Solaris

I borrowed this book from Shamik. He insisted that the book was much much better than the movie in terms of the psychology of the characters and the questions it evokes the readers.

I told him that the book had the most awful cover I could imagine. He said, "Fuck off. I read the book, not the cover."

I said, "You fuck off. Now I need to put the book upside down all the time when I am not reading it. The cover makes me throw up."

Well. The content is pretty cool. Planet Solaris orbits around 2 suns: one red in color, the other in blue. After 80 years of remote and on-site study, scientists had established that the ocean, which covered over 95% of the planet surface, was a single intelligent mega-living being. An observation station was constructed and hovered over the ocean. Three scientists were conducting research there. They did an experiment which is forbidden: they shot a high-energy X-ray beam into the ocean. Few days later, each of the three scientists had a visitor popped up from thin air. It turned out that the ocean was extracting the memory and unconscious part of their mind, and infused these memories and sensations into these "human puppets". These "human puppets" bear the memory and sensation of the person who was most important to these scientists.

It is not an easy feast. There is always a reason or 2 (or more) for that particular person to sit in your unconscious part of the mind. Be it love, be it guilt, be it regret. When you are forced to face them in a prison-like setting, if you are not strong and courageous enough to confront your own past and sensations, just like one of the characters, you may end up killing yourself.

This book is not as dark as it seems. The main character is a psychologist. His had said something that made his love of his life killed herself 10 years before he was sent to Solaris. In the second morning on his arrival, "she" appeared and sat by him on his bed. In a few days, he managed to find out most of the facts behind her "appearance", and finally accepted that "she" was not merely a replica of the original "she". She was unique. He fell in love with this new "she" and tried to leave the station with her.

This book is written by Stanislaw Lem, a Polish science fiction and philosophical writer. It was first published in Warsaw in 1961. It is a thin book of about 280 pages. Yet it is quite addicting. It is not a blow of mind, but it reminds you the importance of confronting your own past up straight.