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Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological Congress. Caught up in local revolution, Tichy is shot and so critically wounded that he is flashfrozen to await a future cure. Translated by Michael Kandel.Tags
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by bertilak
CGlanovsky Central European authors imagine science fiction scenarios involving mass-induced transcendental experiences
CGlanovsky Dystopian futures largely characterized by the ubiquity of mood-altering drugs.
Member Reviews
Stanislaw Lem isn't the first person to ask whether we can be sure what we see is really real, nor is "The Futurological Congress" the best exploration of this philosophical chestnut, but this one is worth a read anyway. While it's still a wild, even disorienting ride from first page to last, Lem's future also belongs to yesterday, defined, as it is, by the student protest and sexual liberation movements of the late sixties and early seventies and the dire prophecies of Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb." It's the sort of book that could have only been written in 1971, featuring, as it does, bearded would-be assassins, shamelessly liberated literary movements, brutal Latin American dictatorships, and controlled psychotropic substances show more by the trainload.
The prose is not the main attraction here. While our hero, Ijon Tichy, undergoes wild transformations in the course of this one, living, as he does, in a future where it's easier to switch bodies than to change a car tire, Lem doesn't really dwell on the import of these changes, and it can often seem as though too much is happening too fast. I had to reread the first half of this one just to keep my bearings. As might be expected from a science fiction novel from this period, there isn't much indirect in Lem's third person: he didn't write "the Futurological Congress" to explore the subjective nature of consciousness and identity. What surprised me, though, is how funny the book often is. Lem and his translator worked overtime to come up with bizarre, humorous drug names and charmingly redefine existing words to fit in their manic, buzzed, and horribly overcrowded future. I can't think of another book that would define an expectorant as a conception aid.
I'm sure that a good amount of readers will enjoy "The Futurological Congress" for its retro charm: it is, at the very least, a curio from an era that, as Louis Menand put it, conceptualized almost everything as a drug trip. But some more durable themes do emerge. The author draws a neat parallel between lazy, underperforming and rebellious robots and the way that capitalists, according to communist critiques, view the working class. The book is also, in a roundabout way, one in a long tradition of literature that warns readers of our desires to distance ourselves from the harshest aspects of our reality: it could be argued that the difference between Lem's "psychem" and Zuckerberg's Meta is that one relies on chemistry and the other on circuitry. And Lem both echoes and criticizes contemporary postmodernists who aim to show that language provides the key to divining and creating our future. Interesting as all of this sometimes is, it's the very weirdness of "The Futurological Congress" that hits you hardest: it's a short book, but it describes a constant, freaked-out stream of events that barely pauses to catch a breath. It's not exactly a life-changer, perhaps, but it's certainly a trip. Whether you grok it or not, there isn't too much out there that's quite like this one. show less
The prose is not the main attraction here. While our hero, Ijon Tichy, undergoes wild transformations in the course of this one, living, as he does, in a future where it's easier to switch bodies than to change a car tire, Lem doesn't really dwell on the import of these changes, and it can often seem as though too much is happening too fast. I had to reread the first half of this one just to keep my bearings. As might be expected from a science fiction novel from this period, there isn't much indirect in Lem's third person: he didn't write "the Futurological Congress" to explore the subjective nature of consciousness and identity. What surprised me, though, is how funny the book often is. Lem and his translator worked overtime to come up with bizarre, humorous drug names and charmingly redefine existing words to fit in their manic, buzzed, and horribly overcrowded future. I can't think of another book that would define an expectorant as a conception aid.
I'm sure that a good amount of readers will enjoy "The Futurological Congress" for its retro charm: it is, at the very least, a curio from an era that, as Louis Menand put it, conceptualized almost everything as a drug trip. But some more durable themes do emerge. The author draws a neat parallel between lazy, underperforming and rebellious robots and the way that capitalists, according to communist critiques, view the working class. The book is also, in a roundabout way, one in a long tradition of literature that warns readers of our desires to distance ourselves from the harshest aspects of our reality: it could be argued that the difference between Lem's "psychem" and Zuckerberg's Meta is that one relies on chemistry and the other on circuitry. And Lem both echoes and criticizes contemporary postmodernists who aim to show that language provides the key to divining and creating our future. Interesting as all of this sometimes is, it's the very weirdness of "The Futurological Congress" that hits you hardest: it's a short book, but it describes a constant, freaked-out stream of events that barely pauses to catch a breath. It's not exactly a life-changer, perhaps, but it's certainly a trip. Whether you grok it or not, there isn't too much out there that's quite like this one. show less
Straight after reading a 500 page novel that never really grabbed me, I began [b:The Futurological Congress|35074093|The Futurological Congress|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580829015l/35074093._SY75_.jpg|1271698] and was instantly caught up in its breathless chaos. How's this for an opening paragraph?
