Hospital of the Transfiguration [Paperback]

Stanislaw LEM (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Harvest Books (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156028891
• ISBN-13: 978-0156028899
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Stanislaw Lem is the most widely translated and best known science fiction author writing outside of the English language. Winner of the Kafka Prize, he is a contributor to many magazines, including the New Yorker, and he is the author of numerous works, including Solaris.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A trip into the surreal, October 13, 2006

By 

Kostandin Pajcini "fudull" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hospital Of The Transfiguration (Paperback)

The symbolism and philosophical insight in this book is astounding. The setting is Poland, following the Nazi invasion, but it seems that by starting a new job in an insane asylum, the protagonist escapes the outside world and his "lost motherland" only to join an alien landscape where deranged and yet fascinating people live. You can almost see that even in his first book Lem was already thinking science fiction by reading some of the case histories of the patients. The story almost carries you to another world and until the last chapter you seem to forget the reality of the precarious situation that mental patients faced during Nazi occupation. While I truly enjoyed the story and the dialogues between Stefan and Sekulowski, this book lacks a coherent plot, and suffers from detailed focus into inconsequential details, such as the appearance of a graveyard in the winter and the rays of sunlight shining through the window of a room.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I don't know what the other reviewers read, but..., June 26, 2001

By 

C. Valverde "qoteu" (Devonport, Auckland, NZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hospital Of The Transfiguration (Paperback)

I loved this book. Lem's partially auto-biographical Transfiguration is set in a WWII era insane asylum in Poland. He tells a compelling story of a time and place when you had to look hard to tell the difference between the doctors and the patients.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of lem's best, September 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hospital of the Transfiguration (Hardcover)

Though some of it is a little fluffy, over all i found this book to be intresting and spellbinding.