https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-beautiful-mind-bending-of-stanislaw-lem Skip to main content The New Yorker * Newsletter To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Sign In Search * News * Books & Culture * Fiction & Poetry * Humor & Cartoons * Magazine * Puzzles & Games * Video * Podcasts * Archive * Goings On * Shop Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories Close Alert The New Yorker Culture Desk The Beautiful Mind-Bending of Stanislaw Lem By Paul Grimstad January 6, 2019 * * * * * Save this story for later. * * * * * Save this story for later. The science-fiction writer and futurist Stanislaw Lem was well acquainted with the way that fictional worlds can sometimes encroach upon reality. In his autobiographical essay "Chance and Order," which appeared in The New Yorker, in 1984, Lem recalls how as an only child growing up in Lvov, Poland, he amused himself by creating passports, certificates, permits, government memos, and identification papers. Equipped with these eccentric toys, he would then privately access fictional places "not to be found on any map." Some years later, when his family was fleeing the Nazis, Lem notes that they escaped certain death with the help of false papers. It was as if the child's innocent game had prophesied a horrific turn in history, and Lem wonders if he'd sensed some calamity looming on the horizon--if his game had sprung "perhaps from some unconscious feeling of danger." Stanislaw Lem In Stanislaw Lem's writing, perverse invention and rational coherence lock into each other at weird, compelling angles.Photograph from AP The idea of a private world spilling over unsettlingly into reality is also at the heart of his novel "Solaris," from 1961, about a sentient ocean with the power of "seeing into the deepest recesses of human minds and then bringing their dreams to life," as the Lem fan Salman Rushdie once described it. The massive popularity of "Solaris"--made into a film by Andrei Tarkovsky, in 1972, and then again in 2002, by Steven Soderbergh, as a moody near-future love story with George Clooney--helped Lem become one of the most widely read science fiction writers in the world. Yet his writing reached far beyond the borders of the genre. In addition to many novels and stories, he composed a huge philosophical treatise on the relation of human beings and machines, a good deal of pungently argued literary criticism, a volume of reviews of nonexistent books, a stochastic theory of narrative fiction, an experimental detective novel, speculative essays dealing with artificial intelligence, cybernetics, cosmology, genetic engineering, game theory, sociology, and evolution, radio plays and screenplays. Such staggering polymathic curiosity over such a vast range of material, all of it explored with lucidity and charm, gives his writing a unique place on a Venn diagram in which the natural sciences, philosophy, and literature shade into one another with mutually intensifying vividness and fascination. Paul Grimstad's essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Bookforum, the London Review of Books, and n+1. He teaches in the humanities program at Yale. More:Science FictionBooksFuturism The New Yorker Recommends What our staff is reading, watching, and listening to each week. E-mail address [ ] Sign up By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Read More This image may contain Art Culture Desk Close Encounters with O. Schrauwen's Mesmerizing "Parallel Lives" A dazzling and disorienting collection of four short stories detail the cartoonist's interactions with the future. By Francoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes Image may contain Human Person Skin Vehicle Transportation and Face Richard Brody Agnes Varda's Lost Sci-Fi Romance, "Les Creatures" In a 1966 movie starring Catherine Deneuve, Varda transformed science fiction into a subject in her own image. By Richard Brody Nouveau Science Fiction: The Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan Discusses "Interstellar" Video Nouveau Science Fiction: The Screenwriter Jonathan Nolan Discusses "Interstellar" During a panel discussion on science-fiction writing, the producer and screenwriter Jonathan Nolan talks about how he came up with the vision of Earth in the film "Interstellar." The New Yorker Sections * News * Books & Culture * Fiction & Poetry * Humor & Cartoons * Magazine * Crossword * Video * Podcasts * Archive * Goings On More * Customer Care * Shop The New Yorker * Buy Covers and Cartoons * Conde Nast Store * Digital Access * Newsletters * Jigsaw Puzzle * RSS * Site Map * About * Careers * Contact * F.A.Q. * Media Kit * Press * Accessibility Help * Conde Nast Spotlight (c) 2022 Conde Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Conde Nast. Ad Choices * * * * * Do Not Sell My Personal Info