The narrator, Ijon Tichy, checks into a hotel for a conference that immediately descends into violent mayhem and hallucinogenic nightmare. He dies, or nearly so, and wakes up decades in the future, or does he? Lem manages a magnificent feat of disorientation within this short novel, which has aged well since 1971. The playful use of neologisms and linguistic world-building in general have been translated with great aplomb:
The various substances people regularly consume in this weird future also have excellent names:
Lem's breakneck narrative is full of ingeniously ironic ideas. Of particular note, the corrupt AIs that claimed to be terraforming other planets but actually stole the funding and did nothing. I love the idea that as soon as AI attains human-level intelligence it will devote all effort to avoiding work. The pervasive concern about overpopulation in [b:The Futurological Congress|35074093|The Futurological Congress|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580829015l/35074093._SY75_.jpg|1271698] reminded me of [b:Stand on Zanzibar|41069|Stand on Zanzibar|John Brunner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360613921l/41069._SY75_.jpg|2184253], one of my favourite sci-fi novels. Both posit that psychotropic drugs could make a critically overcrowded world bearable. Lem manages to cover nearly as much ground in 130 pages as Brunner's [b:Stand on Zanzibar|41069|Stand on Zanzibar|John Brunner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360613921l/41069._SY75_.jpg|2184253] did in nearly 700, in a playful yet powerful style. He also runs rings around [b:Make Room! Make Room!|473850|Make Room! Make Room!|Harry Harrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1345057490l/473850._SY75_.jpg|639744], a stolid novel often presented as the classic overpopulation dystopia.
Both of Lem's novels that I'd previously read, [b:Fiasco|28766|Fiasco|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1287614689l/28766._SY75_.jpg|1762117] and [b:Memoirs Found in a Bathtub|497121|Memoirs Found in a Bathtub|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348416568l/497121._SY75_.jpg|485271] were a mixture of absolute genius and sequences that dragged. [b:The Futurological Congress|35074093|The Futurological Congress|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580829015l/35074093._SY75_.jpg|1271698], by contrast, is unalloyed brilliance. I was blown away and am very glad I picked it off the library shelf on a whim. I definitely want to read more of Lem's sci-fi. If you enjoy his work, I also recommend this piece by [a:Jonathan Lethem|6404|Jonathan Lethem|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1539380022p2/6404.jpg] in the London Review of Books: My Year of Reading Lemmishly. show less
The Eighth World Futurological Congress was held in Costa Rica. To tell the truth, I would never have gone to Nounas if it hadn't been for Professor Tarantoga, who gave me clearly to understand that this was expected of me. He also said - pointedly - that space travel nowadays was an escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one took off for the stars in the hope that the worstshow more
would happen and be done with in one's absence. And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I had peered anxiously out the porthole - especially when returning from a long voyage - to see whether or not our planet resembled a burnt potato. So I didn't argue the point with Tarantoga, but only remarked that, really, I wasn't much of an expert on futurology. His reply that hardly anyone knows a thing about pumping, and yet we don't stand idly by when we hear the cry of, "Man the pumps!"
The narrator, Ijon Tichy, checks into a hotel for a conference that immediately descends into violent mayhem and hallucinogenic nightmare. He dies, or nearly so, and wakes up decades in the future, or does he? Lem manages a magnificent feat of disorientation within this short novel, which has aged well since 1971. The playful use of neologisms and linguistic world-building in general have been translated with great aplomb:
The announcer doesn't say traffic fatality, but carrion. From car? Curious. Another word for physivison: reviewer, the re from the latin res. But in that case, why not revision? Aileen was on duty today, so I spent the evening alone in my apartment - compartment - watching a round-table discussion on the new penal code. Murder is punishable by fine only, since the deceased can easily be brought back. Reinceased. Though prerecidivation - recidivism with premeditation - carries with it a jail sentence (for example if you are found guilty of killing the same person several times in succession).
