Solaris and The Dao The Reception o

Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne
Seria Literacka 40 (60)

doi: 10.14746/pspsl.2021.40.5
Zofia Anna Wybieralska

Philosophy department, Taiwan National Chengchi University
Solaris and the Dao1:

The Reception of Stanislaw Lem’s Novel
in the Sinophone World
1. Stanisław Lem – underestimated Polish futurist

and his impact on science fiction’s development
Science fiction (SF hereafter for brevity2) is a particular type of

prose narrative concerned principally with speculation about
the impact and possibilities of actual or imagined science upon
society or individuals. According to Britannica, the name itself
was popularized in the 1920s by the American publisher Hugo
Gernsback3, one of the genre’s principal advocates [Sterling 2019].
1 Dao, translated differently depending on the context (as “way”, “road”, “path”,

“speech” or “method”), is an essential, multifaceted philosophical concept present
in almost every school of thought throughout the history of Chinese philosophy.
Dao introduced in this article refers to the most profound, metaphysical meaning
of this term – an ultimate reality, the absolute, the source and core power of all
existence, the Cosmic Dao. This interpretation of Dao has been created by the
early Daoist thinkers like Laozi, Zhuangzi or Liezi.
2 All instances of “SF” in this paper stand for “science fiction”, not “speculative
fiction”.
3 The Hugo Awards, given annually since 1953 by the World Science Fiction Society,
are named after Hugo Gernsback.
122 Zofia Anna Wybieralska
Although some works, written in ancient and early modern times,

like Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Aristophanes’s The Clouds, Thomas
More’s Utopia or even Shakespeare’s The Tempest discussed topics
very similar to the themes common in today’s SF (fantastical voy-
age, time travel, creation of a new perfect society or a prototype
of mad scientist story), they never tried to achieve scientific
and technological plausibility which is the crucial feature of this
modern genre. The Industrial Revolution and the rapid devel-
opment of technology after the eighteenth century sparked the
imagination of Western intellectuals and writers, giving birth to
books and novels about future science and its possible impact
on human life. H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, and Jules Gabriel
Verne are conventionally regarded as fathers and virtuosos of
SF. They were the first to use an extraordinary setup of space
and time travels with implemented prophetic warnings, utopian
aspirations, and political agitations very often extrapolated from
their contemporary reality. In the twentieth century, the genre
began to take shape and entered its “golden age” in the late 1920s,
especially in the United States, where SF authorship and reader-
ship were the largest at the time. After World War II, SF became
more and more popular, and its fandom spread across the United
States. In the present time, SF is not just a literary genre anymore
but a subculture and part of a lifestyle with countless SF-related
products like books, movies, television shows, computer games,
magazines, websites, paintings, comic books, collectible figurines,
etc. This rapid evolution and immense popularity, however, came
with a high price – SF gained a bad reputation in the literary
world. Today, many intellectual readers still criticize SF litera-
ture for being stylistically primitive. Lack of allegories, symbols
or metaphors, with one-dimensional characters and excessive
emphasis on the plot rather than the linguistic setting labeled
books and novels of this genre as a “lower realm” of mainstream
literature for ordinary, not demanding consumers. Fortunately,
in the modern history of SF, we can still find writers who showed
great virtuosity in their narrative style and whose books deal
with essential issues in a valuable way. One of them is the Polish
writer Stanisław Lem.
Solaris and the Dao… 123
For almost every SF fan Stanisław Lem needs no introduction.

Nevertheless, and because the author wants to address the broadest
audience possible after all, an introduction and recognition of his
influence on the modern literary world are in order. Stanisław Lem
was born in Lviv in 1921 when the city was still part of the Second
Polish Republic. From a very young age, Stanisław was showing
an insatiable thirst for knowledge and incredible curiosity about
the world. At first, following in his father’s footsteps, he took up
medical studies at Lviv and Jagiellonian Universities, but failed to
take the final exam on purpose in order to avoid the obligatory
career as a military doctor. Soon after leaving the university, Lem
made his literary debut in 1946 with several works of different
genres (among them was his first SF novel, The Man from Mars).
The first book that he could publish under the Communist regime
in Poland was The Astronauts. A few years later came the 1956
Gomułka’s thaw during which the censorship policy was not so
strict anymore. During this time, Lem became truly productive and
published seventeen books between 1956 and 1968, among which
we can find the most recognizable positions like The Investigation
(1959), Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961), Return from the Stars
(1961), Solaris (1961), The Invincible (1964) and His Master’s Voice
(1968). Although after the 1980s he wrote fewer and fewer science
fiction novels, he remained artistically active until his death on
March 27th, 2006. In those years, Lem concentrated mostly on
non-fiction or philosophical texts and essays, which appeared in
Polish magazines Tygodnik Powszechny, Odra, Przegląd, and many
others. Following their popularity in Poland, his works have been
widely translated and very early (1960s) started to appear in West-
ern Europe: Germany, France and Italy. In a short time, he became
one of the few non-Anglophone, Eastern block SF authors who
received such wide recognition. However, even in his heyday, he
never had a cachet on the American market and could not compete
with the “genre’s titans” like Isaac Asimov or Robert A. Heinlein.
Despite that, he was still quite influential – according to a recent
estimate, his books have been translated into more than forty-five
languages and sold almost 40 million copies. Stanisław Lem was
also repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Prize, and it is already
common knowledge that he did not receive it only because “some-

one told the judges that he writes science fiction.”4
As we can see, Stanisław Lem was indeed a remarkable mind:
son of a doctor with a medical studies background, scientific
research assistant, polymath interested in cybernetics, artificial
intelligence, genetic engineering, cosmology, cosmogony, astrology,
and philosophy. He was not just an excellent storyteller but also
a satirist, literary theorist, futurologist, and a real philosophical
gadfly. Both scientific and philosophical inquiries were constantly
present in his works. As a novelist, Lem was far more interested in
actual and future intellectual problems of humanity than in their
literary expression in the form of fictional stories. For him, science
fiction was not only a simple entertainment or a demonstration of
a writer’s linguistic artistry; it needed to be driven by a real phil-
osophical curiosity about what is unknown. And this ferociously
learned novelist was a living example of such curiosity – he was
writing to satisfy his insatiable inquisitiveness about the far future
of humankind and the cosmos. No wonder his SF writing carries
a heavy intellectual load, just as Bruce Sterling once wrote:
[…] for Lem science fiction is a documented form of

thought-experiment: a spearhead of cognition. All else is sec-
ondary, and it is this singleness of aim that gives his work its
driving power. This is truly a literature of ideas, dismissing the
heart as trivial, but piercing the skull like an ice pick.5
Lem saw great potential in science fiction. Novels and books

of this genre were not supposed to be limited to some narrative
patterns of primitive adventure literature. With the help of rigorous
and believable descriptions of wonders created by future science,
SF literature could work as a perfect example of philosophical
mind-experiment in a narrative form, showing us what it means
to be “human”. Lem himself admitted that he began to write SF
because “it deals with human beings as species (or rather, with all
4 Opinion expressed in 1983 by an anonymous Philadelphia Inquirer critic.

