Monday, March 27, 2006

obituary: stanislav lem, science fiction author

mar 27th

the author of some of the best science fiction ever, including 'solaris', the story of a planet with a sentient sea, which, annoyed at the radiation beamed at it by an orbiting spacecraft, manufactures stranage humanoids by probing the minds of the astronauts and sends them onboard, driving the astronauts to lunacy. for instance, one of the men finds his wife, who had committed suicide some years ago, keeps coming back on board as a humanoid. brilliant concept. i saw the andrei tarkovsky version. tarkovsky reminds me of g. aravindan, a mystic and poet of cinema, whose 'kanchana sita' and 'chidambaram' and 'vaastuhara' are among my favorite films of all time.

i remember another stanislav lem story: about a robot who writes poetry, in one case writing it with only words starting with 's'. i only remember a fragment: 'savage, spectacular suicide'.

http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1020403

2 comments:

nizhal yoddha said...

of course i read the lem stories in the original polish, they are so much better in the original. the translation above was mine. you see, i have a flair for languages.

nizhal yoddha said...

u thant, u nu i was pulling your leg, i hope? :-)

couldn't resist the pun.

u thant and u nu were both famous burmese.