Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

[I refuse to use the film tie-in cover]

Synopsis

A psychologist arrives at a research space station called Prometheus, his mission to ascertain whether research into the mysterious planet of Solaris should be terminated. He finds Prometheus all but deserted, its straggling crew seemingly haunted by hallucinations of figures from their pasts.

 

What Did We Think

[Glyn's Note: I wasn't present for this session and the notes were kindly taken by Al Shipman. What follows are his transcriptions with some minor editing by yours truly. I've added a few comments of my own in square brackets - much like this one, some with some factual background, others with my opinions.]

[First opinions seem to be negative...] Rachel struggled to have an opinion whilst Susan thought badly written, and didn’t hold her attention, so had to skim, and even then didn’t get to end of book. Susan felt that being a Russian translation was not a valid excuse and what came across was lazy writing [I should point out that firstly, Lem was Polish not Russian (major faux pas), and secondly that the translation commonly available in English is actually a translation of a French translation, so I feel bad that Lem might be being misrepresented here]. These feelings tended to provoke speed reading, thus the reader could easily go on to miss the context and undervalue the prose. Several people agreed with these points to varying degrees, and most people chose to skip the internalized dialogue of Kelvin.

Al felt that the way Russians [Poles!] tend to write, very introspectively, and the significant age of the work (before many aspects of modern science and before the full emergence of psychology as a science) were significant challenges for the modern western reader. Rachel suggested this was in part due to the book being very much of it’s time in the sixties [Solaris was written in 1961, the English translated was released in 1970]. Liz wondered if it was all in Kelvin’s mind. Elaine sympathised with this viewpoint. The book was very intense but had a slow narrative, with stunted dialogue. Elaine suggested that it started better than it finished…she was very disappointed by the end. Although later in the discussion Al pointed out how moving and pertinent the closing line was “…I persist in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past”, and several people did find this line to be quite moving, and was food for further thought for Elaine also.

Liz could see why it was picked up for a movie, as it reads very cinematically. No exposition of the story. Susan noted that lots of things could have been left out. Rachel liked the oddness of the lack of narrative, and felt that this was done on purpose.

The sense of personal loss in the story was perhaps understated. Rheya’s sacrifice was met with mixed viewpoints. Considered quite surreal. There was some discussion of the Rheya’s .. past read and present representation, both suicidal. Al suggested that the recent movie adaptation made much more of the role of Rheya. Some amusement over what was going on in in Sartorius’s laboratory. The ocean as an immature child god growing and learning on a galactically slow timescale. The subjectivity of their attitudes was noted by Al to detract from true scientific approach, and therefore discredited their ‘studies’. Furthermore Kelvin wasn’t very convincing as a psychologist. He was too immotive, even from the start. Hardly likely.

It was strange that Kelvin, and thereby the readers, do not experience the ocean close up until the end of the book, though this was very possibly deliberate. Al commented that the recent film adaptation was highly effective, addressing many of the concerns raised in the discussion. The producers saw fit to change the ending. In one sense this was very odd, as the moving final line was lost. On the other hand, the cinematic ending was not untrue to the spirit of the book and raised a number of interesting points that were not a million miles from the spirit of the book. By the end of the discussion, there had been a degree of re-assessment by the members of the group.

Final votes out of ten were: 9,6,6,6,7,8. Final score: 7/10

There was much enthusiasm for next months book, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical

[Coda: I am a big fan of this book and acknowledge there are stylistic problems and its possibly not as sophisticated in its prose as some other science fiction has proven to be - this however could be down to the double translation issue (I'd be interested in reading the original, but since that would involve learning a language I have absolutely no grounding in it is clearly not going to happen). For me Solaris is a classic example of 60s/70s science fiction which is exploding established tropes and perceived truths. In Solaris Lem is examining the idea of the alien in a way which is in equal turns frustrating and pessimistic, completely odds with earlier visions of aliens which are humans with funny names and a different colour skin. Solaris is a relatively rare view of an alien which is genuinely alien, and thus completely incomprehensible to humanity. As a Pole, Lem is probably better placed to write this kind of fiction than anyone else given that Poland has frequently in its recent history been subjected to alien languages and cultures and experiences incomprehensible traumas and situations beyond the control of its populace or government. For me Lem remains on of the most important, and least recognised, authors of science fiction operating at his time, and Solaris a keystone of his work. - Glyn]

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Synopsis

Imagine a distant world where gods walk as men, but wield vast and hidden powers. Here they have made the stage on which they build a subtle pattern of alliance, love, and deadly enmity. Are they truly immortal? Who are these gods who rule the destiny of a teeming world? Their names include Brahma, Kali, Krishna and also he who was called Buddha, the Lord of Light, but who now prefers to be known simply as Sam. 

