Despite his philosophical pessimism toward humanity, Lem's most important identity is that of a science fiction writer, and his unique imagination is the most important reason why his work has survived to this day. In addition to writing novels, in some essays, Lem will also draw illustrations by hand, figuratively presenting the whimsical ideas in his head. Lem's science fiction works also attracted a large number of later readers, who were inspired by this to draw many illustrations of magical objects that appeared in Lyme's novels, and the style inherited Lem's pessimism about technology, making the machines in these illustrations look ruined or silent.
This article is from B04-B05 of the October 16 feature of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly, "Lem: A Pioneer of Polish Science Fiction".
"Theme" B01 丨Stanisław Lem: Polish science fiction pioneer
Theme b02-B03 | Imaginary boundaries and insurmountable humanity
"Theme" B04-B05 丨 Imaginary Atlas of Strange Life
"History" B06-B07丨The Birth of "Purgatory": The Pursuit of the "Happy" Ending
"Literature" B08 | "Future Memories" is a keen capture and extensive echo of the information of the times
Written by | Diptera
A line draft for self-amusement
Lemm hand-drawn line drawings.
Lem brings paradoxes. Sometimes his work is too serious, forgetting his humorous nature and rich and mocking imagination. A serious literary writer usually tends to be realistic, and even if he is obsessed with fantasy, he is whimsical, deep into the subtleties of human nature, and still appears cold. Lyme went through extraordinary times, and serious realism was not a viable option. He wouldn't choose to seal his pen. Fairy tales, or witty science fiction for all ages, become a realistic way out. If Lem's "hardcore" science fiction focuses on the pure unknown of the universe, the fundamental limitations of human beings, and the power and confusion of science; Lem's fairy tale works, although less serious, still express the vastness of the universe, the absurdity of human nature, and the charm of imagination in a self-deprecating way. Lem understands the tastes and boundaries of thought, he tells fairytale-like fantasy creatures in an adult way, and his goal is to map people's hearts without falling behind. Thus, his fairy tales or witty stories are closer to the adventure narratives and worldly plots of one thousand and one nights, and his satire of reality is similar to the beings in the hell chapter of Dante's Divine Comedy. He takes science fantasy as his path and human self-deprecation as his aim, and what he writes is not a myth, but a true postmodern imagination.
Hunchback robot.
In order to create and entertain himself, Lem will paint in his own handwriting, almost all of which are line drawings, which look rough, but have a clear theme and a clear bone. Lem also illustrated for his Star Trek Diary. "Their expressiveness [of illustration] undoubtedly helps to understand texts that may be obscure," he says. His paintings are numerous and varied in style: "A Stoolmaid", "A bibod" and "An Octabod"; "Pismaczek-pismaczek" of animals resembling bada shanren; "Brutalik" and "Kalkulator" who resemble half-man, half-horse gods. There are the "Garbaty Robot" (Louis XIX) who resembles Kong Yiji and the "Old Steam Robot" (Louis XIX) who dominates the throne; there is the apocalyptic "A Hasty Man of the Post-automobile Era" who has a great apocalyptic meaning and resembles the large roller transportation facilities in the novel "Eden"; there is the "In" with a contemporary minimalist abstract design style the Time Loop) and "A Brick from the Stars"; "A Family in a Tube" (can be squeezed out) with the rather postmodern installation style; and the ironic "An Author of SF", "A Gentle Extraterrestrial" and "A Gentle Extraterrestrial" and " A Confiscated Man". Most of the paintings resemble illustrations in the corner of the newspaper, alluding to Lem's subject matter, his style, and Lem's spicy and witty personality.
Stool child servant.
Old steam robot.
Mruz: closest illustrator to the Lyme style
Time detector.
Daniel Mróz is a Polish illustrator, graphic designer and scenographer who is very close to Lem's personal style. The illustrations he created for the Master Robot series are artistic. Lem's foreign translations also used his illustrations, as did two of Chinese translations. Because of their thematic creation, Mruze's illustrations are more systematic and more restrained than Lyme himself. Lem's personal paintings are postmodern in the apocalyptic style, and Mruz's robots seem to have just entered the atomic age. They have a pre-modern clumsiness, rusticity. Their components are full of monumental tranquility, grandeur and desolation. At the same time, they are packed with elements and dressed in a bohemian cyberpunk style, mockingly imitating human morality, control, and love. The protagonists of the story, Truller and Krapautius, are able to create robots that satisfy all kinds of fantastic ideas, either bringing them good luck or destroying the world. They travel the world with robots. Any small probability event will always happen, and they have created a quantized probabilistic dragon, a substitute for love and fertility, a time detector that uses blow-up time to start, and three robots that tell Russian matryoshka-style stories. In general, they pursue science, art, and a certain morality, but they often make mistakes. The survival machine that should realize truth, goodness and beauty always ends in failure. A robot to death believes that two plus two equals seven. A robot can make everything that begins with the letter N and ends up with a world full of holes. A robot surrounded by atomic components eats several tons of science and poetry, writes poems of mathematics and love, and finally returns to confusion. Synthetic virtue technology pushes the Futurology Congress-style society to the extreme. They also encountered a self-confident Sphinx gatekeeper with a big face and countless strange eyes. For many readers, robots of all kinds are the most direct way to learn about Lyme's intelligence and humor.