5 Bruce Sterling is a noted cyber/SF author and tech commentator.
possible species of intelligent beings, one of which happens to be

the human species.)” [Lem 1984: 16]. That is why he was constantly
raising philosophical issues related to our human condition, such
as limits of human knowledge, the nature of consciousness and
knowledge acquisition (which both address the field of epistemol-
ogy), or the moral responsibility of scientists and future explorers
of the universe (issues touched by moral philosophy). In Lem’s
books, it is not the singular hero who is being questioned, it is
humanity overall. That is why his works can serve as a survey of the
whole human species – people who, after being put into extreme
situations, must face the limits and possibilities of their own nature
(this raises a question on the possibility of humans’ ontological
transcendence). Although Lem, for most of his life, remained
skeptical that miraculous possibilities of science could simply do
away with certain human limitations, he still kept being optimistic
about the inherent goodness of humanity. After all, he was a man
who strongly believed in old-fashioned cultural and intellectual
virtues and was very displeased whenever mass society or mass
culture undermined those values, especially in his beloved SF field.
After discovering that the world of American SF in the second
half of the twentieth century consisted mainly of fantastic adven-
tures without a shred of scientific or philosophical seriousness,
Lem assigned himself a mission of reforming the current state
of the genre. He could not stand the technical ignorance, literary
clumsiness, and sociological naïveté present in the novels of his
contemporaries. He knew that if SF wants to be regarded as a form
of higher literature and show its true potential, it needs to be crit-
icized. That is why he decided to write a study of science fiction
which was published in Poland in 1970 as Fantastyka i futurologia
(Science Fiction and Futurology; some parts were translated into
English in the magazine Science Fiction Studies in 1973–1975, selected
material was translated in the single volume Microworlds: Writings
on Science Fiction and Fantasy in 1984). Besides a rigorous investiga-
tion of the theoretical basis of SF, he introduced a detailed analysis
of many of its major topics and literary themes. Lem pointed out
that the vast majority of writers limited themselves to a monoto-
nous plot and unimaginative stories, which cannot successfully
turn readers’ attention towards the direction in which the world,

in fact, was moving. Lem’s enormous disappointment with the
scientific ignorance of most American SF writers, shaped in the
form of biting criticism, was the main reason for his excommuni-
cation from the Science Fiction Writers Association. Even Philip
K. Dick, an object of Lem’s unreserved admiration whom he called
a “visionary among charlatans” wasn’t fond of the Polish writer and
called him a communist spy. Although even today Stanisław Lem
is relatively unknown to American readers, he is still considered
among the greatest SF writers of all time. He remained true to him-
self and his ideals and never sought compromise with the crowd
or fit into the niche of “pulp for the masses” – his fiction stands
out as a unique example of a conglomerate of profound science,
cruel wit, philosophical perplexities, and cerebral outlook shaped
in a perverse, but logically perfect structure. And the best example
of his literary genius is the 1961 novel Solaris.
2. Alien being and epistemological crisis of its human knower –

plot, themes, and the reception of Solaris in the West
Some people like to divide Lem’s literary work into two categories:
traditional SF and dark allegorical tales. Solaris,6 along with The
Invincible (1964) or Tales of Pirx the Pilot (1968), belongs to the
first group of stories, in which the main topics like the fantastic
reality, technological advancement, alien worlds and space travel
are enriched with non-imposing humor and philosophical depth.
All those stories are masterpieces of literature, but it was Solaris that
gained world-wide popularity – the book was written so engross-
ingly that its magnetism has not been lost to this day. Solaris was
published when Lem had already made a name for himself in
Poland and the Soviet Union.7 Soon after, it was translated into
French by Jean-Michel Jasiensko in 1964, and this version served as
6 When referring to the book Solaris, italics are applied. Solaris as a name of the
planet is kept in roman.
7 Russian translation made by Dmitry Bruskin appeared soon after the publication
of the book in Poland. Paradoxically, thanks to the negative opinion of the Soviet
critics, the novel quickly became a cult classic in the USSR.
the basis for Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox’s English translation
in 1970. For many years it was the only English translation of Solaris
available on the market, one that the author himself was not very
fond of. Indeed, this significantly deficient sister of Solaris could
prevent English readers from understanding Lem’s vast creative
force. In 2011, Bill Johnston, a professor at Indiana University, pro-
duced the first Polish–English translation of the novel, available
only in a digital form as an audiobook or ebook. This version has
been praised for being able to convey Lem’s style, his Slavic humor,
and attention to detail. It was also warmly welcomed by Lem’s fam-
ily: “we are very content with Professor Johnston’s work, that seems
to have captured the spirit of the original” [Flood 2011]. In spite
of its early imperfect translation, Solaris was still able to become
one of SF’s most popular and influential novels. Some may say that
it is owed to two well-known film adaptations: the first one was
made in 1972 by Soviet director Andrey Tarkovsky and the second
one in 2002 by American director Steven Soderbergh. Tarkovsky’s
movie, while often called visionary, deep, vivid, and piercing, is
considered to be a rather unfaithful adaptation of the novel; Lem
quarreled with the director about the script and badmouthed the
movie for the rest of his life. Soderbergh’s Solaris, produced by
James Cameron with Hollywood star George Clooney acting as
the protagonist, has been viewed mostly as a touching space love
story. Although this widely-panned recent remake veered away
from the novel’s central themes, Lem did find some positive sites
of this adaptation: “The film has a unique, overwhelming climate.
Filled with light, colors, stunning shots, music, impressive acting,
an economical use of special effects, clear narration” [Lem 2002].
But no matter how far those film adaptations departed from the
original story, it is certainly not arguable that both Tarkovsky and
Soderbergh helped Lem become one of the most widely read
science fiction writers in the world.
What is so attractive in the story that made Solaris a timeless
masterpiece of SF? The book’s central theme circles around a dis-
tant planet surrounded by two suns and covered by a mysterious
plasma-like surface which, given the lack of a more precise way
to describe it, everyone in the story calls “the Ocean”. Surpris-
ingly, this enormous entity is the planet’s sole native inhabitant,

a developed form of life dissimilar to anything seen on Earth.
Finally, after many years of fruitless space discoveries, humankind
found an extraterrestrial intelligence with which they may be able
to initiate first contact. If only the Ocean would not behave in an
unexpectable, irrational way, challenging the limits of ordinary
human knowledge. Following one hundred years of careful sci-
entific investigation, exploration and experiments, the enigmatic
appearance of Solaris’ Ocean – its substance, structure, intricate
patterns of behavior along with its unusual metamorphic creations
classified as “extensors”, “mimoids”, “symmetriads”, and “asymme-
triads” – was analyzed and described in thousands of volumes of
research literature. For all the massive amount of scholarly work
in “Solaristic studies”, no one managed to solve the mystery of
this nonhuman intelligence – the Ocean remained silent, either
undesirous or incapable of contacting humans. People could only
give countless interpretations of the Solaris phenomenon or derive
highly subjective hypotheses and narratives, but that only led to
tensions and fierce discussions between scholars, which finally
resulted in the dawn of Solaristics. This is the point in the history
of Solaris’ exploration, where the story begins. Along with the
male protagonist, psychologist Kris Kelvin, we land on a space
station close to Solaris’ orbit just to discover that “mission Solaris”
has finally reached a breakthrough. The Ocean lifted the veil on
its secrets and started to communicate with the crew. Still, this
glimmer of hope came with an exceptionally high price – pushing
one scientist to a mysterious suicide and bringing two others to
the verge of mental breakdown. The second day after his arrival,
Kelvin becomes another victim of Ocean’s “friendliness” and must
confront his pain, fear, and guilt in the shape of a creature that
resembles his long-gone past lover, Harey. After discovering that
he was not the only one visited by an unexpected “guest”, Kelvin,
together with annoying cybernetic Snaut and proud physicist
Sartorius, is trying to guess what exactly those “phantoms” are and
what their connection with the Ocean covering Solaris is. As the
novel develops, the original investigation of an alien life turns into
a quest for understanding the true nature of humanity. It appears
that the replica of human beings created by the Ocean is sourced