The various substances people regularly consume in this weird future also have excellent names:
I finally learned how to come into possession of an encyclopedia. I already own one now - the whole thing contained in three glass vials. Bought them in the science psychedeli. Books are no longer read but eaten; not made of paper but of some informational substance, fully digestible, sugar-coated. I also did a little browsing in a psychem supermarket. Self-service. Arranged on the shelves are beautifully packaged low-calorie opinionates, gullibloons - credibility beans? - abstract extract in antique gallon jugs, and iffies, argumunchies, puritands, and dysecstacy chips. [...] I began to satisfy my hunger for information, but the first two volumes of the encyclopedia gave me the most terrible cramps.
Lem's breakneck narrative is full of ingeniously ironic ideas. Of particular note, the corrupt AIs that claimed to be terraforming other planets but actually stole the funding and did nothing. I love the idea that as soon as AI attains human-level intelligence it will devote all effort to avoiding work. The pervasive concern about overpopulation in [b:The Futurological Congress|35074093|The Futurological Congress|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580829015l/35074093._SY75_.jpg|1271698] reminded me of [b:Stand on Zanzibar|41069|Stand on Zanzibar|John Brunner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360613921l/41069._SY75_.jpg|2184253], one of my favourite sci-fi novels. Both posit that psychotropic drugs could make a critically overcrowded world bearable. Lem manages to cover nearly as much ground in 130 pages as Brunner's [b:Stand on Zanzibar|41069|Stand on Zanzibar|John Brunner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360613921l/41069._SY75_.jpg|2184253] did in nearly 700, in a playful yet powerful style. He also runs rings around [b:Make Room! Make Room!|473850|Make Room! Make Room!|Harry Harrison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1345057490l/473850._SY75_.jpg|639744], a stolid novel often presented as the classic overpopulation dystopia.
Both of Lem's novels that I'd previously read, [b:Fiasco|28766|Fiasco|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1287614689l/28766._SY75_.jpg|1762117] and [b:Memoirs Found in a Bathtub|497121|Memoirs Found in a Bathtub|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348416568l/497121._SY75_.jpg|485271] were a mixture of absolute genius and sequences that dragged. [b:The Futurological Congress|35074093|The Futurological Congress|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580829015l/35074093._SY75_.jpg|1271698], by contrast, is unalloyed brilliance. I was blown away and am very glad I picked it off the library shelf on a whim. I definitely want to read more of Lem's sci-fi. If you enjoy his work, I also recommend this piece by [a:Jonathan Lethem|6404|Jonathan Lethem|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1539380022p2/6404.jpg] in the London Review of Books: My Year of Reading Lemmishly. show less
I'd give this 5 stars—truly, it was excellent in many of its various parts and pieces—if it were not for the fact that, as a whole, it didn't really work for me. Individual elements (scenes? stories) inside of this "novel," alone, were brilliant, for example: everything that happened in the hotel at the beginning of the story, before the bombs started dropping; the first and second excursions out of the sewers that turned out to hallucinations ; his journey into the future where all of human experience is governed by pharmaceuticals. Heck, the tiny sub-plot of the drug that lets you experience your most evil desires could have been a rocking good short story if fleshed out just a bit. But mashed all together they made for a show more disjointed novel. The writing is superb. The translator is amazing (the plays on words work perfectly in English, as I'm sure they did in the original Polish, so his translation must have been extremely flexible). But, for me, the novel on the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts. I'll forgive it in a following reading, I'm sure, as I will be prepared for the fact that these are all distinct and separate vignettes tied together by a fragile thread, but my first read left me a star-and-a-half disappointed that Lem could not pull this together into a compelling whole. show less
i have never read any Lem before even though i have encountered his name many times as a master science fiction and psychoclastic author. i have been missing out.
i kept wondering what the book would be like in the original polish because the plays on words in english are often astonishing and deeply meaningful. was the translator that good? i don’t think i will learn polish just to read Lem but it is tempting.
