Got it much better than the movie, although I can appreciate now what the movie was trying to do (somewhat successfully even). Respect Clooney for a damned good attempt, even a good movie given a little context. The unintended tormenters bit was fascinating, the descriptions of geological phenomena less so. ( )

Its one of those classics that you always hear mentioned and talked about as something influential, I always expect this kind of book or movie to have a size to it, a sense of large scale, and its always so surprising when its not. I didn't anything about it, havent seen either movie, and its intimacy and smallness of scale made it feel like a book I discovered in the back of a library instead of it being a pillar of the genre.

I love when an artist (author, writer, music etc) creates something that feels like it was exactly what they wanted to make, that isn't bound by popular conventions or genre, or constricted by the money. This kind of creation is always unique and interesting, it also means that there will be chapters in the book that are so fucking boring and out of place, there are chapters in the middle and at the end of this book that feature the protagonist going to a library and reading about the fake research history of this fake planet. I love lore, and worldbuilding, but it needs to be slow and incremental, dotted throughout the plot that I'm actually engaged with, not a sudden 15 page chunk of information about mimoids and symmetriads and asymmetriads. this is the other issue with how Lem wrote this expostion, he gets to a point where there is too much detail for it be interesting or for me to really take any of it in, It takes away from such an ethereal and esoteric setting, information overload ruins that feeling partially, especially if you need to visualise everything you read like me, it will make for a slower read.

I get the impression that Stanislaw Lem was a nerdy man who was obsessed with history, especially science history. Maybe because of this and the time and place he grew up in, women didn't appear as complete human beings to him, and I'm not saying that because the women in Solaris are literally objects to the main created for the main characters, but because that is purpose they serve. Sometimes when I'm reading or watching something, its easy to forget that people and events don't just happen like they do in real life, I have to remind myseld that every character and every action was a descision made by the author, so when this mans wife who died at 19 comes back to him 10 years later without aging a day and the only thing she wants to do is be near him, thats a bit strange, but not horrible, just something to think about. Also the first woman you see in the book is black and the only reason I know that is because she is introduced as a "negress". not necessary and weird.

I read solaris and it will be a long time before I read it again if I ever do, because it's one of those ones that leaves and impact as soon as close it, and impact that would be lessened by coming back to it. I think it was beautiful, and it took me to a beatiful place, Lem can be so visual in the world that he constructed. There is a feeling of a history and a world that is so much larger than one person, and larger than one person could normally comprehend and i think that the book, especially the last few chapters, is about coming to terms with something so overwhelming, and it has helped me come to terms with that a feeling a little more then I was able to before solaris. ( )

Worth reading for the concept of the 'ocean' but a bit dated with some of the tech and language. ( )

Wildly sexist ( )

De lo mejor de la ciencia ficción. ( )