from the deepest memories, innermost thoughts, and forgotten
ideas submerged in the scientists’ subconsciousness and mysteri-
ously extracted by the massive and inscrutable alien being. While
encountering a different, far more advanced form of life, humans
are being exposed to the most intimate and vulnerable side of their
souls and must face the pain hidden inside it. Do the shadows
of their past haunt Kelvin, Snaut and Sartorius? Are they able to
confront the biggest unknown? Can they accept the limits of their
reason and see the Ocean in a different, nonrational way? Those are
the crucial questions that Lem tries to answer in his one-of-a-kind
masterpiece novel, a real drama on the limits of human cognition.
Lem said, while referring to Solaris in his memories, that it is
one of his first novels that he can still acknowledge without shame
because it “incorporates cognitive problems in fiction that do not
oversimplify the world” [Lem 1984]. Indeed, Solaris is one of the
most deeply philosophical works written by Lem, a true intellectual
puzzle without the usual SF crutches which dives deep into the
social and ideological underpinnings of science. No wonder that
many Western scholars soon tried to elaborate on its philosophical
and psychological meaning in connection to the achievements of
science. The first thing that comes to mind is the question of the
limits of human knowledge and cognition. Can humans really
understand an alien form of life? As we browse through the chron-
icles of Solaris exploration, we can see all of those highly-trained
researchers continually trying and continually failing to figure out
something that is beyond the reach of their knowledge. In this
history of active denial, frustration, and confusion, Lem shows
what is essential and also misleading about the human effort in
contacting other civilizations: our hubris, limited imagination,
and steadfast subjectivity. In the light of that, these one hundred
years of exploration, which at first sight may appear so tedious and
pedantic, are turned into a joke – we cannot escape the Kantian
“bubble” of the phenomenal world in which we are living. Lem’s
intent here is comical – humans didn’t gain any knowledge about
the Ocean, but it did not stop them from creating an entire science
of Solaristics. The constant metamorphosis of plasma causing
various temporary growths or distortions so carefully classified by

the scientists “seems to suggest that we observe a kind of rational
activity. Still, the meaning of this seemingly rational activity of the
Solarian Ocean is beyond the reach of human beings” [Lem 2002].
The miracle of the Ocean’s essence escapes humans’ attempts at
defining and understanding it: the researchers can only use met-
aphors or other standard classifications and concepts to describe
the unknowable. This attempt to anthropomorphize the alien
“other” can only turn the whole human endeavor into meaningless
busywork, simple observation, and cataloguing species instead of
gathering real, objective and true knowledge about them. In the
end, the Ocean itself is molded and reduced to a misleading, overly
simplistic human conception. No wonder it cannot be understood.
This is exactly what the first victim of the Ocean, Gibarian, said:
“we take off to the cosmos … ready for anything: solitude, hard-
ship, exhaustion … death. We’re proud of ourselves. But when
you think about it, our enthusiasm’s a sham. We don’t want other
worlds. We only want mirrors” [Lem 2014: 72]. Lem is not only
a skeptic questioning science’s ability to solve the mysteries of the
universe, he is also a cynic who ridicules cosmic researchers by
comparing them to medieval knights on a quest for the assertion
of human domination over new galactic civilizations. They seek,
yet they do not see, because their anthropocentric eyes are closed
to everything which is not human, which cannot be described
using human language and cannot be understood by human mind.
And those are the epistemological borders which human beings
in their limited condition cannot transgress.
As we can see, the real obstacle standing in the way to solving
the “mystery of Solaris” is not the planet itself, but the people and
their problem with self-identity. This is another philosophical topic
that Lem ponders in his book. Above, we mentioned the unflinching
subjectivity and lack of proper self-identity as the cause of humans’
inability to initiate contact with extraterrestrial life. Initial space
exploration turns into a search for identity, where the scientific
gaze must be turned inward before turning it outward [Helford
1992: 167]. We can see it in the change of Kelvin’s behavior – from
a confident and objective scientist to a man with a destabilized
self-confidence, searching for a new idea of self-integrity. Solaris

provides Kelvin and other researchers with mirrors through which
their human mind is exposed and challenged. That is why it seems
to know more about humans than they know about themselves.
Snaut at some point realized it and said: “It might be worth our
while to stay. We’re unlikely to learn anything about it, but about
ourselves […]” [Lem 2014: 77]. As it was said before, space trave-
lers were searching for mirrors in which they could find their own
image. And it happens that Solaris gave them precisely what they
needed. The Ocean makes people realize that they are fragmented,
complex beings who need to first understand themselves before
trying to understand alien forms of life. Some researchers see in
Lem’s prose traces of Hegelianism [Helford 1992: 167–177]. How
the Ocean constructs the “phi-creatures” can make us wonder if
the self is a socially constituted concept. If being fully aware of
ourselves means that we need others to refer to ourselves through
them, this implies that only social relationships can determine us.
Without them, we are no one because the way in which others see
us influences our self-definition. For Hegel, selfhood could not be
determined in pure isolation; it cannot be reached through pure
Cartesian retrospection. We mutually create each other. We need
others to look at our inner selves, just like we need mirrors to see our
faces. Harey is a perfect example of Hegelian self-identity problem:
she is a conscious subject who struggles to know who she is and can
know about herself only through memories, opinions, experiences
of the real Harey derived from Kelvin’s mind. Harey’s idea of the
self belongs to Kelvin’s memory, therefore it is not her own. She
can remain the way she is only while being close to him; otherwise,
she starts to act unpredictably and dangerously. Even though we
can see that she attempts to break free from Kelvin’s conceptual
scheme by distancing herself from him. Is it possible? For Hegel, the
answer would be no – a quest for “being-for-itself” as an opposite to
“being-for-other” is doomed to failure. We can only achieve freedom
in the way of independent self-reflection or realization of the fact
that there is no ultimate independence from others. This revelation
may influence Harey’s final decision – by destroying herself, she
thinks, she can reach the ultimate sense of freedom.
Aside from those two topics, there are a few other directions
of scholarly analysis of the novel. Elyce Rae Helford, for example,
examines Solaris characters according to Jung’s psychoanalysis and
gender metaphorization of space travel [Helford 1992: 167–177].
Alice Jardine in Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity
uses the self-created concept of gynesis8 to show its implications
in the behavior of Solaris station’s crew. Others try to solve the
mind–body problem raised in the novel – if Ocean’s act of cop-
ying one’s mind (memories, personality traits and, indeed, every
psychological feature of human beings) can mean that its creation
is actually a real human, same as the original? As can be shown,
the popularity of Solaris in the Anglophone SF world sparked
the interest of scholars to investigate the philosophical topics
introduced in the book. Specialists in the fields of ontology, epis-
temology, moral philosophy, phenomenology, and historiosophy
found many stimulating themes to elaborate on, which helped the
SF genre be seen in a more serious light – as another way to spark
the philosophical curiosity of the universe and human role in it.
This, however, has been described by people coming from a specific
cultural background, commonly known as the Western one. But,
as soon as Lem’s book was translated to non-Western languages,
the Eurocentric reception and interpretation of the novel were put
in question, especially by its Sinophone readers.
3. Vicious circle of approval and censorship – turbulent history