the book is short; very brief in length but almost bottomless in depth. concise but descriptive, the story is more a vehicle for a stampede of ideas rather than a plot that moves forward. in that sense, it reads more like mythology than modern prose storytelling but that in no way detracts from its power. it might make it more show more impactful for its paucity. the “futurologists” in the beginning of the book are those scholars and thinkers looking forward into humanity’s future to see possibility and maybe act on it. the “congress’ itself is a convention of those minds and also, i think, refers to the book itself as a conglomeration of progressive, iconoclastic, and futurism in the realm of Alvin Toffler, Ray Kurtzweil, William Gibson, or even Terence McKenna.
Lem spooled out the idea of reality consisting of neurochemical signals and pathways in our brains to surreal but logical levels, breaking down the idea of perception and epistemological constants that probably paved the way for some of the authors mentioned above that came to settle home with the movie The Matrix and then more movies like Inception. the idea that we might be living in a simulation has taken on life as a meme salient to most people in western society and harkens back to the old Chinese parable of the man who dreamt he was a butterfly and awakes to wonder if he is really a butterfly dreaming he’s a man. Lem takes us on a journey that involves many more layers than just two. our hero, Ijon Tichy - who appears in other books of Lem’s - experiences phyllo dough-like layers of reality to the point that by the time we land at the end of the book, we are not sure where we are - and neither is Tichy. this book has recently been rendered on-screen beautifully in the movie The Congress starring Robin Wright. it isn’t quite as layered as the book but it does an excellent job of translating Lem to that very different medium.
I will definitely seek out more Lem now. he seems to be an author whose prose might not sustain me in and of itself but his ideas are addictively compelling. show less
i kept wondering what the book would be like in the original polish because the plays on words in english are often astonishing and deeply meaningful. was the translator that good? i don’t think i will learn polish just to read Lem but it is tempting.
the book is short; very brief in length but almost bottomless in depth. concise but descriptive, the story is more a vehicle for a stampede of ideas rather than a plot that moves forward. in that sense, it reads more like mythology than modern prose storytelling but that in no way detracts from its power. it might make it more show more impactful for its paucity. the “futurologists” in the beginning of the book are those scholars and thinkers looking forward into humanity’s future to see possibility and maybe act on it. the “congress’ itself is a convention of those minds and also, i think, refers to the book itself as a conglomeration of progressive, iconoclastic, and futurism in the realm of Alvin Toffler, Ray Kurtzweil, William Gibson, or even Terence McKenna.
Lem spooled out the idea of reality consisting of neurochemical signals and pathways in our brains to surreal but logical levels, breaking down the idea of perception and epistemological constants that probably paved the way for some of the authors mentioned above that came to settle home with the movie The Matrix and then more movies like Inception. the idea that we might be living in a simulation has taken on life as a meme salient to most people in western society and harkens back to the old Chinese parable of the man who dreamt he was a butterfly and awakes to wonder if he is really a butterfly dreaming he’s a man. Lem takes us on a journey that involves many more layers than just two. our hero, Ijon Tichy - who appears in other books of Lem’s - experiences phyllo dough-like layers of reality to the point that by the time we land at the end of the book, we are not sure where we are - and neither is Tichy. this book has recently been rendered on-screen beautifully in the movie The Congress starring Robin Wright. it isn’t quite as layered as the book but it does an excellent job of translating Lem to that very different medium.
I will definitely seek out more Lem now. he seems to be an author whose prose might not sustain me in and of itself but his ideas are addictively compelling. show less
"Books are no longer read but eaten, not made of paper but of some informational substance, fully digestible, sugar-coated. A few grams of dantine, for instance, and a man goes around with the deep conviction that he has written The Divine Comedy.
-Stanislaw Lem, The Futurological Congress
A short novel narrated by cosmonaut Ijon Tichy, a kind of futuristic Alexis de Tocqueville who shares his travel report and diary beginning at a convention of world futurologists held at a space age hotel in Costa Rica where he has a room one hundred floors above the street. Tichy is as clearheaded as Thomas Jefferson or Isaac Newton, a well-educated gentleman with an impeccable moral sense. Too bad Tichy isn’t living in the eighteenth century age of show more reason rather than the twenty-first century of the future where the entire world has gone mad on mass ingestion of every variety and kind of weird pills to alter mood and even weirder chemicals to twist, bend, rotate and transform the mind.
