Talk:Stanisław Lem/Archive 1

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This article is awful! It contains very little information, is riddled with typoes (the authors are obviously non-native writers of English) and bizarre contusions of syntax. I tried a little grammatical patching on the first couple paragraphs but then threw my hands up in despair. It needs to be largely rewquritten. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a soapbox! funkendub

He is probably the best single science fiction author of the late 20th century not to write in English.– moved from article by [[217.96.1.xxx, who was Kpjas logged-out

...apart from Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of the distopian We... sjc

Well, what Zamyatin wrote was publicism rather than literature. I'm not saying it was bad publicism, though, but not exceptional either. As for writers of literature, I would cite brothers Strugatskiy, rather. These three people (Lem and two Strugatskiy), and also Sheckley, make up the best. - 92.100.163.9 (talk) 13:11, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

- "Lem was one of the most popular science fiction authors of recent decades to write in a language other than English, and his works were translated from Polish into more than 40 other languages. His books have sold 27 million copies." from http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/books/03/27/obit.lem.ap/index.html --Tomsak 08:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Zamyatin is early 20th century. Burschik

Could someone speaking the langauge replace the original titles? --Yooden

look here. hm...

If we're heading into opinionated territory then I'd have to say that IMO he's probably the single best science fiction author full stop. I've never read anything in SF to match the cyberiad for imagination and literary inventiveness. -MockAE

...except Solaris, Futurological Congress, the Pirx stories, Fiasco, and greatest of all, the Perfect Vacuum (which is, admittedly, no SF)

Best Polish author ever (sorry, Senkevich), and, one of the best and most brilliant writers of the XXth century. We should not be sad that he died, but we should rejoice because he lived. May he rest in peace. Ko Soi IX 01:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Regarding his Franz Kafka Prize in 1991... I can find no online referenced record of him receiving this, however it seems the Kafka Society's laureate page is bereft of records -which I am only assuming exist- from its inception in 1990 through 2001. Since the award has its own article on Wikipedia -complete with omission of records previous to 2001, again, assumed to exist- and is referenced in this article, I think a note should be made that this honor needs a citation as it isn't readily verifiable. --A Random Stranger —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.150.215.98 (talk) 15:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Sentence removed

Many people consider his treatment of the ideal society issue the most thorough and insightful of all similar attempts in science fiction.

I am removing this sentence because of its imprecision and lack of citations. Can we cite literary critics who have written this about Lem? My rewrite is basically for removing unidiomatic English and other oddities of the text. --Fred 20:51, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've removed a swipe at Douglas Adams, which seemed inappropriate and unnecessary. Perhaps the person who feels that the Hitchhiker's Guide series is unintelligent humor simply missed some of the subtler jokes? -- metamatic 20040802T054800Z

Weeeell - I could argue with you here a lot, but since I tend to get too sarcastic or rude, just let me paste a sentence from http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/cyberiad.html#adams :

The difference is one of degree in tone and intent. Lem often (not always) has a serious point to make which determines the direction of the story. With Adams, at least in the early, funny books in the Hitch-hiker's Guide series, the fabulistic content (and it is there, in such passages as the famous one about the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything) is strictly secondary to getting the joke told. I don't think that either approach is inherently superior to the other, but when I write humor, my method is closer to Adams'; it's very hard to make humor serious without killing it. Somehow, Lem pulls it off. 160.83.64.93

Please sign your edits in future. (Use ~~~~.) I've done the above for you. grendel|khan 14:30, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)

Lem and American pulp fiction

I removed the clumsy phrase on this issue. From personal experience I must say that Soviet and Socialist censorship was two-pronged. On the one hand, only "politically correct" books were translated. On the other hand the enormous flood of Americal pulp was filtered out as well. My personal respect to Clifford Simak was significantly shattered when I finally had a chance to read everything he wrote. So I believe if Lem had chance to see the whole US sci-fi, then he wouldn't accept the American association membership in the first place altogether. Mikkalai

