The process of reading Lem made me think of Zhang Dachun's false and real quotation in "The Violent Regiment of the City-State": I always doubted whether the theories, hypotheses, effects, and rigorous scientific reasoning on which the books were constructed were not nonsense by Lem. Of course, I knew that he was proficient in chemistry, physics, engineering, and mathematics, had an IQ of 180, and had been a soldier, a doctor, an engineer, and finally a science fiction writer, a philosopher, and a futurist, nowhere higher than Asimov, who did not even dare to sit on an airplane. But how did he know, step by step, how to repair, erect, and launch a rocket that had crashed on an alien planet? There is a book on Amazon called "How to Make a Nuclear Reactor," and Lem is even more exaggerated in comparison: a seven-man squad of neuromechanists, chemists, physicists, doctors, engineers, etc. digs escape tunnels from forty meters underground, repairs robots, guard planes, and nuclear reactors, purifies nuclear wastewater, and drives off-road vehicles with huge tires on an eccentric planet, trying to communicate with alien creatures. In the process, Lemmer spared every knob, every metal door, every curved pipe, and every alien spectacle. It's an excellent process of getting a feel for what "realism" is—certainly not the kind that Lem once mocked—but faithful to detail and objective depiction, even if it's just another world in the imagination.
Rhyme
"The closest science fiction writer to the Nobel Prize"
It's hard to classify Lem's science fiction work as a regular genre novel. If a bookstore puts Solaris Star and Marvel on the same floor of the bookshelf, they are either too stupid or ridiculing science fiction literature. Both "Batman" and Lem's "Fiasco" are about human nature, and the key is the reader's choice —whether it's popcorn crumbs on the couch or imaginative spectacles. The Song of Lyona in the mid-1970s and the Fiasco of the mid-1980s are a kind of symbol: the early works of George Martin's greatest genius and the unsurpassed works of Lem, they invariably try to explore the motif of "understanding" – and they are both crazy and do not hesitate to destroy themselves or others. These various "madnesses" are the essence of science fiction: the search for the inner essence and spiritual extension of "man" in some extreme settings, and the limitations of human beings as one of the ordinary species in the vast universe determined by them. The joy that bursts out of it, which belongs to the science fiction genre alone, seems to me far greater than all other genres of fiction. Lem's book is one of the most representative of these.
Fiasco by Lem
Every brilliant science fiction writer seems to be unable to be reproduced and imitated, Especially Lyme. In the fusion of philosophy and science, Lem has achieved a height that has never been seen before, and there is a high probability that there is no one to come. Many Western critics will place Lemme in the position of "the closest science fiction writer to the Nobel Prize in Literature", in order to show that Lem has transcended the category of "science fiction writers" and stepped into the great hall of serious literature and even pure literature. The brilliance of reality and aesthetics revealed in these works is stronger than that of most literary works, and the vastness of the world and the profundity of their ideas are difficult to summarize with the cheap commentary that "Polish science fiction has been elevated to the world level by one's own efforts". The reflections on social form in Eden and the serious reasoning about game theory in Fiasco are everywhere in Lemme's book, accompanied by just the right amount of satirical humor, camera-like dispassionate statements, and the staggered progression of mecha and speculation constitutes a wonderful reading pleasure.
Eden by Lemme
On the other hand, the atmosphere of suspense from start to finish runs through much of Lem's science fiction work: the characters seem to be in some kind of unexplained dilemma. Pilots pilot Giant Pacific Rim mechs and make futile rescue operations in the ice and snow of titans; a giant spaceship called Invincible needs to give the most rational explanation for the strange things on its sister ship; and a newcomer in the middle of the Alien Ocean needs to know who is playing his deceased lover. There is no doubt that if Lem could be parachuted into the modern society of the twenty-first century, his influence would definitely transcend race, language, borders and skin color, and we would see his name in front of countless BBC, Amazon and Netflix series.
The riddle is still a riddle
Countless science fiction writers have fantasized about various kinds of contacts with extraterrestrial life, thus creating an indisputable core problem that needs to be solved urgently. Unlike most science fiction novels, Lem's pessimism about "contact," "understanding," and even human science pervades the lines—and he even takes this pessimism as the title of his book in his later years: Fiasco. In one of his most important and brilliant papers, only a dozen pages long, he sought to show that even the most abstract, theoretical, and mathematical scientific achievements were in fact only a step or two away from our prehistoric, rough-sense, anthropomorphic understanding of the world around us. Whether in the theory of relativity and the formula of the force field, or in the superstatic theory and the hypothesis of the unified cosmic field, Gratenström can feel traces of the human body, all of which are derived from our sensory existence, the structure of our organisms, and the limitations and weaknesses of human animal physiology, and are the direct result of them. In Solaris, this passage, spoken through the mouth of a scientist, represents the most frustrating aspect of Lem's view of science: the riddle is still a riddle. In Lem's work, humans have so many ways of "seeing" aliens—fiasco, Solaris, and the Voice of its Lord, all of which, without exception, show the stupidity of humans with great fanfare.
Solaris Star by Lemme
It is difficult to examine where Lem's pessimistic view of science comes from. You could argue that Lem is "reasonably" extrapolating this inaccurable and incomprehensible state of affairs between humans and aliens. This reasoning is faithfully revealed in Fiasco in a conversation between the all-powerful computer and the captain named "God", and culminates in the computer's last words: "Captain, since you already know what you have to do, why discuss with a machine at night for half a day, and not go to bed?" In Lem's eyes, even if humans have become "gods of the universe" who can manipulate stars and travel through black holes, their narrow thinking and laughable limitations will still be unshakably hindered in their dreams. The word "fiasco" first appears in a human mouth in the last third of the book, when it is given its meaning, and the true meaning of the title is not revealed until the last moment of the book.
The Voice of Its Lord by Lem
The beginning's doubts didn't last long: once I accepted Lem's implicit mockery of everything, it was hard for me to believe that he could give up his right to "serious nonsense" in lengthy scientific terms. When the rapid development of science has made "de-detailing" not only an inevitable option in daily life, but even an inevitable option in scientific research, you should expect that science fiction writers also have such a small skill as making scientific terms. In fact, scientific researchers are not bored enough to question whether the thiawasite used by Lem is really reasonable, they will only whisper a few words when reading "The Voice of its Lord": Mother, I would like to go to the depths of the desert to study the mysterious code sent from the depths of the universe! It is this uninterrupted spirit of curiosity, inquiry, and exploration—the cornerstone of human nature that builds the most exciting core of most science fiction novels, and in this respect Lem is no different from those of us science fiction enthusiasts: arrogantly, this is what I am most proud of as a human species. At this point, I remembered the mocking eyes behind the small round lenses in Lem's portrait, and the smile that came out of the corners of his mouth, as if to say: You see, you humans are starting to be stupid again.
About the Author:
Wu Qi, college teacher, doctor of electronics, science fiction enthusiast. (Editor-in-charge: Li Jing)