I like philosophical novels and I like space novels. When I found out there’s a classic called Solaris which is both, I was looking happily at the passenger’s seat where it lay as I drove home from the bookstore about half-an-hour later.
I must have picked up the book about five times since then, starting from the beginning and taking an indefinite hiatus a few pages in every time.
Why do I get so frustrated reading this? I’m not even sure myself, but I think it’s too much showing with no telling. Something as simple as entering a spacecraft and lifting off into space is provided to you in puzzle pieces for the senses using words that involve technical space flight terms even though many readers wouldn’t be technical that way and a few pages in, I’m stuck feeling like I have missing pieces.
As I’m writing this post, I’m thinking that I’m making it sound worse than it is and that’s another reason I find it frustrating. It’s not that bad but somehow it also is. I have to reread sentences to understand that a small, insignificant action took place and I don’t know why because when I understand it it becomes easy. Even while I’m reading it I’m not understanding what’s so hard to understand. I know most of the words but the way Lem puts them together strips them of any meaning.
I hate Solaris. Anyone else?
by Loriol_13