of SF in the Sinophone world9
For a long time, the Anglophone writers and readers played the
main part in the historical scene of science fiction. Today the
8 A term coined by Alice Jardin as part of her attempt to bring together certain
post-structuralist ideas with those of feminist criticism in her book Gynesis:
Configurations of Woman and Modernity (1985). Etymologically, it should mean
“woman-process”.
9 Hereafter, for authors from People’s Republic of China (China), his or her Chi-
nese names are written in the simplified characters (last name first) and Roma-
nized using the Pinyin transliteration. For authors from the Republic of China
(Taiwan), his or her Chinese names are written in the traditional characters (last
genre is not limited to the Anglosphere anymore – it has become

a genuinely cosmopolitan type, thanks to the hard work of trans-
lators around the world. Still, English remains the lingua franca
of SF, and the writers from non-English-speaking countries need
to be at least translated into English if they want to make a name
for themselves in the community. In the first and second part, we
already discussed the case of Lem’s popularity as dependent on
good-quality English translations. Before analyzing the reception
of Lem’s works in the Sinophone world, we should first gain an
overall idea about SF literature absorption and development in
China and Taiwan.
Western science fiction (in Chinese kexue huanxiang often
abbreviated to kehuan)10 appeared in China in the late years of the
Qing dynasty – the first novels translated into classical Chinese
were Jules Verne’s A Two-Year Vacation (Liang Qichao’s translation
from English), From the Earth to the Moon and Journey to the Centre
of the Earth (Lu Xun’s translation from Japanese). At that time, the
early Western SF works served as a tool to move the imagination
of Chinese people and initiate new ideas about the technological
progress of the Chinese society. After the collapse of the Qing
dynasty, following the May 4th Movement in 1919, the Chinese
language went through a significant transformation. Thanks to the
growing popularity of written vernacular Chinese (baihuawen),
books and periodicals became more accessible and comprehensible
to common people, which tremendously influenced the genre of
science fiction. China’s earliest purely literary magazine – Story
Forest (Xiaoshuo lin) started translating and publishing Western
SF as well as some stories written by the Chinese authors.11 After
name first) and Romanized using the Wide-Giles transliteration. The same rule
applies to publishing houses. Citations made by the blog authors are Romanized
using the Pinyin transliteration.
10 “In Chinese, as in many other languages, «science fiction» is translated into
a term more closely equivalent to «science fantasy», which seems to many of
its hearers to be oxymoronic and inherently pejorative” [Stableford 1991: 47].
11 Unfortunately, the scope of this paper does not include the story of domestic
Chinese or Taiwanese science fiction. The author can only refer to the few Chi-
nese and Taiwanese SF writers most popular in the West.
the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, SF literature

from the Soviet block became virtually the only one available in
mainland China, and it gained a huge popularity among Chinese
readers. It was also the time when “the father of Chinese science-fic-
tion” Zheng Wenguang started his literary career. During the years
of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), literature was labeled
a dangerous weapon of the bourgeois and intellectuals, hence
science fiction disappeared for over ten years. In 1979, following
the spirit of the “spring of science” proclaimed by the State Coun-
cil, the magazine Scientific Literature (Kexue Wenyi) was founded
and began to publish translated and original pieces of SF novels.
Science fiction regained its popularity, and apart from the years
1983–1984, when the genre was labeled as “spiritual pollution” and
prohibited for political reasons, it grew only stronger with time.
In 1991 Scientific Literature changed its name to Science Fiction
World (Kehuan Shijie), and by the mid-1990s, it reached a peak
circulation of about 400,000 [Kun 2012]. At the time, China not
only had a deep understanding of foreign science fiction novels
but also gave rise to its own stars, like Liu Cixin, Han Song, Wang
Jinkang, Xing He, Qian Lifang and He Xi. 12
In Taiwan, after the island was ceded to the Republic of China
in 1945 and came under the rule of the Kuomintang party, in order
to reduce the influence of Japanese culture among the masses, the
government pursued a policy of sinification. This contributed to the
rapid development of Chinese-language literature, among which
science fiction played an important role. It is widely accepted that
the first Taiwanese SF story was Chang Hsiao-Feng’s 1968 novel
Pandora. This short story influenced the works of Huang Hai or
Chang Shi-Kuo, the two most recognized literary SF writers until
1979. Since the late 70s, popular science or futurology magazines
(like Tomorrow’s World, The Cosmic Science, Youth Science) were
sprouting, promoting local writings and western SF introductions.
At that time, translated works (mostly western SF retranslated
12 Readers especially interested in the development of contemporary Chinese

science fiction can browse Ken Liu’s anthology Broken Stars: Contemporary Chi-
nese Science Fiction in Translation.
from Japanese) were far more influential than the Taiwanese SF

stories due to their availability and lack of proper copyright law and
despite the low quality of their translation. The most well-known
Western writers were Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Arthur
C. Clarke. Others couldn’t break through the language barrier,
biases or simply lack of information and poor introduction made
by local promoters of the genre. The years 1980 to 1994 are gener-
ally approved to be called a “golden age of Taiwanese SF” [Wong
2001: 83], when new local writers, like Lin Yao-de gained popularity.
The translation boom, on the other hand, was slowly fading – aside
from the reprinted versions of the classics like Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein or Verne’s novels, only a few new authors such as
Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells, and Aldous Huxley were
introduced to the Taiwanese readers. In the mid-90s science fiction
literature fell into decline mostly because of the lack of support
from its readers. As for translated works in this period, both Kurt
Vonnegut Jr.’s and Michael Crichton’s complete works were adapted
for the Taiwanese audience, but they sold very poorly, mostly due
to the lack of media exposure. At the beginning of the twenty-first
century, SF development in Taiwan entered a new period, slowly
reclaiming its former popularity. The Internet has become a wide
scene for a boom of young, amateur authors writing new, mixed
SF subgenres. Nevertheless, the tastes of the readers were and still
are directed by a popular-science scholar and SF genre leader in
Taiwan, Yeh Li-Hua. When it comes to Western SF selection, Yeh
was a strong advocate of the work by Ray Bradbury or Robert
A. Heinlein (especially his young adult science fiction novels).
Other translations until this day are still very rare, usually because
of financial misunderstandings between publishers and translators.
Today, due to the rising popularity of local authors, foreign
science fiction in China and Taiwan is experiencing a small setback.
Translated science fiction books do not sell very well, not only
because of their limited quantity, but also because of low marketing
attention and questionable translation quality. Nevertheless, there
are still various editions of earlier classics available in Chinese,
including books by Jules Gabriel Verne, H. G. Wells, Edwin Abbott,
Neal Stephenson, Cordwainer Smith, Isaac Asimov, A. Heinlein,
Philip K. Dick, George R. R . Martin, Ursula K. Le Guin or Kurt

