Hospital of the Transfiguration [Hardcover]

Stanislaw Lem (Author), William Brand (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1988

It is 1939; the Nazis have occupied Poland. A young doctor disturbed by the fate of Poland joins the staff of an insane asylum only to find a world of pain and absurdity to match that outside. Translated by William Brand. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first novel by the prolific science fiction author and essayist was completed in 1948, but wasn't published in Poland until 1975, after Lem's reputation was well established. Appearing in English for the first time, this is very much the work of a brash writer finding his way. As Poland falls to the Nazis during WW II in 1939, Stefan Trzyniecki, a young doctor, finds employment at a provincial insane asylum. He has been lured there by a fellow medical student who promises, "It's like being outside the Occupation, in fact it's even like being outside the world!" Stefan hopes that the asylum will be "a kind of extraterrestrial observatory" with "a delicious solitude in which a man naturally endowed with a fine intellect could develop in peace." But the insanity of the outside world soon intrudes on the madness within. While corrupt and callous doctors perpetrate hideous abuses on mental patients, the Nazis are capturing Polish resistance fighters nearby. When the Nazis move to liquidate the asylum and turn it into an SS hospital, betrayals abound; Stefan survives, but he has been transformed. Lem, who attended medical school in Poland, evokes the monstrosities of an archaic mental institution with the knife-edged clarity of bitterness. The ironies of Stefan's existence, which are echoed in many ways in Kundera's recent The Unbearable Lightness of Being , reveal much about how the author found his voice.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"Insane asylums have always distilled the spirit of the age." So claims one of the central characters in this, Lem's first novel, written in 1948 before he began his career in science fiction. And so Lem chose to set in a mental institution this gripping story of a young Polish doctor's attempt, following the Nazi invasion of 1939, to make sense of his world. The institution proves a microcosm of the chaos outside, for here doctors seem as deranged as their patients. That one patient is a famous poet also allows Lem to probe into the nature of art and provides insight into his literary development. Obviously the work of a young author, both in its passion and its occasional pontification, this should appeal particularly to college students but is highly recommended for all. David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 207 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt; 1st edition (October 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151421862
• ISBN-13: 978-0151421862
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #476,344 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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.