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 uses remote space exploration as a metaphor whether the human mind will ever understand a truly, alien life form. While the narration suggests that humans study the planet, the opposite seems to be the case, where Solaris examines the secret, often guilty thoughts of men, which in the novel are given physical form and which invade the space station, disturbing the routine. The novel is pervaded by a powerful and moving poetic sense of remoteness and loneliness. Image File history File links Solaris_Chichoni. ... Image File history File links Solaris_Chichoni. ... Oscar Chichoni with one of his works Óscar Chichoni (1957, Corral de Bustos, province of Córdoba, Argentina) is a renowned illustrator of comic books and science fiction magazines and books. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative, typically in prose. ... StanisÅ‚aw Lem in 1966. ... Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa, see also other names, in full The Capital City of Warsaw, Polish: Miasto Stołeczne Warszawa) is the capital of Poland and its largest city. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Look up metaphor in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Guilty is also the name of: A number of songs: Guilty, a 1931 song by Richard Whiting, Harry Akst, and Gus Kahn, popularized by Johnny Desmond and later Margaret Whiting. ...

It was adapted into a Russian film in 1972, a cinematic tour de force by director Andrej Tarkovsky, and an American film in 2002. There is also an opera of the same title by German composer Michael Obst. Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Solaris (Russian: , Solyaris) is a 1972 Russian film based on the novel Solaris by Polish author Stanisław Lem. ... Categories: American cinema | Cinema by country ... Solaris is a 2002 film directed by Steven Soderbergh. ...

Plot

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). Extraterrestrial life is life that exists and originates outside the planet Earth, the only place in the universe currently known by humans to support life. ... The eight planets and three dwarf planets of the Solar System. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

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 ocean'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. Image File history File links Solaris_ITA.jpg Licensing This image is of a book cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned either by the artist who drew the cover or the publisher of the book. ... Image File history File links Solaris_ITA.jpg Licensing This image is of a book cover, and the copyright for it is most likely owned either by the artist who drew the cover or the publisher of the book. ... In psychology, personality describes the character of emotion, thought, and behavior patterns unique to a person. ... For other uses, see Mind (disambiguation). ... A repressed memory, according to some theories of psychology, a memory (often traumatic) of an event or environment which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind. ... Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the willful act of killing oneself. ...

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 the book and definitely by Tarkovsky's film. The Soderbergh film focuses on the relationship between Kelvin and his deceased wife at the exclusion of many of Lem's other themes. Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский) (April 4, 1932 - December 29, 1986) was a Russian film director, opera director, writer, and actor. ... Astrobiology (in Greek astron = star, bios = life and logos = word/science), also known as exobiology (Greek: exo = out) or xenobiology (Greek: xenos = foreign) is the term for a speculative field within biology which considers the possible variety of extraterrestrial life. ... Steven Soderbergh on the set of Solaris. ... Solaris is a 2002 film directed by Steven Soderbergh. ...

See also

• Science fiction
• Stanisław Lem
• Andrei Tarkovsky
• List of sentient fictional planets
• Brain dish

Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Stanisław Lem in 1966. ... Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский) (April 4, 1932 - December 29, 1986) was a Russian film director, opera director, writer, and actor. ... This is a list of sentient fictional planets, planets in fiction which are said to be alive or intelligent. ... Brain dish is a direct mind-computer interface in the form of a small cluster of neurons in a petri dish and have wired themselves to electrodes. ...

Editions

An English translation of the French translation of the book (therefore a dual translation) is available as:

• ISBN 0-8027-5526-7 (1970)
• ISBN 0-15-683750-1 (1987)
• ISBN 0-15-602760-7 (2002)
• ISBN 0-571-21972-1 (2003)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Solaris (novel)

• Solaris book page on Stanislaw Lem's official site
• Stanislaw Lem's essay on Solaris, ibid.
• Study Guide for Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961), by Paul Brians, Department of English, Washington State University