Vonnegut Jr. Recent science fiction bestsellers such as Suzanne
Collins’s The Hunger Games, Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon,
Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, Andy Weir’s The Martian, Jeff
Vandermeer’s Annihilation, etc. are also present and selling quite
well, probably because people connect them with their popular
Hollywood movie adaptations. Young adult science fiction adven-
ture novels gained quite an audience – in the bookstores, we can
find works written by Veronica Roth, Patrick Ness, Alexandra
Bracken, Neal Shusterman or William Gibson [Bokelai 2020].
Generally, the most popular and often-read authors in China and
Taiwan are Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimow, Philip
K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ted Chiang, David Mitchell, Kurt
Vonnegut Jr., Anthony Burgess, Hugh Howey, Dan Simmons and
Paolo Bacigalupi [Danjialin 2010].
As we can see, all the mentioned authors are American. There
are only a few British writers like Neil Gaiman, James P. Hogan
or Mark Hodder who are recognizable among Sinophone read-
ers. Still, science fiction from non-English-speaking countries is
a real rarity on the Chinese-speaking market – we can find only
single, selectively translated books by German Frank Schätzing
(The Swarm), Canadian Matthew Mather (Cyberstorm), Russian
Sergey Lukyanenko (The Genome) or French Yannick Monget
(Gaïa). Luckily, Stanisław Lem has not been left behind, and two
titles from his oeuvre: Solaris and A Perfect Vacuum, are available
in the Chinese language.
4. The Ocean as an ultimate reality – Chinese translations and

the reception of Solaris in the Sinophone world
Stanisław Lem, known as Sitanisiwafu Laimu (mainland China)

or Shitannisilao Laimu (Taiwan), was introduced to the Chinese
readers in 2003 when the first translation of Solaris (Suolalisi Xing)
appeared in the bookstores. It was published by Sichuan Science
Technology Publishing House (Sichuan Keji Chubanshe) together
with Gene Brewer’s novel K-Pax (K xingyike) as part of the series
dedicated to “World Science Fiction Masters” (Shijie Kehuan
Dashi Congshu). Although Lem’s debut in the People’s Republic

of China was the Chinese version of the infamous English trans-
lation, not long after, in 2005, the prestigious Commercial Press
(Shangwu Yinshuguan) published a competitive translation, from
the German edition of Solaris (Suolalisi Xing). We can easily guess
that the first version appeared just after Soderbergh’s movie release,
using its popularity. But the emergence of the other translation of
the not so famous non-English novel, made in such a short time
and by a major publishing company, is quite astonishing. As if
that wasn’t enough, five years later, a third version, in traditional
Chinese characters, appeared under the name Suolalisi Xing pub-
lished by the Taiwanese Muses Publishing House (Miusi Chu-
ban Youxian Gongsi). This time, the book was translated from the
original by the renowned professor from Beijing Foreign Studies
University (Beijing Waiguoyu Daxue) Zhao Gang. In 2014, Zhao
Gang’s translation was republished in simplified Chinese by China’s
mainland Huacheng Publishing House (Huacheng Chubanshe),
under the same title. Perplexed by this situation, one of Chinese
readers recently made a profound comparative analysis of those
three versions and posted it on Douban Dushu (Douban reading
books), one of the leading book markets on the Chinese Internet
[Wei 2018]. In his opinion, the reason that the second version
appeared is that the first edition was pirated. But still, the second
translation was commissioned by a publishing house which only
very rarely releases science fiction books – sadly, this question
remains unsolved. Later on, the author tries to compare all three
editions in different categories: book cover project, printing style,
readability, and finally, the quality of translation. In his ultimate
verdict, the newest version translated directly from Polish is the
best one, although the translator sometimes could not avoid falling
into the trap of being too precise, giving up the rich literary flavor
which the Chinese language has to offer. In some parts, the first
edition, written in accordance with the English translation of the
book, can be much more appealing to the reader, even if it is not
a direct match with Lem’s original novel.
Chinese readers have been exposed to the most famous novel
written by the “Polish science fiction king” through two important
channels: cinema and literature. In most cases, it was either Tark-

ovsky’s or Soderbergh’s adaptation that made SF fans in mainland
China and Taiwan familiar with Solaris. Even if both pictures failed
to reflect the deep philosophical meaning of the book or didn’t
show all the examples of the confrontation between science and
human nature wrapped in Lem’s unique cynical sense of humor,
they were an important window to Lem’s popularity in the Sino-
phone world. They helped a new group of readers acknowledge
that Lem was, at some point, the most popular SF writer outside
the Anglophone world and his impact on the development of the
genre was of great importance. In a short article included in the 2010
and 2014 versions of the book, an established scholar from National
Tsinghua University Liu Ruey-Hua agreed that a film adaptation of
a novel is always a two-edged sword: “without the [Soderbergh’s]
movie, maybe only a few people would know about Lem’s novel;
having seen the movie, it is possibly even harder to have a complete
picture of the book.”13 This view is especially important when we
think about the ending of the novel: “Lem’s book offers us a con-
clusion without a climax, and both adaptations by abandoning
this idea lose the reflective value which was present in the original
work.”14 Nevertheless, Liu still tries to find a space in which the two
movies and the novel can interact and complement each other to
help the readers understand the essential parts of the whole story.
For example, the movies can offer us a more developed picture of
the characters and solve the riddle behind their way of thinking
and behavior, which is the key to Chinese readers’ understanding
of the typical Western style of thinking about subjectivity.
On the Chinese and Taiwanese Internet, we can find several
opinions on Lem’s novel and its adaptations written by SF fans
in the form of a blog post. The majority of them first saw one of
two movies (like coolchet [Coolchet 2006], Imagination Abyss
13 Translated from the original statement: “Meiyou dianying de paishe, Lem de xia-
oshuokeneng hen shao ren hui zhidao, you le dianying, que keneng geng nan zhidao
xiaoshuo de quan mao”[Liu 2010: 330].
14 Translated from the original statement: “Lem de xiaoshuo zhong de feichang chaoshi
de jieju – keneng gaibian que sangshi le yuanzuo de liu gei duzhe sikao de yuwei.” [Liu
2010: 330].
[2010]), but there were at least two (Yang Yu-Chi [Yang 2014] and
Elish [2012]) who started with the novel. All of them agree that
the movies do not give truth to the real story created by Lem, but
they can assist in understanding some of the complexities present
in the book. Coolchet and Elish appreciated the artistic value of
Tarkovsky’s picture (seeing it as a response to Kubrick’s Space
Odyssey 2001) and Yau, being himself a fan of Avatar, respected
Cameron’s creative oversight in the production of Solaris. But even
if both films are quite impressive by themselves, in comparison to
the book they look very poor. Imagination Abyss says that Soder-
bergh’s movie gives a “shallow outcome” and Yang Yu-Chi vents
his frustration more directly by saying that “after watching this
movie I just wanted to roll over on the ground: this is not Solaris! …
Once again I witnessed the irreplaceability of novels” [Yang 2014].
Aside from a comparison with film adaptations, what do the
blog writers discuss in their book reviews? Let’s start with their
first impression while reading the book. Here, many readers share
the view expressed by Shane, in which he is surprised by the thrill-
er-like character of the book, where: “you are not prepared to be
scared out of your wits, but the tense atmosphere soaks gradually
into your consciousness, making you feel insecure or even nau-
seous.”15 The overall lack of optimism about humans’ future in
a scientifically advanced world so visible in Lem’s narrative can add
to the frightening experience, which normally does not happen in
books of this genre. That brings us to another topic discussed by
Sinophone readers – the contrast between the limitless universe
and the limited power of human cognition. Even though we know
that complete knowledge of the cosmos will always and forever be
beyond our reach, we still strive to push the limits of our cogni-
tion. This is the complicated human nature represented by Lem’s
characters and recognized by Chinese and Taiwanese readers. That
is why Danjialin, for example, agrees with Lem that it would be
too optimistic to believe that within our limited power, we can
15 Translated from the original statement: “Bu shi suishi zhunbei rang ren he podan
de yunniang, er shi zhijie yi lu qianfu zai yishi li, rang ren da cong xindi gandao bu
shufu, shenzhi zuo ou.” [Shane 2015].
communicate with alien beings, even in the future, even with the
support of highly advanced technology [Danjialin 2010]. Coolchat
believes that as long as we are using our perspective only, we won’t
be able to explore other worlds [Coolchet 2006].
Human nature is a topic very familiar to Chinese literature
and philosophy, which is why so many bloggers were interested
in the concept of “phantoms” as humans-not-humans. Danjialin
observes that the beings created by the Ocean are just like originals
and can do nothing more than act as the originals [Danjialin 2010].
He wonders if the Phi-creatures are personifications of thoughts,
memories, and feelings; of everything which makes us the way we
are, yet still they cannot be called “humans”, then what does it mean
to be “human”? Coolchat tries to find an answer to this question
by saying that maybe Harey has become a real human when, out
of love, she decided to sacrifice herself for Kelvin’s sake?
Although the mystery of the Phi-creatures is what sparks the
interests of and opens debates between reviewers online, many see
the real beauty of the book in another original idea – the study of
Solaristics. Elish admits that readers used to adventurous SF novels
and focused mostly on the plot of the story would be disappointed
with long and monotonous descriptions of historical explorations.
This part can be “dry” in his opinion, but “this dryness comes not
from the bad style of writing, but it serves as a smokescreen, to
lead to an epiphany about the main theme of the book, and in this,
the interminable beauty of [Lem’s] work can be captured.”16 For
Danjialin, Lem is a true erudite: the parts describing the history
of Solaris mission can speak to the hearts of hard SF fans, but his
mastermind shows in the ostracised element of the scholarship –
the Apocrypha [Danjialin 2010]. Those unofficial, underexplained,
and overlooked phenomena described by the researchers are the
most valuable, the most important discovery in the whole study
because they present a challenge to human reason and show why
the entire exploration went in the wrong direction. As Jacky puts it,
16 Translated from the original statement: “Zhe zhong gan bing bu shi yinwei xie de
buhao, er gai shuo jiu shi yao zhe yang cai neng duiqi chu xiaoshuo zuihou de poti yu
wujin de mei.” [Elish 2012].
“Facing this planet, facing this mystery, facing those «fake» loved
ones, facing all this science in decline, we can only feel heavy, we
can only feel empty.”17
Overall, the bloggers summarize their reading experience as
positive, although it came with a sad and heavy load (Danjialin).
Some admit that the whole book presents a challenge to SF readers,
spoiled by the light, adventurous space novels, where science and
technology are just a colorful addition (Coolchat). But even if not
built for the philosophical depths of this work, they still enjoyed
reading it and wanted to share their opinion. Shane [2015] calls
Lem the most significant SF author in history. Imagination Abyss
says that “Solaris gave her an intense reading experience which
lead to a shocking journey into the deepest part of her soul”18 and
for that, Lem should be awarded a Nobel Prize.
Aside from personal blogs, there is a top-rated channel on
YouTube called Huanhai Hangxing19 (loosely translated as Journey
Through the Fantasy Sea), which has been, since the beginning of
2019, providing its viewers with analysis and interpretation of dif-
ferent SF works. Two ten-minute episodes published on January
18th and 21st, 2019 are dedicated to Lem’s Solaris, and both are titled
Another way to interpret life in the Universe (Dui Yuzhou Shengming
de Ling Yi Zhong Jiedu). The first video has reached a high viewing
figure of 184,184; more than 112,000 users have viewed the second
one20. In both parts, the narrator tells the story in line with the book
but from the third-person perspective, adding a personal interpre-
tation of the plot. In the background, there are scenes from the 2002
movie and some random cuts from other SF films. Each episode
ends with a friendly suggestion that it will be more entertaining if
the viewers read the book rather than just watch the explanation
17 Translated from the original statement: “Miandui zhe zhe ge xingqiu, miandui
zhe zhe ge mituan, miandui zhe zhe ge jiaqinren, miandui zhe moluo de kexue, zhide
chenzhong, zhide kongxu.”[ Jacky 2012].
18 Translated from the original statement: “Suolali xing wei wo dailai le yi ci hen
shenke de yuedu tiyan, yi ci feichang zhenhan de zixing zhilü.” [Imagination Abyss
2010].
19 Huanhai Hangxin – science fiction (n.d.) Home [YouTube Channel] https://
tinyurl.com/4m6hr27y
20 Retrieved on 18.08.2020.
given in this short video. Browsing through the comments section

