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Stanislaw Lem
Mar. 28th, 2006 08:16 amI’ve been thinking about writing something here about Solaris — the book and the two film adaptations — as I have finally steeled myself to watch (despite all my reservations) the recent Steven Soderbergh version with George Clooney. I still might. In any case, I have been refreshing my memory about not only Solaris but Lem in general. Last night I was running a system patch, and while that was going on I did a little surfing in that regard using Lynx. Today, I wanted to go back and do a little more, and so I went to one of the sites I looked at last night, the official Lem site.
The first thing I noticed was a photograph of Lem, which I (obviously) hadn’t seen last night. What I thought I would have noticed, though, was the caption: his name, and the years of his birth and death.
The English language section of the site was not very helpful, having been last updated in 2004. A quick look around on the Net, though, revealed that Lem died yesterday.
BBC report
Leading The Charge (NSW) report
New York Times report (requires login)
It’s slightly depressing that the Australian site’s report begins with a paragraph which suggests that the fact that one of Lem’s novels was
It would be good if his death stimulated publishers to arrange a new translation of Solaris — the English version we have is a translation of a French translation from the Polish, which is hardly satisfactory — but if the response from Faber & Faber quoted at lem.pl is still accurate, I think that may be a vain hope. Pity; a decent direct translation would be a good way to commemorate him.
The first thing I noticed was a photograph of Lem, which I (obviously) hadn’t seen last night. What I thought I would have noticed, though, was the caption: his name, and the years of his birth and death.
When did he die?I thought. I hadn’t heard anything of his death. Then I really looked at the legend:
Stanislaw Lem
1921 -2006
The English language section of the site was not very helpful, having been last updated in 2004. A quick look around on the Net, though, revealed that Lem died yesterday.
BBC report
Leading The Charge (NSW) report
New York Times report (requires login)
It’s slightly depressing that the Australian site’s report begins with a paragraph which suggests that the fact that one of Lem’s novels was
made into a movie starring George Clooneyis the most notable thing about him, but all the reports, that one included, agree that Lem was one of the giants. I can still remember vividly the first time I saw Tarkovsky’s Solaris and the covers of the Penguin editions of some of his books (such as The Invincible — I wonder where that’s got to; I can remember hardly anything about the story now).
It would be good if his death stimulated publishers to arrange a new translation of Solaris — the English version we have is a translation of a French translation from the Polish, which is hardly satisfactory — but if the response from Faber & Faber quoted at lem.pl is still accurate, I think that may be a vain hope. Pity; a decent direct translation would be a good way to commemorate him.