"Two plus two equals seven" robots. Lem had read Kant and quoted him from time to time, and he was at least familiar with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Kant focused on everyday problems, specifically arguing why "seven plus five equals twelve." He believes that this is the innate nature of human beings. Lem's machine is not human, it cries out firmly "two plus two equals seven", it can not change this intuitive feeling, so it destroys what it passes, and finally perishes. Its behavior may seem absurd, but perhaps for its world, two plus two equals seven. It was a world that humanity could not understand and therefore destroyed. You see, the robot in the painting has seven vertebrae in its big mouth. Perhaps Truller made robots haphazardly, but in the end, "Seven" laid the foundation for its worldview.
Attach importance to the diploma of the big face Ganbang. The big-eyed face is definitely a nightmare for people with secret fears. However, the big face Ganbang is not terrible, he is just a guy with a full of clichés. He was friendlier than Sphinx. His fate is somewhat like Borges's "well-informed Funes." His fate was even worse. He claims to love knowledge, and knowledge is just an excuse for his greed. Eventually, countless, detailed points of knowledge poured into him, including himself.
Electronic poet. Liu Cixin's novel "Poetry Cloud" writes about how the poetry software uses interstellar life and death to create cosmic poetry. Lem's characters started a little earlier than him, tinkering with the universe for the sake of art. Krapautius laughed at Truller's robot, not even knowing that two plus two equals several. Truller decided to build something more advanced, a machine that could write poetry. Poetry comes from civilization, and he wants to simulate society and the universe. His electronic poets generate chaos, generate stars, generate evolution, generate history. He succeeded, and the electronic poet not only wrote cyber erotic love poems, but also celebrated the mathematics of love. But people were jealous of the electronic poet, and Truller had to sell it.
The challenge of cover illustration
In contrast to exploring the alien image of the Eden twin, the cover design of Fiasco was a challenge. The Quinta people are a mystery, a technical narrative thread throughout the book, and a mystery about the limits of human existence throughout the book. Not spoilers, and not suitable for spoilers. Spoilers will bring terrible reductionism to Fiasco, which runs counter to the main thrust of the novel. But how to target both the Quintas and avoid the Quintas – the cover artist of Fiasco is prone to fiasco.
From left to right, the cover of the Chinese version of Fiasco, the Portuguese version, and the American version.
The cover of the Chinese edition adopts an abstract style, nesting and distance between the planets, and more scenes showing humans crossing time and space, using black holes, and reaching Kunta. The Cover of the Portuguese edition depicts a quiet scene before the probe ship falls into the clouds, perhaps corresponding to two highly cinematic contact plots in the novel. The American cover attempts to summarize the main thrust of the novel, thus largely abandoning the intuitiveness of cover art. It uses poker to indicate the odds, the "airship" built by poker to indicate the probability of contact, the maze to represent the incomprehensibility of Quinta from beginning to end, and the stare of human heads raised from the ground to show the relationship between Quinta and humans. In short, the original "Fiasco" is extremely abstract and complex in the novel, and it is difficult to match the intuitive art of the cover.
Perfect Vacuum is equally complex, but many cover authors focus on the themes of self-creation and self-gaze. Whether it's card ventilation, surreal wind, or ghostly wind, the cover design of Perfect Vacuum always alludes to Escher's paradoxical paintings. Of course, there is no shortage of artistic covers that attempt to save trouble, such as "Futurology Congress" and "The Voice of its Lord", which directly borrow from Bosch and Dali respectively, and connect Lem's spiritual world to the imaginary hell and the frozen paradise.
The Perfect Vacuum
Some believe that the image of Lem himself is similar to his life and world. Lem's official website shows the life and official photos of Lyme from 1925 to 2005, which are quite complete compared with his contemporaries, showing one aspect of his life and creation. He is sometimes serious, but most of the time, his expression is witty and lively, more in line with the tune of "Futurology Congress" and "Robot Master".
Lyme with rocket model.
Lem read a lot of books, lived through turbulent times, and later made a living as a writer. His own life was relatively disciplined and restrained in order to absorb enough knowledge, enrich his mind enough, and create enough complex works. Over time, his appearance became both rigorous, lively and wise. Netizens at home and abroad feel that Lem himself is like Master Yoda in "Star Wars". Yoda is miniature in appearance, destined to grow old, young in appearance, always full of wisdom. Lem is indeed very similar to it, belonging to the kind of wonderful life that travels through the vastness of the universe and the human mind.
Written | Diptera
Edit | Miyako
Proofreading | Xue Jingning