below each episode, we can discover many different opinions about
Lem’s novel. Some may find the plot boring and won’t recommend
it for future reading. Others admit that Lem was a genius who
went further than just scratching the surface of the genre. Hence
they believe that Solaris is a must-read classic. We can also find
several people discussing differences between the book and two
film adaptations. Still, the most interesting comments are those in
which the viewers reveal their reflections on the message conveyed
by the story. The user Distant Moon (Yue Zai Yuan) is convinced
that the “original spirit” or soul must be eternal [Distant 2019].
Ameizi from Hot Springs Village (Wenquancun Ameizi) believes
that the future direction of science is mysticism [Hot Springs Vil-
lage 2019]. After seeing both parts, the user goahis points out that
when we encounter a question to which science cannot find any
answers, we need to turn our faces to philosophy [Goahis 2019].
He is fascinated by the Ocean, this god-like, powerful, and silent
creature, whose knowledge cannot be measured by any human
standards. It does not want to establish any contact with humans
because it already knows everything about them. Goahis sees in
the Ocean a perfect state of cosmic harmony, something which
in Chinese philosophy has been called a “unity between Heaven
and Man” (tian ren heyi), a state in which any words, descriptions,
and concepts are futile, a condition in which one can only remain
silent. Haifeng Liu agrees with this opinion and makes another ref-
erence to the traditional Chinese way of thinking – the concept of
the “Dao of Heaven” (Tiandao) introduced in the Book of Changes
(Yijing).21 It is interesting to see how Sinophone SF fans approach
Lem’s Ocean: from their perspective, it is no different than the idea
of the Cosmic Dao, coming from their original philosophical line
of thought – Daoism. While being ultimate and absolute, Dao can
never be experienced by our senses and can never be expressed
in our language. Its description can only be used as a metaphor
for what is forever unknowable and ineffable. Dao giving birth to
all things under Heaven is pure creation itself, it constitutes one
21 One of the oldest Chinese classics, a mystical divination text, believed to have
the answers to every question in the universe.
flow of continuity that will never cease to exist. It exceeds our

imagination, seems to be unreachable, yet it is fundamental to our
existence. It is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. Given
the description above, no wonder that the main object of scientific
investigation in the novel appears to be another metaphor of the
ancient Chinese idea of the ultimate reality.
We have already seen that for a book written by a non-An-
glophone writer, Solaris, to some extent, became a trendy novel
among science fiction fans in China and Taiwan. Even if the novel
stands out from the majority of works typical of the genre, and
even if it was written by an author coming from a different cultural
background, this highly scientific story with its psychological and
philosophical depths did win the hearts of Sinophone readers. This
positive reception given by the SF community sparked interest of
many scholars dealing mostly with world literature studies and
inspired them to write articles about Lem’s insightful narrative
style. One of them – a short review by Liu Ruey-Hua included
in the recent translation of the book was already mentioned at
the beginning of this section. Together with a brief comparison
between the original story and its adaptation, Liu shares his reflec-
tions on the nature of communication and mutual understanding
coming with it. For him, the main characters in the book are not
trying to communicate with an alien being from another planet
but with the “unfamiliar” hidden in their subconsciousness. This
makes us ponder: what does it actually mean for us to be human?
For Liu, Solaris can help us understand the nature of this question
and show a direction of our search for an answer:
What is Solaris? Maybe it is something that you had lost a long