What Did We Think?

 (Notes Coming Soon)



Votes were as follows: 8, 9, 9, 9, a 6 given in absentia, plus two abstains

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Synopsis

It's the week before Hallowe'en, and Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois. The siren song of the calliope entices all with promises of youth regained and dreams fulfilled ...And as two boys trembling on the brink of manhood set out to explore the mysteries of the dark carnival's smoke, mazes and mirrors, they will also discover the true price of innermost wishes ...

What Did We Think?

 That we read this book over the month of October, that is to say - over Halloween, was entirely serendipitous.

Most of us were delighted by Bradbury's most famous horror title, finding it unique and original despite its archetypal status. What most impressed everyone however was the stylised language Bradbury uses to tell his story. The prose is flowery and beautiful and creates an atmosphere which is at once tense, sinister and immersive, however it also makes the book nigh on impossible to skim.

There's a definite air of nostalgia around the two main characters: William "Will" Halloway and Jim Nightshade, both thirteen year old boys. So powerful is this nostalgia for an innocent childhood that at times it can be overly sweet and cloying. That said, his representation of the boys as two sides of the same coin was refreshingly different from the normally lazy characterisation of such figures in horror or boys-own-adventures, where normally duplicate children are all more or less the same and only more than one so that they have someone to talk to.

Whilst nicely drawn, more interesting than the boys were the chief villain, Mr. Dark: a powerful and exciting Faustian character, and Will's father Charles. Charles Halloway is an inciteful and complexly brilliant character with doubts and philosophies which come across as being honest and representative of genuine wisdom, possibly Bradbury's own (he was 42 when this novel was published in 1962). There are no significant female characters to speak of, and those that do exist seem to conform to the classical template of the maid, the mother and the crone, although this fits with the novel if seen as a boys-own-adventure story.

Obviously this was one of the first novels, if not the first, to exploit the circus freak mystique for horror purposes (although one wonders whether Bradbury had seen the 1932 horror film Freaks). Its influence on media as diverse as the TV show Carnivàle and Stephen King's It are clear (King references the novel is several fictions of his own, notable The Dead Zone)

What detracted from the novel was, paradoxically, what also made it so beautiful - the florid language making it at times hard to follow, especially if read in short bursts. Also, possibly a symptom of its age, the horror of the novel was far less horrific than would be liked in a modern novel, indeed it might be more acurate to consider it a suspense novel than a horror novel.

Nevertheless, there was an overall positive reaction to this book and a strong appreciation for Bradbury's skill as an author.

Votes were as follows: 9, 9, 8, 7, 7, 7, 7, 5

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

Synopsis

Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller - these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. Slaughterhouse 5 is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

What Did We Think?

Vonnegut's most acclaimed work is a darkly funny book, peculiar and strange as it hops around all over the place. Part memoir, part (anti)war fiction, part science fiction, its a very difficult book to categorise. For example, we're reading this as part of a science fiction/ fantasy book club - so is it science fiction? We found that depends wildly on your reading of the text. So slight and carefully crafted is the plot that it can be read as being all a wild delusion on the part of Billy Pilgrim, that the time travelling and alien abduction are the result of his Dresden induced trauma interplaying with the dementia his daughter is certain he has. On the other hand you can read it as a literal truth, that it happened (or happens) exactly as Billy claims it does. In either case, some found the lack of definitive science fictional content, particularly with regards to the nature of Billy's time travelling, to be disappointing.

