Solaris

 What an odd little book. My first thought upon finishing it was to spare a thought for the translators who translated this book into so many languages. Seems impossible. I read it in my native tongue and I'm not sure I understood the bulk of it. 

Why was humanity so obsessed w Solaris? Why, after failing so many times and losing people, did they continue to research the ocean? Why was Kelvin even there? I see he did his PhD (in psychology…??) About the place but I don't know how that could be relevant to his work. A lot that goes unanswered. 

What I will say is that Lem does an incredible job of setting up a Gothic atmosphere from the get go. It's immediately unsettling and he wanted no time having Kelvin fall under the spell of the station/ocean. I was unnerved throughout almost all of it. The problem was, I didn't really care about any of them. Not enough backstory maybe? But I could have cared less if they all lived or died.

I know Rheya was not “real” but even still the way Kelvin related to her was super gross. She's hot, she's always 20, she seemingly has no purpose besides being there to love him, she is a silent “wife” who sleeps besides him, cleans up after him, and deals w all of his moods. In the end she kills herself because she can never truly be w him or make him happy? Yuck. I hope he rots on that planet waiting for her return. Written in 1961 and boy does it show. 

I finished the book feeling like I had no idea what happened.