time ago. Maybe it is something you have been longing for for
a long time. Maybe you have no idea what it is that you desire,
and Solaris is the place in which you can find it. Everyone
should have their own Solaris. We also want to know where
exactly this Solaris is, but the biggest question is, if one day
you find it, what will you do next?22
22 Translated from the original statement: “Solaris shi shenme? Keneng ni cengjing
shiqu de. Keneng ni bing bu zhidao ziji xiangwang shenme, que zai Solaris shang keyi
The first edition of the book, translated from English, has been
reviewed by another notable expert – Yan Wu, a Chinese science
fiction scholar and professor at Beijing Normal University. Yan
believes that the primary purpose of science fiction literature is
not to show us the infinite possibilities of science or predict our
future but to bring us into a state of wonder, to help us create a phil-
osophical sphere in our lives, where we can think from different
perspectives about our life just right now.23 And this is precisely the
purpose that Solaris fulfills. Yan Wu appreciates Lem’s profound
thinking and his characteristic Eastern European humor with satir-
ical content. He finds it impressive how, by combining different
literary forms (scientific treatise, medical research report, folk story,
myth or fairy tale), the Polish author can not only vividly describe
humorous and sometimes absurd situations but also deeply reflect
on the meaning of our lives. No wonder that Stanisław Lem has
been called Borges of the Space Age.24
Following so many positive opinions on Lem’s masterpiece,
several academics from mainland China wrote articles in which
they analyze the main themes of Solaris against theories and con-
cepts popular in literature and philosophy. Wang Ruirui, for exam-
ple, believes that Solaris introduces an important posthumanist
aspect [Wang 2019: 175]. In light of this revelation, we need to
criticize human nature and redefine it so that we can finally let go
of our anthropocentric worldview. He argues that Lem is humor-
ously blaming a one-sided human perspective, our urge to create
definitions and norms applicable to everything under the sun. The
belief in causality, in binary distinctions in ethics, falls apart when
zhaodao. Mei ge ren yinggai dou you ziji de Solaris, women ye xu hen xiang zhidao
zhe ge Solaris zai nali, zhenzheng de nanti shi, ruguo you yi tian ni nadao le Solaris,
ni zenme ban?”[Liu 2010: 330].
23 Translated from the original statement: “Zhuyao gongneng shi ta de xiangxing,
shi ta tigong gei renmen dui xianshi jinxing duo jiaodu fansi de zhexue kongjian.”,
published as an opinion attached to Stanislaw Lem’s [2014: 332] Solaris (Suolali
xing).
24 The so-called “Space Age” is generally considered to have begun in 1957, with
the launch of the first satellite Sputnik 1 into space, and continues till the present
day. It is an era that encompasses out-of-Earth exploration, space technology, the
space race, and any cultural development influenced by these events.
humans encounter a being which is thinking and acting following

different, if any, criteria. This makes the Ocean and the “guests”
something which can be called “Totally Other” (wanquan tazhe),
a posthumanist object that exceeds our belief in humanism and
escapes the familiar dichotomy of good and evil, right and wrong
[Wang 2019: 176]. By encountering a different form of life, to
which none of the norms created by humans can apply, we can
finally reflect on the nature of morality. This reflection can lead
to a real “ethical turn” (lunli zhuanxing), making space for a new,
nonhuman-centered, code of conduct where the agent is no longer
only a human being. This “ethical turn” is a change that the pro-
tagonist of the novel experiences himself. After a futile attempt to
understand the nature of Solaris with the use of the “knowledge”
gathered in Solaristic archives or by various experiments made
on its creations, Kelvin changes his subjective mode of cognition
into a nonhuman form of understanding. For Wang Ruirui, Lem’s
example of a new cognitive state is very similar to Rosi Braidotti’s
idea of “nomadic subjectivity”.25
Another scholar, Chen Dan, tried to prove that Lem’s skep-
ticism towards the anthropocentric nature of human cognition
can deconstruct a utopian imagination typical of the science fic-
tion genre. Employing a literary strategy called by Chen “double
inscription”, Lem turns the limitations of the utopian ideal into
an allegory and criticizes its merits. According to Chen, different
lines of the narrative – one describing the one hundred years of
Solaristic exploration, one building an atmosphere of an action
thriller, and one telling a romantic love story – which are frequently
interchangeable in the book, create an overall satirical effect in
which the human concept of utopia becomes a laughable fantasy.
Everything can be brought down to a binary opposition between
the human “self ” (subject) and alien “other” (object). This antago-
nism is the cause of all the paradoxes present in the book: rational
science versus irrational object of science, imperfect human beings
versus phantoms created from cherished human memories, our
25 Readers interested in this topic can check Braidotti’s Nomadic Theory. The Portable
Rosi Braidotti [Braidotti 2012].
need to express everything through language versus phenomena

always escaping our cognition, thus naming, abilities, etc. [Chen
2016: 113]. Knowledge, language, reason, imagination, ethical
norms – everything that humans see as universal becomes empty
concepts when exposed to an object which itself is something above
our idea of objectivity. Chen believes that Lem could agree with
Jacques Lacan’s theory of a split subject [Chen 2016: 115]. In this
case, the only possible way for humans to initiate real communica-
tion with the alien “other” is to abandon the subject-object dichot-
omy. But whether it can be done, and how, is a different question.
5. A far ahead mind in a far away world –

summary and conclusions
Stanisław Lem, an astonishingly well-read physician with a curious

mind naturally drawn to science and philosophy, was and still is
the only internationally acclaimed Polish-language science fiction
novelist. At the peak of his popularity (end of the 1970s and early
1980s), Lem was the most widely read non-English-language SF
writer, and until today, fifteen years after his death, he is still con-
sidered a true master of the genre. This Polish SF king remains an
author who can, in an interesting way and by the use of an original
literary form, transmit to us an essential message about life, human-
kind, and the world we create. Rather than storyline fireworks, he
put his trust into the reflective ability of the reader. The topics
that he was raising more than forty years ago in his books have
become increasingly current today, not only because many of his
visions of the future, like scientific development or our addiction
to technology, became real in the present time. Lem’s books are
realistic also because they touch on the ontological, epistemolog-
ical, phenomenological, and ethical problems that we need to face
here and now in this highly-advanced, globalized, and complicated
world. And when it comes to the deep, insightful, philosophical,
and still up-to-date novel, there is no better example than Lem’s
best and most important work – Solaris.
We have already seen that this short story about seeking contact
with the massive and inscrutable alien being has captivated the
hearts and minds of science fiction fans around the world. Andrey
Tarkovsky’s and Steven Soderbergh’s film adaptations certainly
contributed to Solaris’ global success and popularized this story
among readers of different ages, genders, cultures, and beliefs. The
book’s reputation grew even stronger with the support of Western
scholars of literature and philosophy, who tried to elaborate on
Solaris’ philosophical and psychological meaning in connection
to the achievements of future science. Academics have analyzed
the book in the spirit of a number of theories and conceptions like
limits of human knowledge; questions about human nature and
ability of our cognition, the connection between mind and body;
search for self-identity; roles implied by the society and norms
which we agreed to follow and universalize, etc. Some attempted to
involve comparative studies by recalling arguments and concepts
defined by famous philosophers and thinkers like Descartes, Hegel,
Foucault, or Freud. Solaris definitely was and still is a story worth
reading, reflecting, discussing, and sharing.
In the West, Lem’s fame spread very fast, especially given the
time of geopolitical tensions between the Soviet Union and the
United States. In the East, however, the Polish writer was unknown
for a long time. When we look at the history of science fiction in
China and later in Taiwan, we can better understand why it was so.
Political nuances and rivalry, censorship, different cultural back-
ground, and the language barrier were important causes of selective
accessibility of Western SF works in the Sinophone world. In the
beginning, only the “cream” of Anglophone writers received the
honor of having their works materialized in the Chinese language.
Later, with the end of the twentieth century, this group was joined
by new authors, less and more popular, usually following the tastes
of renowned science fiction scholars or political leaders. Still, books
written by non-English-speakers were a rarity. No wonder that
after 2002, the appearance of three different translations of Solaris
evoked curiosity among Chinese readers. Many started to ponder
why a non-Anglophone author received such a huge attention
from various publishing houses, why three different translators
were striving to capture the spirit of this novel and present it to the
Chinese audience. Due to this phenomenon, the interest in Lem’s
book increased, bookworms from China and Taiwan, after reading

