But that’s the point: have have arms, just like us. Spiders obviously have some sort of brain going on inside that head regardless of the fact that they don’t look like humans except for having eight arms instead of two. The conception of intelligent life on distant planets tended to be solid rather than viscous and for the most part had a form recognizable in some way to the humanity as what life forms possessing a brain of some sort should look like. Wells’ War of the Worlds published in 1898 and the “bugs” of Heinlein’s 1959 novel Starship Troopers, alien life forms were presented by an overwhelming margin as recognizable creatures or machines or, mostly, humanoids. But while trying to understand the larger symbolic meaning of the Solaris black sea thick blood-colored foam, don’t overlook the significant place it has simply as a portrayal of intelligent alien life. A wealth of material is available from which to draw conclusions, so go at it. That the story is intended to be allegorical is clear enough and everyone is to draw rom the text any logical inferences about the allegorical meaning of it all they wish.

Rather than focusing on interpreting the meaning of the sentient and possibly godlike ocean covering almost the entirety of the planet Solaris that is the alien life form in this science fiction novel, a much wiser approach to analysis is focusing on the place of the Solaris ALF within the history of the genre. A text twice removed from the original one might approach the English-language version of Solaris with all the expectations of perfect understanding as one approach the King James Bible. The English version of the novel most widely available is notorious for being not a translation of Lem’s original Polish, but a translation of a French translation of the original.

Of course, one would not really get too close to the kernel of truth at the center unless one could read and understand Polish. One could spend hours just debating just the most popular interpretations of the meaning of Stanislaw Lem’s science fiction classic, Solaris. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

Stanisław lem's solaris