Solaris
Letter
A. Bertram Chandler

Thank you for THE MENTOR 22. I read there in that you don’t want any- more book reviews, which is rather a pity, as I’ve just finished the much ballyhooed SOLARIS and would like to add my two bits' worth to what has already been written about that opus and its perpetrator. So, perhaps, you could regard this as a loc and not as a review?

No doubt the translators are partially to blame for the poor impression made by the book upon more than one reader. For example - I quote from Page 4 of the Faber & Faber edition - “The capsule gently descended, swaying with a peculiar slow-motion rhythm imposed on it by the artificial magnetic field...” And from Page 19 - “For almost a century, devices had existed capable of creating artificial magnetic and gravitational fields....”

Just what the hell is an artificial magnetic field? After all, we’ve been playing around with electro-magnetic fields for quite some time. And magnetism is magnetism is magnetism - permanent, semi-permanent, induced, electro-magnetic or whatever.

Still, I absolve Dr. Lem from blame regarding the foregoing. Translators, as I well know, do the oddest things. But he must be held fully responsible for the old fashioned quality of the writing. It has been said by quite a few people that science fiction from the wrong side - well, it’s not the Right side - of the Iron Curtain is old fashioned. One reason given for this is that such science fiction uses ideas that we, in the decadent West, have been kicking around for years and have, in most cases, finally kicked on to the rubbish dump. But, I realise, there is another reason. Had I not read Larry Nivens’ RING WORLD - and that is science fiction at its best - before reading Lems SOLARIS, it might not have occurred to me.

SOLARIS belongs back in the Bad Old Days (a wowser might refer to them as the Good Old Days) of science fiction, when stories were written by, for and about Boy Scouts. Almost everything carried a U Certificate; the R Certificate had not been dreamed of. Although many of the magazines flaunted covers depicting underdressed blondes being menaced by Bems there was no, repeat no, adult treatment of S*X. That puritanical attitude seems to be part and parcel of orthodox Communism. Recently I asked a faithful reader in the USSR about Naturism - it sounds better than Nudism - in his neck of the woods. I learned (a) that there was no Naturist Movement in Holy Russia, and (b) that there almost certainly never would be and (c) (by inference) that he was rather shocked by my query.

T0 revert to RING WORLD - Larry Niven handles S*X well. It isn’t dragged in by the hair, kicking and screaming. (Did you ever hear the story about the hippie girl who was picked up by the fuzz? It hurt....) Louis Wu’s relationship with Teela Brown and, towards the finish of the story, with Halrloprillalar Eotrufan (Prill) are essentially part of the plot. They arc handled neither pornographically nor with simpering coyness. Getting back to SOLARIS Lem shies away from the potentially interesting situation that he, himself, has created aboard his Solaris Station.

Rheya - to be more exact, Rheya’s simulacrum - appears to Kelvin who, together with Snow and Sartorius, is as dim-witted as the average “scientist” in the Bad old Days of American science fiction. The original Rheya was Kelvin’s Lost Love; presumably they had gone to bed together.

The ersatz Rheya is wearing a beach dress. Kelvin wants her to take it off - no, not for the obvious reason, but so that she can change into a suit of overalls - but finds that this garment has no fasteners, only ornam­ental rather than functional buttons. So he picks up a scalpel that just happens to be loafing around and slits the dress down the back from neck to waist, so that she can pull it over her head. (I’d have thought that it would have been easier for her just to step out of it....) What was she wearing underneath it, if anything? Lem doesn’t say. Surely his protagonist/narrator would have shown some interest. Were there any birthmarks, moles or scars in interesting places to show whether or not the ersatz Rheya was an exact copy of the original? Any less prudish writer would, at this stage, have produced some evidence pro or con.

Later on Kelvin and Rheya do sleep together. Literally. We are not told if they did anything else. What was the original Rheya like in bed? What was the Made-On-Solaris Rheya like in bed? Was there no difference, a slight difference or one helluva difference between the two? It’s no good asking Dr,Lem. He treats his characters like his patients, being bound to secrecy.

He does go so far as to tell us that the playmate provided by Solaris for Gilbarian - who did away with himself (why?) prior to Kelvin’s arrival at the Station - was a huge negress, who is still galumphing around clad, only in a yellow straw skirt. But he does nothing but hint at the nature of the succubi produced by the benevolent(?) living ocean for Snow and Sartorius. Towards the finish these two dimwits are conferring with Kelvin on closed circuit TV - they will not allow him into their quarters - and Kelvin catches a fleeting glimpse of something pink and gleaming (a fat, naked little boy? a pig?) on Snow’s screen, while Sartorius seems to be afflicted by a yellow straw hat. (Remember the old rhyme? Under the spreading blue gum tree / The dinkum Aussie sat... That’s as far as even I dare go.) Anyhow, Snow and Sartorius are so secretive that one gains the impression that they must have led past lives of incredibly fascin­ating kinkiness.

In conclusion, if you like the so-called classics exhumed by Ted White, then SOLARIS is for you. I read it right through (a) because I had nothing else to read and (b) because there aren’t any bookshops in the middle of the Bass Strait.

© 2007 Used with kind permission of Susan Chandler and her agents, JABberwocky Literary Agency, PO Box 4558, Sunnyside, NY 11104-0558 USA. The "John Grimes" novels of A. Bertram Chandler are available in electronic form for your Palm OS handheld at Palm Digital Media. They are also available through the Science Fiction Book Club to readers in the US and Canada.

© www.bertramchandler.com, David Kelleher 2007