Something that was almost unanimous was a feeling that the novel was extremely honest. There was a sense that Vonnegut contemplated deeply on the question of how to write a war novel, how to understand the point of war. If any. Again, Vonnegut's skill as a writer shone through in that you cannot clearly say that this is an explicitly anti-war novel, rather it is a story which emphasises the pointlessness and pathetic nature of war and leaves you to draw your own conclusions, it very pointedly avoids soapboxing.

Another point of discussion was that of Billy Pilgrim himself, a character Universally seen as being almost unbelievable pathetic, and yet also painfully normal. An observer in his own life he was found to be both frustrating and hard to sympathise with. It was decided that this aspect of his character was almost certainly deliberate and could be a point about passivity and acceptance, or it could be a criticism that people tend to cruise through their lives without sieving the moment. On a more practical note, it could be that Pilgrim's passive nature was a narrative necessity in order to add credence to the idea to the Tralfamadorian model of time being fixed and free-will being non existent.

Overall, feeling towards the book was positive although there was significant disagreement over several issues raised. The group found it hard to agree about what the book actually stood for, or what certain sections and elements meant. Rather than a criticism of the novel however, this is testament to the complex and engaging nature of Slaughterhouse 5.

The votes were as follows: 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10

The audio book received considerable praise from Al, it's narrated by Ethan Hawke and has an interesting interview with the author at the end.

Also: in reply to a sub-discussion we had. Yes, the book has been banned and censored from its publication in 1969 right up to the modern day. It ranked 46th in the American Library Association list of the most frequently banned/challenged books to 2000-2009.

Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick

Plot Synopsis

Mars is a desolate world. Largely forgotten by Earth, the planet remains helpless in the stranglehold of Arnie Kott, who as boss of the plumber's union has a monopoly over the vital water supply. Arnie Kott is obsessed by the past; the native Bleekmen, poverty-stricken wanderers, can see into the future; while to Manfred, an autistic boy, time apparently stops. When one of the colonists, Norbert Steiner, commits suicide, the repercussions are startling and bizarre.


What Did We Think?

Philip K. Dick is always good for interesting discussions, if not only because he can so split his readers but because everyone tends to take different things from his work. Found to be both compelling and 'disturbing in parts', Martian Time-Slip was written in 1964 and touches on some typical Dick themes such as questions of reality.

A lot of attention was given to the characters in the novel. Praise was lavished on their flawed natures, the fact that the "villains" have redeeming features and the "heroes" have severe flaws, that everyone has neuroses of some description from Dr. Milton Glaub's extreme feelings of inadequacy to the schizophrenia of our prime protagonist Jack Bohlen. A major message of the novel seems to be that everyone is abnormal and thus abnormal is normal. In this way the book was very non-judgemental of humanity's foibles.

Interestingly, the subject of the novel's female characters came up and they were revealed as being more two-dimensional than many of the male characters, not necessarily negative stereotypes but certainly drawn from stock female tropes (the widow, the wife, the mistress, and so on). This was, however, recognised not as a sign of Dick's chauvanims, but rather a sign that feminism wasn't on his list of issues, he was writing for and about very different things.

Taking the novel as metaphor it is at once the Wild West, with remote homesteads, limited resources, prospectors, and peculiar natives; whilst at the same time it's also 1960s LA with sordid backroom dealings, power struggles and a dog-eat-dog race for superiority.

However, whether mirroring Wild West, or contemporary LA society, the novel ultimately shows that society, like sanity may appear superficially functional but is at heart completely dysfunctional.

As ever, the novel's ending was found to be perplexing. Dick has always taken a different approach to endings, refusing to tie things up neatly into conclusive packages and is perfectly content to leave questions hanging and loose ends blowing in the narrative wind (it's something Stanislaw Lem praised him for). This lends an unsatisfactory aftertaste to the novel for readers who either dislike Dick's trippy style or the manner in which he chooses to conclude his adventures.

In summary, the novel was largely (but not exclusively) enjoyed, it generated some interesting discussions on time, place and perception (which I cannot hope to do full credit to here - so please continue the discussions in the comments section below), whilst stylistically awkward, and for some perplexing, the relationships and the manner in which Dick draws his characters was enough of an anchor that many of the readers left the novel feeling satisfied.


The average score given to Martian Time-Slip was 7

The votes fell as follows: 4, 5, 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8