (or short story) than one finds in most trilogies (or dare I say it...in the entire life's output of many science fiction writers). Miraculous stuff.

    Vince

    chente@attbi.com
  • While Solaris is great stuff and the Cyberiad is the funniest scifi novel in existence, I think the masterwork is The Star Diaries, a collection of very loosely connected stories (called Voyages) about humanity's arrogance, stupidity, and how these are universal attributes.

    Lem's hero, Ijon Tichy (kind of an interstellar Candide), gets farther and farther from Earth and runs into more and more bizarre planets. On one voyage he is Earth's representative to being admitted to the galactic UN, but humanity is barred because we evolved from garbage and a germ-laden cough, and another planet takes bioengineering to it's illogical extreme.

    Any one of these stories could have been a novel in a moneygrubber's hands, but Lem keeps the ideas flowing thickly and densely (in Rucker's sense of the word). The Star Diaries is an intense read.
    • I agree 100%. "The Star Diaries" is the first book I read by Lem when I was 12. I've re-read it many times and each time I find more stuff in it that's great. I'm not sure whether all the Ijon Tichy stories were ever published as a single volume though...

  • Many people dismiss scifi as fantasy or power trips or sterile egghead thought games, which certainly it can be. But scifi is really more political then anything else. That facet is built into the very nature of the beast, as scifi is all about What Are The Consequences of This Technology/ Colonization/ Biochanges, etc. etc.

    Lem wrote Memoirs and used the US CIA as backdrop, but really he was talking about the communist police state, and tweaked it right under their noses. Plenty of Lem's other works are political, but more about smashing the humanocentric world view then anything else.

    Lem's spiritual scifi predecessor Karel Capek (the man who adapted the Czech word robot to it's current meaning) had a savagely funny book called War With The Newts that was a scathing indictment of the pre-WWII environment.

    Asimov's Foundation series is very very political.

    Star Trek has been political from day one.

    The Dune series is nothing but politics- it may be CHOAM instead of GE/Microsoft, but the people are the same.

    In general well-written histories can do the job better then scifi, but scifi can get you out of a mental rut and open your mind to other possible consequences that history just cannot deal with. A history book cannot tell you about what the DMCA or Homeland Defense can turn into like Fairenheit 451 or 1984 can.

    In fact, speaking of 1984, scifi dystopias might even deter such evils from occuring and create history (or at least terminate them from happening). The reverse can be true though, a lot of British paranoia about the German WWI fleet was frothed up by the 1900s functional equivalent of a scifi/Clancy novel.
  • Reading Philip K Dick's letter [cyberiad.info] to the FBI about Lem says legions about Philip K Dick, the FBI and the level of intelligence in the intelligence community.
  • My favorite Lem novels are probably The Cyberiad, His Master's Voice (an alien contact novel, but hardly your standard one), and The Futurological Congress [dannyreviews.com].

    Danny.

  • ...you may also like the fantasy-role-playing game Paranoia [bbc.co.uk]: a classic with a somewhat similar setting and feel. The well-written rulebook begins this way [bluemeat.com]...

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