This was my very first Stanislaw Lem and it certainly will not be my last. Did the author coat the corners of the book’s pages with hallucinogens for me to lick? Sometimes, as I turned the pages, I thought such a practice would have been most appropriate. In a similar spirit, below are a batch of psychic hits, eight strobe light flashes, of what a reader will encounter with Lem's spectacular, speculative loop-the-loop:
Kill the Pope: At a hotel bar, one where an all-girl orchestra plays Bach while performing striptease to the rhythm of baroque music, a burly, bearded bloke sticks his double-barreled rifle under cosmonaut Tichy’s nose and asks how he likes his papalshooter. Big Beard then goes on to explain how he is flying to Rome to shoot the Pope, what he terms “Operation P” in the spirit of Abraham and Isaac in reverse (rather than father killing son, he's son who will kill father). And, turns out, this guy is a devout and loyal Catholic! The sole reference to religion in the novel. Thank the Lord! – with devotion like this, who needs fanatics?
Future Writers: The hotel is also hosting a banquet for Liberated Literature, where loudspeakers play: “Now to make it in the arts, publicize your private parts! Critics say you can’t offend ‘em with your phallus or pudendum.” And later on Tichy bumps into Harvy Simsworth, a writer who turns fairy tales and classic literature into hardcore porno - Ali Baba and the Forty Perverts, King Leer, what Snow White really did with the seven dwarfs, what Jack really did with Jill. Just in case anybody thinks our current day degenerate literature couldn’t get any more debased and debauched.
Something in the Water: Back in his hotel room Tichy's good mood begins to soar higher and higher by the minute. Even though he cracks his head on the furniture, the lights go out and he can’t get the telephone to work, Ijon Tichy considers his hotel room one of the nicest in the world. He could hug, caress and kiss his worst enemies. But when he laughs with uncontrollable hilarity with how “the butter might splutter and make the flame gutter,” Ijon senses something is amiss. Ah, of course! The glass of water he drank from the bathroom tap. Our rational cosmonaut is given his first glimpse how those in power will attempt to manipulate and control the population – mind-altering chemicals.
Japanese Proposal: The futureologists are treated to Hayakawa’s plan for the house of the future: eight hundred levels complete with schools, shops, theaters, museums, sports fields, special gymnasiums for group sex, catacombs for nonconformists, rotating apartments to alleviate boredom, recycled food such as artificial bananas, gingerbread and shrimp made from, well, I’ll spare you Hayakawa’s detail. Oh, my goodness, living in housing like this (if you call this living), no wonder people eagerly reach for mind-expanding, feel good drugs. I think I’d do the same.
Kaboom!: A number of spectators in the upper seats listening to Hayakawa’s grand scheme evidently had a similar reaction: someone hurled a Molotov cocktail into the hall. Levelheaded Tichy flees to safety and reads the local newspaper the following day: “I was amazed to find articles full of saccharine platitudes on the theme of the tender bonds of love as the surest guarantee of universal peace – right beside articles that were full of dire threats, articles promising bloody repression or else an equally bloody insurrection.” Our cosmonaut reasons that some journalists have been drinking the water and some not.
Pandemonium: The violence escalates beyond the hotel. The government acts quickly, dropping LTN bombs on the undesirables. The results are not as anticipated – LTN stands for Love Thy Neighbor and some of the bombs hit their own riot police. Ijon Tichy witnesses: “Before my eyes policemen tore the masks from their faces and, shedding copious tears of remorse, fell to their knees and begged the demonstrators for forgiveness, pushing the billy clubs into their hands with fervent pleas to be severely beaten."
Escape: All hell breaks loose and Ijon and several other futurologists seek refuge down in the city’s sewer system. Among the many things they encounter are enormous sleek rats walking in single file on their hind legs. Ijon pinches himself, wondering if he is hallucinating. Nope – all of what he is experiencing is as real as real. Well, maybe.
