Stanislaw Lem and Reference Books
Posted by: Rebecca Vnuk
In a world in which a single issue of The New York Times (October 20, 2009) can report that artificial memories have been created in the brain of a fruitfly; wild fish have learned to “discriminate among colors, patterns, and shapes, including new ones”; and radioactive isotopes in the whiskers of Antarctic fur seals contain a record of the seals’ migration patterns, some of the Polish philosophical and science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem’s wilder imaginings may not seem so wild after all.
In the introduction to Eruntics by one Reginald Gulliver (published by George Allen & Unwin Limited at some indeterminate future date), Lem introduces the apocryphal Gulliver, in the latter’s own words, as “a philosopher-dilettante and amateur bacteriologist who one day eighteen years ago decided to teach bacteria English.” Eruntics is one of five remarkable works collected in Imaginary Magnitude, translated from Polish by Marc Heine and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1984. Lem’s Wikipedia entry credits the writer with coming up with the concept of “electronic paper” but also notes his aversion to the Internet. On the title page to Golem XIV, in the same volume, Lem has Indiana University Press still existing in 2047. Let’s hope so! Also in Imaginary Magnitude are Lem’s prospectus and sample pages for Vestrand’s Extelopedia (in 44 Magnetomes), a parody of the “and if you act now…” school of television commercial, but in this case in print and extolling the virtues of the solution to the nagging problem of your encyclopedia being out of date even before it is published. Vestrand’s Extelopedia, you see, predicts the future (entries printed in black exceeding 99.9% probability, those in red having less than 86.5% probability). Editors are in continuous remote-control contact with each Extelopedia, to ensure that probability changes are registered as color changes in the text. Lem foresees for 2011 publication this 44-volume set to which, at the sound of one’s voice “the desired volume slips off the shelf, TURNS its own pages, and STOPS at the desired entry.” Hilarious.
Not so hilarious is the title piece in One Human Minute, a collection (translated by Catherine S. Leach and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1986) which also contains “The Upside-Down Evolution” and “The World as Cataclysm.” All three are reviews of nonexistent books. The 36-page title review imagines a reference work which “presents what all the people in the world are doing, at the same time, in the course of one minute.” It is a dystopian vision wonderfully written and translated. At several points Lem compares and contrasts the apocryphal work he is reviewing to the Guinness Book of World Records.
I highly recommend these and other books by Stanislaw Lem.
