In Orbit Around the Impossible World

Stanisław Lem, Solaris: the Definitive Edition

The distant planet Solaris shouldn’t exist; its orbit defies all known laws of physics. And that’s not the only impossible thing happening there. The planet’s single inhabitant is a massive global organism, which researchers have variously described as a “plasma” and an “ocean,” though both metaphors are imperfect. Precepts of science and human understanding break down near Solaris. Not that this has stopped researchers from trying to understand it.

Polish novelist Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel is perhaps his most famous work, not only in its own right, but also through Antrei Tarkovsky’s notoriously inscrutable Russian-language film (which Lem disparaged). Like Tarkovsky’s film, Lem’s novel rejects conventional structure and practically dares audiences to follow the bumpy ride. Even Lem’s fans will admit this novel is rough sledding, though arguably worth it when you reach his strange, arcane culmination.

Psychologist Kris Kelvin is one among a branch of scientists called Solaricists, an interdisciplinary movement dedicated entirely to studying Solaris. Once the rock stars of deep-space science, Solaricists have become pariahs because their “science” persistently fails to produce answers. After years spent studying Solaris remotely, Kelvin finally gets assigned to the planet’s only space station, which is nearly abandoned and moldering. Except it proves far less abandoned than he expected.

The first English-language edition of Lem’s novel, in 1970, wasn’t translated from Polish, but from a prior French translation. Lem, who could read English fluently but not write it, hated that translation. But then Lem, like the American author Philip K. Dick, with whom he had a love-hate relationship, notoriously hated everything. His hatred wasn’t unfair, though. The first English edition sanded off many of Lem’s more recondite, philosophical maunderings.

Lem was, after all, a trained philosopher. Like Olaf Stapledon, Lem used science fiction novels not primarily as either stories or character studies, but as field tests for philosophical insights. In this case, Lem places highly trained men of science (and they are, indeed, men) in an isolated environment where reason and empiricism disintegrate. How, Lem asks, can humans communicate with alien intelligence, when we can’t communicate with one another?

Stanisław Lem

Once ensconced in the research station over Solaris, Kelvin wants to debrief the skeleton crew. Crewmembers, however, are reclusive and unwilling to communicate. It’s like they’re all protecting secrets. Kelvin’s old mentor, Gibarian, commits suicide rather than admit whatever bleak secret he’s kept on Solaris. However, Kelvin spots that secret walking the vast, depopulated halls, and it’s apparently a woman.

Before long, Kelvin has his own secret: Harey, his college girlfriend, appears in his cabin. She can’t possibly be here, however. Not only did Harey not join the long, arduous interstellar journey to this distant planet, but in a moment of overwhelming despair ten years ago, she also committed suicide. Yet here she is, as alive and unblemished as the last time Kelvin saw her. She’s impossible, but also real.

Tarkovsky’s movie (and Steven Soderburgh’s 2002 remake) focus on Harey, the impossible woman, and the guilt she inspires in Kelvin. But that focus is why Lem disliked the film adaptations. This novel isn’t about human guilt and culpability; it’s about… what? Critics dispute furiously how to interpret this recondite novel. Lem took especial pains to make it inscrutable, immune to any algebraic interpretation. You don’t understand Solaris, you experience it.

Personally, I see Lem talking about the futility of human reason. Every “law” human intellects devised around experimental science falls flat around Solaris. The scientists find themselves reduced to Aristotelian guesswork and mysticism. Throughout the novel, he both uses and scoffs at religious symbolism (Lem himself was agnostic), but finally, even Kelvin admits we apprehend the truth only through that proverbial glass, darkly.

Bill Johnston’s English-language translation is deemed “the definitive edition” because Lem’s estate considered it the most satisfactorily accurate to Lem’s philosophical ambiguity. However, rights issues have tied up publication for years. It’s currently only available in ebook and audiobook editions, not print. Canadian actor Alessandro Juliani expresses the depth and complexity of Lem’s characters, and beautifully captures Kelvin’s journey beyond reason and evidence, into acceptance of a fundamentally absurd universe.

This novel admits multiple interpretations based on available evidence. That, I’d contend, is Lem’s point: no explanation is ever complete and universal, we can argue the evidence endlessly without reaching exhaustive conclusions. In the end, our questions define us, not our answers. Kelvin, and perhaps Harey, don’t resolve their story, they only achieve a higher and more meaningful order of question. And hopefully, after reading this book, so will we.