Solaris (novel)

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For other uses of the word Solaris, see Solaris. For the two film versions, see Solaris (1972) and Solaris (2002)

Cover by Oscar Chichoni for the Spanish edition

Solaris is a Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), published in Warsaw in 1961 and probably his most famous work. The novel explores the limitations of knowledge through science. It was adapted into a Russian film in 1972 and an American film in 2002. There is also an opera of the same title by German composer Michael Obst.

1 Plot
2 See also
3 Editions
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel is about the ultimately futile attempt to communicate with an alien life-form on a distant planet. The planet, called Solaris, is covered with a so-called "ocean" that is really a single organism covering the entire surface. The ocean shows signs of a vast but strange intelligence, which can create physical phenomena in a way that science has difficulty explaining. The alien mind of Solaris is so inconceivably different from human consciousness that all attempts at communication are doomed (the "alienness" of aliens is one of Lem's favourite themes; he is scornful about portrayals of aliens as humanoid).

Poster for Italian version of the movie.

The novel begins with the arrival of the protagonist, Kris Kelvin, at a scientific research station hovering above the surface of Solaris. Research has been ongoing for years, but scientists have been unable to do more than observe the highly complex phenomena on the surface of the ocean, all the while classifying them into an elaborate nomenclature without understanding what they actually mean. When the protagonist and his colleagues become more aggressive in trying to force contact with Solaris, the experiment becomes psychologically traumatic for the researchers themselves. The ocean's response, such as it is, lays bare their own personalities, while revealing nothing of the ocean's. To the extent that the oceans's actions can be understood, the ocean begins experimenting with the researchers' minds by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories through the materialization of complex human constructs: the protagonist is confronted with memories of his deceased wife and his guilt over her suicide. What torments the other researchers is only hinted at (as they are careful to conceal it) but it appears to be much worse.

Andrei Tarkovsky's film follows the novel loosely, emphasizing human relationships over Lem's theories on exobiology, and devoting considerable time to Kelvin's life on Earth before his trip to Solaris. In 2002, Steven Soderbergh made a film adaptation of Solaris which appears to be influenced by both the book and by Tarkovsky's film.