Monday, August 1, 2022 (reread)

Summary & a note on translation

Solaris is as much psychological horror as it is science fiction and an introspective look at human space colonization. It’s claustrophobic, engrossing, and poetic. I can see why many might trifle or even outright dislike this book if it’s picked up with the wrong expectations. Full disclosure, despite this being science fiction this is not an explosive, action-packed, robot-fighting novel brought to an earth-shattering climax. This is a simmering slow-burn of a thing, that starts slow and only gets slower. (Despite this, I still cling to every word.)

Kris Kelvin is a psychologist who lands on the fictional planet of Solaris from Earth. He arrives to a sparse crew and an eerie situation—the mystery of which the reader, as well as Kelvin, are left to uncover in tandem. I won’t say much else since I feel it is better to discover it on your own.

Translations, I think, are only as good as their translators and unfortunately, the only English translation that is widely available for Solaris at the moment was translated from Polish to French and then English. As you can imagine, it results in a very stunted work losing much of the poeticism and linguistic intent of the original. If you can manage to get your hands on it, I highly suggest the only other English translation in existence currently: Solaris by Stanisław Lem, translated by Bill Johnston (2011). It’s a direct-to-English translation and though I don’t know a lick of Polish, in the brief comparison I did between the French translation and the Johnston one, the difference is stark. And for the better.

“Much is lost when a book is re-translated from an intermediary translation into English, but I’m shocked at the number of places where text was omitted, added, or changed in the 1970 version,” said Johnston. “Lem’s characteristic semi-philosophical, semi-technical language is also capable of flights of poetic fancy and brilliant linguistic creativity, for example in the names of the structures that arise on the surface of Solaris. I believe this new translation restores Lem’s original meaning to his seminal work.” (source: The Guardian)