Stanislav Lem and his novel "Solaris"

1961 was marked not only by the first manned flight into space, but also by the fact that this year the novel Solaris was first published. The author of this fantastic work was the Polish writer of Jewish origin Stanislaw Lem. "Solyaris" was destined to become not only the most famous of the writer's works, but also leave an indelible mark in the fantastic literature of the whole world.

Stanislav Lem - author of the novel "Solaris"

Stanislav Lem, or as they call him in the homeland Stanisław Lem, was born in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, which at that time belonged to Poland. Childhood of the future writer was held there. After graduation, young Stanislav chose a medical profession and went to study medicine at Lviv University. However, with the outbreak of World War II, Lem was forced to leave his studies and get a job as a welder.

The writer and his parents were Jews. However, they were able to avoid deportation, as well as imprisonment in concentration camps due to forged documents.

After the war Lviv became part of the USSR, and Lem, being a Pole, was forced to leave his native city and move to Krakow. Here he continued his studies at the Jagiellonian University.

In the difficult post-war years, Stanislaw Lem's earnings were small. To earn extra money, in his spare time from official work, he began to write small fantastic stories. Soon, Lema's talent was appreciated, additional part-time work became his main work.

In 1951, the writer publishes his first major work - a fantastic novel "Astronauts." This work makes Lem known not only in Poland, but throughout the world. "Astronauts" are translated into other languages and are often reprinted.

In subsequent years, many works of the writer are published. Novels "Magellanic Cloud", "Investigation", "Eden", "Return from the Stars", "Manuscript Found in the Bath", "Invincible", "Voice of the Lord", "Qatar" and others. A cycle of humorous stories about the astronaut's adventures "Iyon Tikho's Star Diaries", an essay collection "Dialogues", a humorous story "Invasion from Aldebaran". A series of stories "Tales of robots", "Cyberiad", "Stories about the pilot Pirks", "Absolute emptiness" and much more. Among the author's works there is also an autobiographical novel about childhood in Lviv "High Castle" and the most famous worldwide philosophical fiction novel "Solaris".

The writer died in March 2006 from heart problems and was buried in Krakow.

Summary of the novel "Solaris"

In the not too distant future, mankind is actively exploring space. A hundred and thirty years before the beginning of the story, scientists discovered the planet Solaris. At first, people decided that it was uninhabited. However, soon mankind learned that the ocean-like ocean, covering the entire surface of the planet, is a living being. People were overjoyed and began to look for a way to establish contact with this mind. But a century has passed, but it was not possible to do so.

A new employee, psychologist Chris Kelvin, arrives at the research station on Solaris. The behavior of the other employees of the station - Snout and Sartorius - seems to him very strange. Moreover, a third officer named Gibaryan committed suicide shortly before Chris arrived.

Kelvin had not had time to digest all the news, as his ex-girlfriend Hari was emerging from nowhere. However, it could not be she, since the girl once committed suicide. All attempts by Chris to get rid of Hari are unsuccessful - the girl returns again and again. Soon the psychologist learns that every member of the crew has a similar uninvited "guest" from the past. It turns out that at the time when people are studying Solaris, the planet also began to conduct "experiments" over its researchers. For this, she materializes objects from the woeful or shameful memories of people who are on the planet.

Kelvin and his companions in misfortune are actively looking for a way to get rid of their "guests", called phantoms. However, they do not succeed. Meanwhile, Chris begins to become attached to Hari, who is becoming more humane and soon guesses about her origins. Realizing that she is, the girl tries to kill herself, but she does not get out.

Soon, Kelvin stops looking for a way to get rid of Hari. But his comrades, together with the girl, secretly continue their research. They manage to succeed and destroy all the phantoms at the station, including Hari.

Chris is very worried about this loss. His colleagues are afraid that he will do something rash - blow up the planet or commit suicide. But hard rethinking what had happened, Kelvin decides to stay on Solaris and continue the research.

The history of writing the novel

The novel "Solaris" was by no means the first big fantastic work by Lem. However, in it the writer began to move away from the utopian image of the future, characteristic of his earlier robot.

The main part of the "Solaris" was written in the summer of 1959, when Stanislaw Lem was resting in the south of Poland. But, after returning home, the writer abandoned the unfinished manuscript for almost a year. In 1960, Lem decides to finish the novel "Solaris". To do this, he adds the last chapter, as well as editing the previously written text. In 1961, the novel is published in Poland, and in subsequent years it is actively translated into other languages.

As Lem himself wrote later in his autobiographical books, many of the things in his novel "Solaris" were inexplicable for him. During the work on the novel writer sometimes it seemed that someone else tells him how and what to write.

Shield

In 1963 the Solaris was translated into Russian. Roman liked the Soviet readers so much that only five years after the publication, based on his motives, a television performance with Vasily Lanov in the title role was shot.

In 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky produced a full-length film based on Lem's novel with Donatas Banionis in the role of Kelvin. Meanwhile, the author of the novel himself reacted rather negatively to the reinterpretation of "Solaris" by Tarkovsky, stating that the great director did not understand his intention.

At the beginning of the two thousandth Stanislav, Lem was invited to film his novel in Hollywood. After the failure with Tarkovsky, the writer hesitated for a long time, but agreed. And in 2002 the third screen version of the novel "Solaris" was released. Unfortunately, it was even farther from the original, rather than the 1972 film.

In 2016, 55 years have passed since the publication of the book "Solaris" by Stanislav Lem. Roman for all these years has not lost its relevance and continues to worry the minds of more and more generations of readers.