Utopia/Dystopia: After a sequence of rescues from the city sewer system and the rats, after surgery and having been kept in deep freeze for years, Ijon is defrosted and wakes up in 2038. Ah, he can experience for himself humankind’s future New York City. Ijon quickly discovers chemicals to induce artificial worlds (psychems) are all the rage, how the city kids and teenagers are so considerate and sweet (that’s certainly a switch!), the weather is determined by vote, and how a plethora of words and expressions are new, new, new, new: threever, pingle, hemale, placize, cobnoddling, snthy and dozens more. If you enjoy language and word play, you will LOVE this Stanislaw Lem novel. On second thought, I think I’ll do a reread and lick the pages now and then. I’d advise you do the same.
Thanks to Goodreads friend Manny Rayner for bring this stunning classic of science fiction to my attention.
:
Stanislaw Lem (1921 - 2006), Polish author of satirical essays and science fiction, a writer with boundless imagination, laser-sharp mind, lively sense of humor and an uncanny ability to play chess, volleyball, Russian roulette and hundreds of other games with language. show less
Ijon Tichy is attempting to attend a conference of futurists when his hotel is attacked by terrorists with mind-altering gas. Through a series of absurd events, Tichy finds himself resurrected several decades in the future, when everyone relies on chemical supplements to provide them with all knowledge and emotion, perception-altering drugs that hide a distressing reality. This all sounds terribly dystopian and horrifying, and in some ways it is, but it is also pretty hilarious satire. It's one of those sorts of books where you just have to go with it, and pay special attention to the made-up words and random asides, many of which are the funniest parts of the book. I hadn't expected to so enjoy this book - I'd sort of expected it to be show more a bit of a slog, a book about an idea only tenuously strung together with plot - but this was quite a romp. The humor is dark, to be sure, but still quite entertaining. show less
Science fiction as satire has been done before (see Gulliver's Travels) as have narratives that make you question whether the main character's experiences are actually happening (see anything by Leo Perutz) but Lem does both well and at the same time to boot. The opening convention was funny, something I don't say about many books, and the final two thirds go far enough down the rabbit hole that it started to make me question my guess as to what was truly going on. Lem has range, a quality few science fiction authors possess, and even if I prefer his more straight-faced science fiction books this one was a lot of fun too.
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Author Information
Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem was born on September 12, 1921. A medical graduate of Cracow University, he is at home both in the sciences and in philosophy, and this broad erudition gives his writings genuine depth. He has published extensively, not only fiction, but also theoretical studies. His books have been translated into 41 show more languages and sold over 27 million copies. He gained international acclaim for The Cyberiad, a series of short stories, which was first published in 1974. A trend toward increasingly serious philosophical speculation is found in his later works, such as Solaris (1961), which was made into a Soviet film by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2002. He died on March 27, 2006 in Krakow at the age of 84. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards and Honors
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Dzieła Stanisława Lema (Wydawnictwo Gazety Wyborczej)
Caminho de Bolso (31)
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Futurological Congress
- Original title
- Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego. Kongres Futurologiczny in Bezsenność
- Original publication date
- 1971 (Kongres futurologiczny: Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego ) (Kongres futurologiczny: Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego ); 1974 (The Futurological Congress) (The Futurological Congress)
- People/Characters
- Ijon Tichy; Professor Trottelreiner; Jim Stantor; Aileen Rogers; George P. Symington; Yeyuama
- Important places
- Costa Rica; The Future
- Related movies
- The Congress (2014 | IMDb)
- First words
- The eighth world The Futurological Congress was held in Costa Rica.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then it occurred to me that this intense activity of his was heralding the beginning of the second day of deliberations of the Futurological Congress, and I burst into such violent laughter, that the manuscript slipped from his hands, hit the dark water with a splash, and floated away - off into the unknown future.
- Blurbers
- Sturgeon, Theodore
- Original language
- Polish
Classifications
- Genres
- Science Fiction, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 891.8537 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages East Indo-European and Celtic literatures West and South Slavic languages (Bulgarian, Slovene, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serbo-Croatian, and Macedonian) Polish Polish fiction 1919–1989
- LCC
- PG7158 .L39 .Z413 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Slavic Polish
- BISAC
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- 37
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- (3.97)
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- 17 — Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
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- 17