the story, started to write opinions on their blogs, create videos
on YouTube channels or even publish serious articles in academic
journals. Most of them wanted to share their reading experience
or re-tell the story, some started to ask philosophical questions
and analyze the hidden meanings of the book. All those authors
became, in a way, Solarists – they were exposed to something
that they didn’t encounter before, a new version of an SF novel so
different from the pulp escapism entertainment assigned to this
genre without mentioning the foreign philosophical depth of the
story written from a Western mind’s perspective. Many found it
hard to read, more could not bring together the indescribable
mystery hidden between the lines. Still, they tried to understand it
the best way they could by recalling topics present in the Western
studies on literature and philosophy – the problem of cognition,
the value of the human soul, anthropocentrism, and the search
for a utopian society.
Examples of reflections and investigations by Sinophone read-
ers used in this paper are just the beginning. Browsing through all
those sincere opinions and insightful studies, it is easy to notice
that the story of the human encounter with a mysterious Ocean
and its creations strikes a chord with some ideas coming from tra-
ditional Chinese philosophy, especially works written by Laozi and
Zhuangzi in the spirit of the Daoist philosophy. It would be more
than interesting to witness a comparative study between Lem’s
philosophical insight presented in Solaris and Laozi’s teaching
without words (bu yan zhi dao) or Zhuangzi’s “usefulness of the
useless” (wu yong zhi yong); “spontaneous change” (zi fa zhi bianyi)
as a Way in which the universe and myriad things exist; the “ethics
of attunement” with the natural course of things (shun qi ziran zhi
lunlixue); the idea of “effortless action” (wuwei); the equality of
all forms of life (tianli zhi pingdeng), etc. Because … weren’t the
human conventions and methods of linguistic communication
unable to grasp, describe, and understand the existence of the
Ocean? Isn’t it true that, while facing the unknown, indescribable
and unexplainable, one must simply surrender to it, accept it and
enjoy what follows without interfering with it, without trying to
force it to make sense? Doesn’t the encounter with Solaris guide

us on how to be humble, compassionate, understanding, tolerant,
and flexible in our perspectives, beliefs and convictions? Doesn’t
it teach us how to be good in our unique, differentiated world?
Insight from the Chinese philosophy can expand our Western ideas
of “knowledge” and “human limits” and possibly give answers to
questions which we couldn’t reach with our one-sided Western
perspective.
These and many other comparative approaches can become
a new way to appreciate well-written works of science fiction, like
Solaris. The author hopes that in the future, there will be more
people eager to familiarize themselves with Lem’s literary work,
which would meet with a demand for more first-hand transla-
tions. Stanisław Lem was popular, is popular and will be popular.
His books are timeless masterpieces of science fiction literature
and deserve to be discovered by everyone who likes to read and
ponder the nature of our humanness put to the test in the age of
scientific wonders. This year, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of
Lem’s birth. This would be an excellent opportunity to see some
of those wishes become a reality.
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Zofia Anna Wybieralska

Solaris and the Dao: The Reception of Stanislaw Lem’s Novel
in the Sinophone World
The most popular science fiction novel written by the Polish author
Stanisław Lem, Solaris, was published in 1961. Although it was translated
into English as early as 1970, the book was unknown to the Sinophone
readers until 2003, when the first translation from English into Chinese
was published, most probably following the popularity of the resounding
Hollywood film adaptation from 2002. Still, Suolalisi Xing (which can be
translated as ‘Solaris Star’) did not attract broader audiences in China or
Taiwan, at least not until the third version of the novel, translated directly
from Polish into Chinese, saw the light of day in 2010. The appearance of this
translation coincided with the beginning of a New Golden Era of Chinese
and Taiwanese science fiction, which undoubtedly had a significant influ-
ence on the positive re-reception of Solaris. In the paper, the author focuses
on the philosophical aspect of Lem’s work and investigates which themes
and concepts present in Solaris caught the imagination of Chinese-speak-
ing readers. The author wants to show how this reception, while coming
from a different historical, cultural, and linguistic background, can enrich
our understanding of the novel and introduce a new way of looking at the
important existential questions stated by the writer.
Keywords: Stanisław Lem; science fiction; Sinophone world; anthropo-

centrism.
Zofia Anna Wybieralska – currently a third year Ph. D. student of the Phi-
losophy department at the National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan.
She received an M. A . at Beijing Normal University in 2016 in Chinese Phi-
losophy. Her research interests include Chinese and transcultural philosophy,
especially in the sphere of ethics, religion, and everyday practice. Additionally,
she is also working as a Chinese–Polish and Polish–Chinese translator and
interpreter.

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Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne

Seria Literacka 40 (60)

Zofia Anna Wybieralska

Solaris and the Dao1:

1. Stanisław Lem – underestimated Polish futurist

Science fiction (SF hereafter for brevity2) is a particular type of

1 Dao, translated differently depending on the context (as “way”, “road”, “path”,

Although some works, written in ancient and early modern times,

For almost every SF fan Stanisław Lem needs no introduction.

common knowledge that he did not receive it only because “some-

[…] for Lem science fiction is a documented form of

Lem saw great potential in science fiction. Novels and books

4 Opinion expressed in 1983 by an anonymous Philadelphia Inquirer critic.

possible species of intelligent beings, one of which happens to be

turn readers’ attention towards the direction in which the world,

2. Alien being and epistemological crisis of its human knower –

ingly, this enormous entity is the planet’s sole native inhabitant,

that the replica of human beings created by the Ocean is sourced

various temporary growths or distortions so carefully classified by

self-confidence, searching for a new idea of self-integrity. Solaris

3. Vicious circle of approval and censorship – turbulent history

genre is not limited to the Anglosphere anymore – it has become

the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, SF literature

12 Readers especially interested in the development of contemporary Chinese

from Japanese) were far more influential than the Taiwanese SF

Philip K. Dick, George R. R . Martin, Ursula K. Le Guin or Kurt

4. The Ocean as an ultimate reality – Chinese translations and

Stanisław Lem, known as Sitanisiwafu Laimu (mainland China)

Dashi Congshu). Although Lem’s debut in the People’s Republic

channels: cinema and literature. In most cases, it was either Tark-

given in this short video. Browsing through the comments section

flow of continuity that will never cease to exist. It exceeds our

What is Solaris? Maybe it is something that you had lost a long

humans encounter a being which is thinking and acting following

need to express everything through language versus phenomena

5. A far ahead mind in a far away world –

Stanisław Lem, an astonishingly well-read physician with a curious

book increased, bookworms from China and Taiwan, after reading

force it to make sense? Doesn’t the encounter with Solaris guide

Danjialin (2010), „Suolali Xing” (Solaris, 1961) by Stanislaw Lem,

Shane (2015), Feelings after reading Solaris, [retrieved on: 20.07.2020],

Zofia Anna Wybieralska

Keywords: Stanisław Lem; science fiction; Sinophone world; anthropo-

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