Victim of the Brain

Under "Film and TV adaptations" the article mentions "Victim of the Brain" by Piet Hoenderdos. (Well actually it spelled 'Hoenderos' but I've corrected that.) I'm not a Lem-expert, but I doubt "Victim of the Brain" is a adaptation of a book by Lem. In fact it is a semi-documentary about Douglas Hofstadter. Muijz 16:33, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It includes a Lem's work as well; see Victim of the Brain Staszek Lem (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

POV Question

Isn't saying that his work has been "translated brilliantly into English" PoV? Shouldn't the views of critics who consider the translations brilliant be cited? I know at least some readers have not approved them, although most do, I think. DES 05:36, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, would it be humble enough if I say this ;-) : personaly I find English as not very rich and rather dull language. Reading the original Polish version and English translation it really makes me think, the translator must be a "Wizard of words".

Kandel's translations are breathtaking, especially The Cyberiad. If you want some quotable plaudits, there are several in Douglas R. Hofstadter's Le Ton Beau de Marot, a book about (among other things) the difficulty of translation. Phr 16:32, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

uh, "not very rich and rather dull"?? When you get a chance, you might try a couple of people -- say, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, just to pull some names out of a poor, dull hat you know...

Kandel's translations perfect?

Kandel's translations are as close as they can be, giving the English language's inability to express many small/less important details of "language sphere" (if speak English you've learned Spanish/French/German/whatever you know what I mean - try expressing "j'etais" in English). It's clear that Kandel does understand the original (don't be surprised with this sentence, not all translators do), and he must have put a lot of effort into trying to recreate the feeling of the original prose. The originals are sometimes quite demanding in the language sense. Lem plays with words very well.

Religious upbringing

I don't think he grew up Catholic, but I'm not certain enough to remove it. If anybody should have Highcastle at hand... 4.255.35.185 10:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Jewish ethnicity

Actually - he had some Jewish roots, i believe that his uncle was killed by German Nazis. But that didn't make him an ethnic Jew, rather of Jewish ancestry (i have no idea if that ancestry came from mother's or father's side).

Both of his parents were Jewish - ethnically. But Lem was raised Catholic. JackO'Lantern 07:53, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - i'll skim through Highcastle (autobiography) as soon as I have a moment to find a mention.

---Is it a taboo that Lem was ethnically Jewish? You keep removing references to this fact, while his "having been raised Catholic", which is completely unsupported by his own interviews, is tenaciously left in main text. Here's what he says in an interview:

"During that period, I learned in a very personal, practical way that I was no “Aryan”. I knew that my ancestors were Jews, but I knew nothing of the Mosaic faith and, regrettably, nothing at all of Jewish culture. So it was, strictly speaking, only the Nazi legislation that brought home to me the realization that I had Jewish blood in my veins. We succeeded in evading imprisonment in the ghetto, however. With false papers, my parents and I survived that ordeal." http://cse.ucdavis.edu/~chaos/courses/ncaso/Readings/Lem_CAO_NY1984.html

What's the point to falsify documents if they read "Roman Catholic"? Well, I guess this is a taboo topic after all...

Dear anon. It is not a taboo, we just need a reference for such claims; now that you have provided it I don't expect anybody will question it.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 03:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

"What's the point to falsify documents..." - why, the Nazis did not care about Mr. Lem's religion, or the religion he was raised in, or the culture he grew up in. The point to falsify documents is that Mr. Lem's father's given name (which such documents would have certainly stated) would have been enough to raise suspicions. Feketekave (talk) 13:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

- and the quote from Lem above shows precisely that he does not fit under "Jewish ethnicity" under the concept many people have of "ethnicity". (Rather, he would be an individual of Polish culture and self-identification who happened to have ancestors who were Jews.) Feketekave (talk) 13:12, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "the concept many people have of ethnicity" (and who are those many people), but the situation is basically the same as it was in the whole Eastern Europe. If you look e.g. at the page History of the Jews in Russia, an overwhelming fraction of the persons mention on that page who grew in the Soviet Union spoke Russian as their mother tongue, grew in Russian culture, did not speak Hebrew or Yiddish, never visited a synagogue, did not follow kashrut etc. Still they were considered jews on the sole basis of their ancestry. This was even fixed in their state IDs (Soviet passports). The identification as a jew was thus the same as practised by the Nazis. As jews, they were often subject to oppression, decided to leave for the West, etc. Considering or not considering Lem a jew is basically the same as e.g. for Lev Landau, Sergey Brin, Grigori Perelman, or Boris Pasternak. --Off-shell (talk) 07:30, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

