Solaris by Stanisław Lem, Translation by Bill Johnston - May Book Discussion

The zoom meeting link will be sent to attendees the week of the event.

The first ever direct translation into English of the Polish science fiction author Stanisław Lem’s most famous novel, Solaris, has just been published, removing a raft of unnecessary changes and restoring the text much closer to its original state.

Now Bill Johnston, a professor at Indiana University, has produced the first Polish-English translation of the novel. It has just (2011) been published as an audiobook download by Audible, narrated by Battlestar Galactica’s Alessandro Juliani, with an ebook as well.

When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?

Long considered a classic, Solaris asks the question: Can we understand the universe around us without first understanding what lies within?