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Title: The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy by Stanislaw Lem ISBN: 0-15-634040-2 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 01 October, 1985 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.77 (22 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Level upon level of illusion
Comment: Ijon Tichy is the calm, but worried and fascinated witness of a world gone astray. In the book's first part, he arrives at the Hilton hotel to participate in the eighth futurological congress, which is soon ruined by the local revolution; the situation degenerates further when the governement awkwardly tries to control it by using various substances. After what appears to be a 40 year-long 'stay' in liquid nitrogen, Tichy has to encounter a world profoundly affected by 'psycho-chemistry'. In all of the worlds - 'real' or illusory - that he visits, Tichy walks in the middle of prisoners (in the Platonic sense) rendered defenseless in the bottom of their cavern; the prisoners are not only the unknowing victims of the illusions, but also the vain and mischievous demiurges who perpetrate them. In such worlds, craving for knowledge has been reduced to a mere search for formulas and chemical products whose only role is to provoke the desired reactions and keep all the citizens in a state of sleep. Tichy is alone in perceiving what is positive about getting rid of complete servitude, but the world Lem depicts in the book is so oversaturated with different levels of illusions that such a hope can only lead to failure. Thus, even though Tichy is one of the sole half-liberated prisoners of the whole book, he remains a prisoner all the same and is ultimately comforted by the least threatening of the various lies. Like the others, Tichy is caught up in a world whose web of illusions he can't totally understand.
Rating: 5
Summary: Livin' the lap of luxury...maybe...
Comment: This book will make you think of the world differently. I guarantee that you will question the value of subjectivity by the time you're done.
Lately, I've been asking friends to loan me books that changed their lives or that have found particularly noteworthy. I asked this in an attempt to broaden my reading background and also to learn more about my friends. I've always considered myself a science/speculative fiction fan but had never heard of Stanislaw Lem until this book was loaned to me. After this wonderful first experience, I will certainly be tracking down a few more copies of some of his other titles.
This book embodies everything that good science fiction should be - using the future to teach us more about our present. "The Futurological Congress" is a heavily layered book that relies on the reader to engage the storyline and draw parallels to the present day. The text (in translation) is spare enough to be clear and move the plot along rapidly, while also being satirical and comical at the same time.
I don't want to go into the plot in too much depth since folks before me have already done an admirable job in that regard, but suffice it to say that reality becomes almost immediately problematized and you will not be able to figure out what is fact or fiction within the world of the book (not that it matters). Ijon Tichy, the main character, goes to attend a conference called the "Futurological Congress", where all sorts of folks discuss the future directions of humanity. During the conference, a popular revolution places the scientists in danger. Drugged by the hotel water supply, hallucinating hotel guests hide out in the sewer. It gets more insane from there...
If you like Philip K. Dick's more mindbending works like "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" or "Ubik," you will love this one by Lem. At a scant 150 pages, you'll truck right on through it and then wonder whether you actually read it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Satisfying introduction to Lem
Comment: This is the first book I've read by Lem (having resolved to bone up on the sci-fi masters), and it's been thoroughly enjoyable. I was worried that the book might come across paler for being in translation, but my fears are laid to rest-- Michael Kandel gives the work vim and vigor and keeps it moving briskly along. I'm looking forward to reading more Kandel translations of Lem.
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Title: The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem ISBN: 0156027593 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 16 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: His Master's Voice by Stanislaw Lem, Michael Kandel ISBN: 0810117312 Publisher: Northwestern University Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.37 |
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Title: Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem, Christine Rose, Adele Kandel ISBN: 0156585855 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: 01 July, 1986 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Memoirs of a Space Traveler: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy by Stanislaw Lem ISBN: 0156586355 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1983 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem ISBN: 0156306301 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1988 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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