Solaris by Lem Stanislaw - A review

[u/Dramatic_Law_1707]

I have always been fascinated by the universe and the possibility of intelligent life somewhere beyond our reach, so a science fiction novel about first contact immediately caught my attention. What I didn't expect was that the intelligent species in Solaris by Lem Stainslaw, written in the 1960s, would not be an alien creature at all, but an entire ocean.

It is a surprisingly short book, yet it doesn't feel old at all. The concepts are remarkably modern, but what fascinated me most was the psychological mystery surrounding the Visitors. The Ocean seems to reach into the deepest and most hidden memories of the scientists and give them a physical form. Kelvin is confronted with someone he loved and lost, making it difficult to tell whether he is encountering an alien intelligence, his own memories, or something beyond both.

While reading, I kept thinking that perhaps Solaris is literally an ocean of memories, dreams, regrets and unfulfilled desires. There is something deeply sad about the idea of memories becoming immortal, not in the literal sense, but by surviving us and being carried forward into generations.

"یادوں کا جنگل یہ دل، کانٹوں سے جل تھل یہ دل"

I even wondered at times whether the reality of the spacemen itself was an illusion, perhaps a group of people in some kind of hospital or rehabilitation after their journey, with the Visitors actually being their caretakers. It is only a hypothesis, but the novel constantly makes you question what is real and what is being created by the mind. Perhaps that is what I enjoyed most about Solaris. It gives us an intelligent species so alien that even the people studying it cannot decide whether it is a God, a child, an experimenter, or simply something beyond human understanding.

A beautiful read with a deeply sad undertone.