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Yet on the other side there’s something we refuse to accept, that we fend off; though after all, from Earth we didn’t bring merely a distillation of virtues, the heroic figure of Humankind! We came here as we truly are, and when the other side shows us that truth—the part of it we pass over in silence—we’re unable to come to terms with it! (pg. 64)
I have long loved the first Solaris movie and have meant to read this novel since Lem's death in 2006. Finally in 2024 I have read it, in one sitting, and wow. This novel, published in 1961 and so a little marred by age, is representative to me of what the genre of science fiction can do, how it can transport us so far from our known experience that we are able to confront those things we, as Lem says, pass over in silence, aspects of our reality and experience that we otherwise fail to articulate because we first fail to consider.
I can now appreciate Lem's dismissal of various sophomoric interpretations of this novel by critics and readers. Lem was a genuinely philosophical thinker who saw the potential of science fiction for such philosophical exploration and what he presents in this novel might not be so easily unraveled by those less experienced in inquiries along existential, epistemological and metaphysical veins. All the same, Lem wasn't interested in handholding, but in writing what ended up as one of the world's most profound and influential science fiction stories. Thinking is required for this one, and even if some elements of the story feel a little dated, its philosophical explorations are not and meaningfully intersect with various current questions of our current time.
I used the English translation by renowned translator Bill Johnston, both the text with audiobook (superbly narrated by Alessandro Juliani). This is the English translation most favored by Lem's family. While I cannot read Polish myself so to compare, Johnston's translation appears to be expertly done: fluid, natural and at times poetic without feeling as though the translation is taking liberty with the original text.