With all due respect, this is a classic case of projecting late- or post-Soviet identity politics on a non-Soviet citizen. There seems to be plenty of this in Wikipedia. It is already the case that we should aim for NPOV; letting biographies be strongly shaped by a point of view that isn't even familiar to most readers of English speakers has a distorting effect. We should attempt to describe individuals, not to claim them for one group or the other. Feketekave (talk) 14:41, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

This is not only Soviet or Post-Soviet or Nazi definition. The article Who is a Jew? covers this in detail, including a section "Jewish by birth". It states in particular: "the halakhic view is that any child born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, whether or not he/she is raised Jewish, or even whether the mother considers herself Jewish". Lem was thus a Jew according to halakha and according to Israeli law. Since this discussion is continuing now due to the issue of the categories in which this article should be classified, then one may ask who should be included in Category:Jewish atheists and Category:Jewish agnostics? They cannot be religious Jews. So either one includes all atheists or agnostics of Jewish descent, or one demands a kind of "Jewish cultural non-religious self-identification". Currently they include people like Élie Metchnikoff, Karl Popper and Richard Feynman, whereas the latter explicitly declined to be labelled Jewish. Similarly, Bobby Fischer is included in Category:Jewish chess players and Felix Mendelssohn is in Category:Jewish classical composers. One needs a common rule for that to avoid such discussions for each person. --Off-shell (talk) 21:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Please find a proper forum where to discuss this issue, but please don't revert-war here on this minor issue. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Lem and Soderbergh

The article claims Lem fully rejects Soderbergh's adaptation of Solaris, and has no intention to see it. However, on the imdb page for this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307479/usercomments , under rhe heading "Lem speaks" and credited to www.lem.pl) there is a comment on Solaris, supposedly signed by Lem, and while not entirely positive, not at all negative either.

quote:This statement comes from the official site www.lem.pl:

It is difficult to compare a book - a few hundred pages of text written almost half a century ago - with a technologically advanced motion picture created by hundreds of people, taking advantage of the state of the art film and computer technology. Soderbergh's artistic vision is well thought out and consistent, however it seems detached from the original. The director exposed Chris' and Harey's tragic love - hence the emotional element strongly dominates the intellectual one, while the Solarian Ocean is the Great Absent One. The film's unique climate captivates the audience; the lighting, the coloring, shots, music, actors' performance, sparse use of special effects and clear narration - create an exceptional, surprising and truly innovative work. Soderbergh's movie belongs to the category of ambitious, artistic cinema - difficult to crack for the mass audience used to Hollywood pap. Stanislaw Lem February 6, 2003

if this is indeed mr. Lem's view on the film, than the article is clearly in the wrong.213.172.254.120 01:21, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

One major problem is that Mr. Lem had many diverse views, which were self-edited so frequently that its hard to pin any opinion on him at at all. On his own site (http://www.lem.pl/english/faq/faq.htm) he wrote a scathing denunciation of the Soderbergh film, several months before the film was released. He also bashed Tarkovsky, if I recall correctly, but not as severely. Some time afterward (evidently before 6 February 2003) those comments were replaced with the far less critical ones that remain. Wayback Machine never caught the original remarks which now appear to be lost forever. Still, vintage Lem, in tone and style- thus I consider them more authoritative than the only version we can verify. We can't use them in the Wikipedia article, but I still want to leave a talk page footnote. --R.S. Peale (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

The film of Soderberg is not bad. However, Solaris of Tarkovsky is one of the greatest movies ever. Maybe, this is the problem. --193.165.212.242 (talk) 16:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Praising Dick?

Well, I may be oversensitive to sarcasm, but the part of Lem's work, where he "praises" Dick, calling his works "intentional kitsch" is just it - SARCASM. Maybe the translation (into whatever language) was poor, but I've read this in Polish, and would NEVER think that he praises Dick...

He didn't like Dick much at first, but changed his mind after reading some more of his books. Ausir 16:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I actually started reading Dick after I read positive things about him in the German translation of Lem's Fantastyka i futurologia. Lem might have used sarcasm but he did like Dick's works. Kusma (討論) 16:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

He called it kitsch in the first edition of Fantastyka i futurologia but then changed his mind in the second edition. Ausir 16:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Borges

Shouldn't we mention Jorge Luis Borges as an important influence, especially on Imaginary Magnitude? - Jmabel | Talk 08:59, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Critical Writings of Lem

At the DePauw University science fiction website, one can find science fiction criticsm by Lem. And from this it is also clear that he thought highly of the writing of Philip K. Dick

non sequitor

Can someone find a reference for this and stick it back in:

Interesting fact is that Philip K. Dick was convinced that Lem is not a surname of human individual but the cryptonym group of scientists, philosophers and writers of called by Russian KGB. He couln't believe that one person can have such a deep knowledge in so many topics and disciplines, and moreover is able to use different styles of writing. It is no wonder his books made impression on his readers - IQ tests run done in 1936-37 on Polish middle school students revealed Lem to be the most intelligent child in Poland with result equal to 180.

There is a copy of a letter that Dick wrote to the FBI [1]. But as the caveat on that page suggests, it is helpful to remember that Dick was very likely suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Bornyesterday 17:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

"IQ tests run done in 1936-37 on Polish middle school students revealed Lem to be the most intelligent child in Poland with result equal to 180."

I remember reading an article by Rafał Ziemkiewicz, a Polish SF and mainstream writer in which he said Lem had been found to be the most intelligent child in southern Poland. Not that it makes such a big difference... Dawidbernard 19:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Tichy naive?

The article claims that Ijon Tichy is naive. Actually, he seems to be a variation on the Baron Munchhausen theme, telling tall stories all the way long. '-129.247.247.238 14:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)'

Trailer sentences

The trailer included the sentences: Lem articulates this recursively through the mouth of one of his characters (scientist Alfred Testa speaking about Aristid Acheropoulos' "The New Cosmogony" in Lem's Perfect Vacuum). Lem's works have been described as "deeply philosophical", and are sometimes used as textbooks for philosophy students[2]

The first sentence makes little sense in a trailer. A trailer should give an overview. The sentence corroborates a claim, but in an overly specific manner, and the wording sounds pretentious ("recursively" - I see a disguised self reference, but no recursion). The second sentence repeats information (we have already been informed that Lem's work is philosophical in nature), and it employs weasel words. The second part of the second sentence is relevant information, but it should be given at another place in the article. -- ZZ 12:53, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Completly agree.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 15:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Honors

I rearranged the biography. The honors get a section of their own now. Could somebody please list the honors in the way it is done in pl:Stanisław Lem? -- ZZ 09:44, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Done.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Split of list of works?

As it is done on pl wiki or here in the FA article on Max Weber?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 17:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

error in reference

The first reference seems slightly messed – can someone look at the {{cite news}} call? Probably the internal link [[Roadside Picnic]] used in the template's title parameter prevents the external link (url) from displaying. So we need either somewhat more sophisticated {{cite news}} or use it in a simpler way. --CiaPan 10:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This is a Good Article

After review, I've decided to promote this article to Good Article status, based on the qualifications. The article was nice to read, and seems to be of a good neutral tone. I do have a few suggestions for further improvement.

External links, when used as a 'citation', as opposed to just 'further reading', can use the cite.php format, using the 'cite web' template, for instance (WP:CITET). Since the rest of the citations already use the cite.php format, I'd recommend standardizing the inline citations, external links and 'regular' citations, for ease of use, leaving the regular 'external links' section for further reading.
Consider forking the list of works to a new article. It isn't critical right now, due to the overall length of the article, but as more of the red links turn blue, consider a new article for them.
A small thing... Standardize the choice of "reference before or after full stop". I'd recommend going with the ".</ref>" style, as opposed to the "</ref>." style.

Thanks for everyone's hard work on this article. If you want any clarification on my reasoning for promotion, don't hesitate to leave a message on my talk page. Phidauex 21:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Religious or cultural affiliation

The article has been lumped into the categories Galician Jews and Polish Jews. Lem was persecuted because of his Jewish ancestry, but does that make him a Jew? I wonder, if he was even a Jew under Halakhic law. What are the reasons for this grouping?

Anyway, the article suffers from category hypertrophy. -- Zz 12:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Polish Jews and Category:Galician Jews include persons who (or his parents) were born in Poland or Galicia (Austria-Hungary, Poland/Ukraine), and they or their ancestors had affillation with Jewish religion, ethnicity or culture. For example, count Walenty Potocki who converted to Judaism (Ger Tzedek of Vilna) there is in Category:Polish Jews.

By the way, Stanisław Lem was an atheist. -- Mibelz 16:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for answering. I know Lem was an atheist and he was raised a Catholic, while being of Jewish ancestry. Since there is a difference between being a Jew and being of Jewish ancestry, I wonder what definition is used. I could not find any such definition in the category Polish Jews. Is the definition you use generally agreed upon? -- Zz 12:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that category hypertrophy is a problem in general; in particular, most categories having to do with religion or descent come up for deletion on a fairly regular basis - there seems to be a plethora of arguments against them (or at least against their current across-the-board utilisation). One of the issues with them is precisely that they give rise to endless debates due to the lack of single definitions. At the same time, given what the sources say, it is fairly clear that Lem should be under neither Polish Jews nor Polish Catholics, even if Lem was enough of a Catholic to the Church (see: his burial) and even if he was a Jew to some Jews. His background - as far as we can ascertain - is already described in detail in the body of the article. It is unlikely that anybody will discover Lem and his works by lugging through a list of 'Polish X', where X is an extremely broad and often misleading category (ill-)defined in terms of religion or descent. Feketekave (talk) 13:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

- and, by the way, we don't know how much of a role religion played in Lem's childhood; from my memory of Highcastle (which I don't have at hand), the answer may be "not much or none at all" - or at least he didn't give it much importance. Perhaps "formally a Catholic at first" would be better than "raised as a Catholic". Feketekave (talk) 13:37, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

House where Lem was born

Rumours say us that S.Lem was born on Pekarskaya-st. 34. Is that true? Here is the picture of that house. --Yonkie 10:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

ineligible?

"Lem was awarded an honorary membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) in 1973 despite being technically ineligible." Can one be "technically ineligible" for an honorary title? Or does this simply mean he was ineligible for a regular membership (not being an American author)

This blog post by Frederik Pohl explains this well: by the time someone checked the rules he had numerous publications in USA which made him ineligible. 89.71.227.55 (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

stronger reference needed

This passage:

Stanisław Lem, whose works were influenced by such masters of Polish literature as Cyprian Norwid and Stanislaw Witkiewicz, chose the language of science fiction as in the communist People's Republic of Poland it was easier — and safer — to express ideas veiled in the world of fantasy and fiction than in the world of reality. Despite this — or perhaps because of this — he has become one of the most highly acclaimed science-fiction writers, hailed by critics as equal to the likes of H. G. Wells or Olaf Stapledon.[13] is troublesome. It's a very large statement, with no support, other than a Times article in which something similar is expressed, although not in such absolute terms: "He was a fully fledged writer who chose — in part because he had to in the circumstances of Soviet domination of Poland — the science-fiction form." I really think you need a statement from Lem himself as to why he wrote in the genre, rather than basing it on speculation from the Times.

Also, to state that his works "were influenced by" Witkiewicz etc needs a stronger reference than that same Times article, which simply says " Much of Lem’s work has roots in earlier Polish writers" (such as the ones mentioned). Critics often apply phrases like "has roots in" without intending to claim an explicit, conscious influence. Without stronger support, that passage seems like unnecessary puffery, to hit us over the head with how "important" a writer Lem was, and how he wasn't "just" a science fiction author.

Language can be neutralized further, but removing the passage seems a bit too far.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 23:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Copy vio

The following passages seem to be taken nearly word-for-word from the Britannica article on Lem that is cited in the article. (Citing an article isn't justification for copying its words.) The italics is the Britannica text.

The de-Stalinization period culminating in the Polish October of 1956 produced greater freedom of speech and thought in Poland. Lem then started his career as a serious international science fiction author, writing some 17 books in the next dozen years.

The period of reform known as the “Polish October” of 1956 produced greater freedom of speech in Poland, and Lem blossomed as a serious international science fiction author, writing some 17 books in the next dozen years.

Though several specific themes recur in all his works, Lem's fiction is commonly sorted into two major groups.[7] The first includes his more traditional science fiction, with its speculations of technological advances, space travel, and alien worlds, such as Eden (1959), Return from the Stars (1961), Solaris (1961), The Invincible (1964), His Master's Voice (1968), and Tales of Pirx the Pilot (1968). The second group contains allegorical tales, or fables, such as The Star Diaries (1957), Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961), and The Cyberiad (1965).

Although certain themes recur in all his works, his fiction can be divided into two major groups. The first includes his traditional science fiction, with its vividly imagined fantasies of technological advances, space travel, and alien worlds, such as Eden (1959; Eng. trans. Eden), Powrót z gwiazd (1961; Return from the Stars), Solaris (1961; Eng. trans. Solaris), Niezwyciężony (1964; The Invincible), Głos pana (1968; His Master’s Voice), and Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie (1968; Tales of Pirx the Pilot). The second group contains dark allegorical tales, or fables, such as Dzienniki gwiazdowe (1957; The Star Diaries), Pamiętnik znaleziony w wannie (1961; Memoirs Found in a Bathtub), and Cyberiada (1965; The Cyberiad).

Solaris is a deeply philosophical work about contact with an utterly alien intelligence—a planet-girdling, sentient ocean. The book was adapted for film by Soviet director Andrey Tarkovsky and won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972; a second adaptation, directed by Steven Soderbergh of the United States, was released in 2002.

Lem's third great book is The Cyberiad. Subtitled Fables for the Cybernetic Age, it is a collection of comic tales about two robot "constructors" who travel about the Galaxy solving engineering problems; but a deeper reading reveals a wealth of profound insights into the human condition.

Lem’s third great book is The Cyberiad (subtitled Fables for the Cybernetic Age). Read on one level, it is a collection of comic tales about two intelligent robots who travel about the galaxy solving engineering problems; a deeper reading reveals a wealth of profound insights into the human condition.

The Futurological Congress is a hilarious satire on government and academic conferences. In a Kafkaesque turn, at a hotel in Costa Rica, a conference to propose solutions to overpopulation in a time of violence and terrorism soon dissolves into chaos as the hotel's water supply is contaminated by a hallucinogen.

...Kongres futurologiczny (1971; The Futurological Congress), a hilarious satire on government and academic conferences. In a Kafkaesque turn, at a hotel in Costa Rica, a conference to propose solutions to overpopulation in a time of violence and terrorism soon dissolves into anarchy as the hotel’s water supply is contaminated by a hallucinogen.

zafiroblue05 | Talk 15:26, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). The material was copied from this URL: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/884552/Stanislaw-Lem. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a license compatible with GFDL. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 19:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

can't interwiki-link to Polish WP article

In Stanisław Lem#Writing career I replaced the red link on "Człowiek z Marsa" with a link to the Polish Wikipedia article on the story (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cz%C5%82owiek_z_Marsa).

I tried to use the interwiki format as prescribed in markup help

[[Wikipedia:pl:Człowiek z Marsa]]

but it doesn't work:

Wikipedia:pl:Człowiek z Marsa

Escaping the nonASCII character doesn't help:

[[Wikipedia:pl:Cz%C5%82owiek z Marsa]]

produces just

Wikipedia:pl:Człowiek z Marsa

Thnidu (talk) 04:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it. I used ''[[:pl:Człowiek z Marsa|Człowiek z Marsa]]''. If you want to re-add the pl: to the display, go ahead. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:46, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

See Help:Wiki markup#Link to the same article in another language (interlanguage links), just above the section you linked to above. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Missing works

The list of works is incomplete. In particular, One Human Minute is missing, and Lem's only meditation on the Shoah, Provocation (still, alas, untranslated) is also missing.Theonemacduff (talk) 17:21, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Theme

Moved unreferenced paragraphs from this section here that have been labelled since 2008. AIRcorn (talk) 10:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

One of Lem's primary themes was the impossibility of communication between humans and profoundly alien civilizations. His aliens are often incomprehensible to the human mind, be they swarms of mechanical insects (in The Invincible), a living ocean (in Solaris) or strangely ordered societies of more human-like beings in Fiasco and Eden, describing the failure of the first contact. Lem's book Return from the Stars follows an astronaut's adjustment to a radically changed human society after spending 100 years in space. In His Master's Voice Lem describes the failure of humanity's intelligence in deciphering and truly comprehending an apparent message from space.

In many novels, humans become an irrational and emotional liability to their machine partners, who are not perfect either. Issues of technological utopias appeared in Peace on Earth, in Observation on the Spot, and, to a lesser extent, in The Cyberiad.

Lem often placed his characters — like the spaceman Ijon Tichy of The Star Diaries, Pirx the pilot (of Tales of Pirx the Pilot), or the narrator of Return from the Stars in strange, new settings. Thrust into the unknown, he used them to personify various aspects of the possible futures, often having them balance on the thin line separating his belief in the inherent goodness of humanity and his deep pessimism about human limitations.

He also often deploys a wicked sense of humor in his descriptions of even the darkest human situations, most famously in The Futurological Congress and Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. In this regard, he has sometimes been compared to Kurt Vonnegut or Franz Kafka. Many of his lighter tales are about Ijon Tichy, a cosmic traveller in his one-man spaceship, whose adventures challenge commonly accepted ideas about things like time travel, the nature of the soul, and the origin of the universe, in a satiric and ironic, yet undeniably logical way.

Sold Copies

The article states that 27 million copies of Lem's books were sold. This article says that it were more than 45 millions. Since the latter is quite a reliable source, I opt to change the lead. -- Zz (talk) 11:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Can we add a References in Popular Culture section or similar?

I just watched the 2009 animated movie Planet 51 with my 3-year-old son. The main "alien" character's name is Lem. Anyone know if there is a verifiable reference to this being an homage to Stanislaw Lem? Seems unlikely not to be, but... Okamian (talk) 04:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Backwards copyvio

"Stanislaw Lem Google Doodle: Ten things you need to know about the Polish science fiction writer". Mirror.co.uk. Nov 23, 2011. copied from us almost verbatim (you can see that our article from October 2011 had exactly the same contents: [2]). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:28, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Items to clarify

The following are items which need to be checked with sources. Pl wiki article is relatively well referenced and often has helpful clarifications, but not all sentences are referenced, and thus I cannot always assume the source text integrity has not changed.

did Lem collaborate with Polish resistance during WWII? If this can be verified, restore the claim I removed here. This may be discussed in: Tomasz Fiałkowski: Świat na krawędzi. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001, s. 44-45. ISBN 83-08-02940-X.
- A cursory mention; see my section below. No basis for strong claims. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:35, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
"Earlier he had started working as a research assistant in a scientific institution". Pl wiki suggests he first worked as an assistant in a hospital. Possible reference: Jestem Casanovą nauki. W: Marek Oramus: Bogowie Lema. Przeźmierowo: Wydawnictwo Kurpisz, 2006, s. 42.ISBN 978-83-89738-92-9.

I'll keep updating this as I move on with my cleanup of this article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

re edit "removing claim about being part of the resistance which I cannot verify in any sources"

@Piotrus: The statement removed by you is a case of exaggeration, I guess, by way of "chinese whispers". Lem did claim in some interviews that he had contacts with resistance (e.g. to get false papers, a factoid you added), but he claimed no more than that. So I am not sure whether this detail of biography is significant enough. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)