[ExI] Accelerando - and other recommendations, too

[Tomasz Rola]

On Tue, 2 Mar 2010, Damien Broderick wrote:

> On 3/2/2010 9:07 AM, Tomasz Rola wrote:
> 
> > Sometimes it seems strange to me that he did not get much publicity here
> > (or that he got no pub at all, actually).
> 
> Lem is well known among sf scholars, but his work is mostly too cerebral for

"SF scholars", that's the problem. I have long stopped thinking of Lem as 
of sf writer. He has just dressed his tales about human condition in such 
costume. To treat him as sf writer is, I think, like saying that Aesop was 
a zoologist :-).

Well, I am not suggesting you have any trouble with understanding that. 
But there is some kind of misunderstanding about Lem-sf connection.

> the mass market readers of adventures-in-space.

Yes, those guys expect something that Lem could not give to them. Or 
rather, his priorities were different. I am sure he would have been able 
to satisfy masses but I am happy he did otherwise.

> Kandel's translations are
> indeed brilliant. SOLARIS has of course been made into two movies (neither
> especially effective in my view, although the Tarkovsky is famous for its
> moody cinematography).

>From what Lem himself have said, he wasn't very fond of neither version. 
Even thou I still have to see Tarkovsky's Solaris, I am willing to believe 
him (but I want to watch and have my own opinion on this). As of 
Soderbergh's one, well, Natascha McE shines (sure, I like her as a woman) 
but the rest is just a shadow of the book. Actually, I have been signaled 
(thanks, Daniel Ust) that English translation of Solaris is (probably) a 
shadow of itself. Funny, kind of "a shadow in, a shadow out" case. BTW, 
I've just learned from wikipedia that there was another Solaris, back in 
1968 by Boris Nirenburg. Never heard of it before. Interesting.

I myself (and I am not alone in this, if I can be a judge) think the best 
film adaptations of Lem were those made with lower funds. Things like:

- "Przekladaniec" ("Layer Cake", by Adrzej Wajda, 1968) - this is so cool, 
so... Lemish!

- "Test pilota Pirxa" ("Test of Pirx the Pilot" [?], joint 
Polish/Russian/Estonian/Ukrainian production by Marek Piestrak, 1978) - 
while some people laugh at cheap special effects, I like to look deeper 
into this and concentrate on depiction of humanity test, which is the 
subject here (and not some hurried action with blowups and gadgets). As 
such, the film is similar to the famous "Blade Runner" masterpiece. It is 
based on "The Inquest" short story from "Tales of Pirx the Pilot".

Ah, Solaris-the-movie - I was sure someone would mention it :-) . I have 
this strange impression, that sf cinema is going down along kind of "toy 
story for children of ages 0-100" way. There are few notable exceptions, 
like once or twice in a decade. If we talk about mainstream and anybody 
reading this cared and was interested, I would suggest comparing 
I-robot-the-movie with Asimov's original. Not that there is much to 
compare on the one side.

So, I think the case of sf movies is the case of lost opportunity. 
Especially when one thinks that film is so much different medium than a 
book. Indeed, it requires a master to make use of a medium.

> I cite Lem at several key points in THE SPIKE, and "Golem XIV" remains
> astonishingly good as a treatment of a self-augmenting AI that
> transcends/sublimes.

Yes, being astonishingly good as time goes by, that's the proof mark of 
Lem's writings. But, considering how much his writings relied on science 
and technology' state of the art, what does it tell of us mortals?

As of THE SPIKE, I will keep it in mind ;-).

> Alas, SUMMA TECHNOLOGIAE has never been translated in
> full into English.

Oh, fawk. This is a real pity. I didn't know. It's like building an arc of 
stones and "forgeting" to put the closing stone in place - and 
consequently, messing the whole. Shame on you, US market, shame!

Somehow, however, I am not that much surprised. I would say, it fits into 
a bigger picture.

> I recall that an enthusiast started to translate some key
> chapters and put them on the net a decade or so back, but I've lost track of
> that attempt.

Seems like he is stuck a little... Hard to judge, but I mean, you mean 
this, right?

http://www.fprengel.de/Lem/Summa/contents.htm

I think this effort is worth a closer look.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **