Customer Reviews

The Futurological Congress

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Here I am sitting on a chair and pecking at a keyboard with a monitor and computer in front of me. At least I think so. But what if the sushi I had for lunch was spiked with a psychotropic drug that makes me believe that this typing at the keyboard activity is real? Especially when, in actual reality, I may be strung up stark naked and upside-down in a subterranean dungeon with rats gnawing at my vitals while happily thinking up what to write about Stanislaw Lem's greatest book, THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS.

The reason why I believe that some of the best sci-fi since WW2 came from Eastern Europe (Lem from Poland and Boris and Arkady Strugatsky from Russia) is that the mind set of communism was conducive toward what is referred to as "aesopic writing" (The term comes from Solzhenitsyn.) If you protested anything, you were regarded as a traitor to the state; but if you wrote fables as the Greek writer Aesop did which were not set in a particular unnamed repressive regime at a particular time, you might be able to get away with it scot free.

Lem had a field day by speculating on a congress who members are drugged into thinking they are drugged into acting as if they were drugged ... it goes on and on. The more or less classical beginning descends into multiple levels of questioning every level into reality, until even the most utterly solipsistic stance is questioned. By that time, you are either confused or, if you're like me, laughing your head off. As they say in another context, unreal!

I have been for a long time a fan of the Stanislaw Lem works. I got acquainted with some of his novels (Solaris, Star Diaries and Eden) when I was a kid, and without any doubt the great master has shaped my world outlook. I have been lucky enough to be able to read the Lem's works in Russian (my native language), which is of course much closer to the original Polish than English. I have heard that the Lem's translations by Michel Kandel to English are simply great. Luckily enough he has also translated this book - the Futurological Congress, which I consider to be one of the best works written by Stanislaw Lem. Futurological Congress is a bright example of the great master's ability to combine "uncombinable": SF spirit, deep philosophy and inflammatory humor. I don't want to retell here the content of the book - it is immeasurably funnier to read the novel itself. I dare to rate the novel higher than for example the celebrated Rendezvous with Rama by A.Clark. The latter is unique in its detailed trustworthiness, but is left far behind by the Futurological Congress' spectrum of adventures for the reader's mind.

Written when Poland was under the grip of Communism, "The Futurological Congress" is a powerful parable of a totalitarian state that uses psychotropic drugs not only to subdue its citizens but also to make them believe things are better than they are. The first third of the book reads almost like an adventure story: Ijon Tichy is attending a convention of futurologists in Central America, when he and his colleagues are caught up in a bizarre coup d`etat. When Tichy's cryogenically frozen corpse is reanimated decades later, the entire overpopulated world is hooked on drugs.

Unlike most pieces of dystopian fiction, Lem's novel is funny and brainy rather than depressing and catastrophic, but it is still scarily prophetic. At times, though, the prose threatens to collapse into a pun-laden Physician's Desk Reference for the Year 2039: "they give the children throttlepops, then develop their character with opinionates, uncompromil, rebellium, allaying their passions with sordidan and practicol; no police, and who needs them when you have constabuline. . . ?" (These passages must have been a nightmare to translate and, remarkably, they never lose their fluency.) But Lem keeps the reader's interest by alternating his pharmocological laundry lists with clever plot twists and bizarre visions, and the novel's pace continuously accelerates until its frenzied, over-the-top climax.

This book is great on so many levels - the concept, the ideas, and possibly most of all, the sharp satirical humor. While the main thesis presented in the book - alteration of preceived reality to control humanity - has nowadays been made accessible to the general public through the Matrix movies, at the time this book was written (1970s) the concept was quite fresh. His choice of method (drugs and chemicals) was reasonable for the time, and although some of his views on our future will probably not pan out (he forsaw an ice age, whereas it is now thought the earth will overheat to death), he is certainly heading in the right direction.
Through it out hillarity reigns. It is accentuated by his casual, matter-of-fact description of the most absurd events; I find the narrative voice remeniscent of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels". A few words of appreciation must also be directed at Michael Kandel, who had the hard task of translating Lem's subtle humor - a task masterfully done.
My only regret is that the book seems rushed, which I suppose it has no choice but to be, given the amount of Narrative Lem delivers over only 150 pages. Other than that - a wonderful, thought-provoking and very funny book.

My first acquaintance with Lem was via The Cyberiad, which unlike any other non-Lem book had me laughing out loud almost once per page. While The Futurological Congress is also satirical, in that Lem tells the tale with just the right amount of insincerity to make the story credible in its framework, it also takes the genre of "psychological sci-fi" to an extreme. Picture Philip K. Dick to the nth power. I was incredibly amused, bemused, and provoked by this novel and would recommend it to absolutely everyone. (Also any other Lem book.)

I have read and reread this book so many times, and it never ceases to make me laugh...then think about how much more relevant this book becomes as the years go by...then i laugh and think some more.

this book is an essential read for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the nature of reality. whether you're 13 or 33 this book will wind your brain up and send it in all directions. So....read it!!!

This book will make you think of the world differently. I guarantee that you will question the value of subjectivity by the time you're done.

Lately, I've been asking friends to loan me books that changed their lives or that have found particularly noteworthy. I asked this in an attempt to broaden my reading background and also to learn more about my friends. I've always considered myself a science/speculative fiction fan but had never heard of Stanislaw Lem until this book was loaned to me. After this wonderful first experience, I will certainly be tracking down a few more copies of some of his other titles.

This book embodies everything that good science fiction should be - using the future to teach us more about our present. "The Futurological Congress" is a heavily layered book that relies on the reader to engage the storyline and draw parallels to the present day. The text (in translation) is spare enough to be clear and move the plot along rapidly, while also being satirical and comical at the same time.

I don't want to go into the plot in too much depth since folks before me have already done an admirable job in that regard, but suffice it to say that reality becomes almost immediately problematized and you will not be able to figure out what is fact or fiction within the world of the book (not that it matters). Ijon Tichy, the main character, goes to attend a conference called the "Futurological Congress", where all sorts of folks discuss the future directions of humanity. During the conference, a popular revolution places the scientists in danger. Drugged by the hotel water supply, hallucinating hotel guests hide out in the sewer. It gets more insane from there...

If you like Philip K. Dick's more mindbending works like "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" or "Ubik," you will love this one by Lem. At a scant 150 pages, you'll truck right on through it and then wonder whether you actually read it.

Ijon Tichy is the calm, but worried and fascinated witness of a world gone astray. In the book's first part, he arrives at the Hilton hotel to participate in the eighth futurological congress, which is soon ruined by the local revolution; the situation degenerates further when the governement awkwardly tries to control it by using various substances. After what appears to be a 40 year-long `stay' in liquid nitrogen, Tichy has to encounter a world profoundly affected by `psycho-chemistry'. In all of the worlds - `real' or illusory - that he visits, Tichy walks in the middle of prisoners (in the Platonic sense) rendered defenseless in the bottom of their cavern; the prisoners are not only the unknowing victims of the illusions, but also the vain and mischievous demiurges who perpetrate them. In such worlds, craving for knowledge has been reduced to a mere search for formulas and chemical products whose only role is to provoke the desired reactions and keep all the citizens in a state of sleep. Tichy is alone in perceiving what is positive about getting rid of complete servitude, but the world Lem depicts in the book is so oversaturated with different levels of illusions that such a hope can only lead to failure. Thus, even though Tichy is one of the sole half-liberated prisoners of the whole book, he remains a prisoner all the same and is ultimately comforted by the least threatening of the various lies. Like the others, Tichy is caught up in a world whose web of illusions he can't totally understand.

This is the first book I've read by Lem (having resolved to bone up on the sci-fi masters), and it's been thoroughly enjoyable. I was worried that the book might come across paler for being in translation, but my fears are laid to rest-- Michael Kandel gives the work vim and vigor and keeps it moving briskly along. I'm looking forward to reading more Kandel translations of Lem.

My favorite Lem book, after THE CYBERIAD. It's short, eerie, amusing, and has a punch to the storytelling you certainly won't find in, say, SOLARIS. I noticed that a number of the reviews already posted have given away the essential plot twist in the story; I'll try to avoid doing so myself.

For the most part, the story is part of the "Sleeper" (after Woody Allen) genre, like Frederik Pohl's AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT (and, to an extent, Heinlein's DOOR INTO SUMMER), where the main character wakes from cryogenic slumber to the world of the future. After learning to navigate through the new environment, he finds the governments of the world have solved some of the worst social problems that were on the horizon of the 20th century, such as overpopulation, pollution, and urban blight. But things turn out to be not really quite so nice as they appear, once he bothers to look below the surface.

The final, silly twist at the end of the story is far inferior to the major the one that precedes it, and I'm almost tempted to take off a star. But otherwise it's highly recommended.