The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy

by Stanisław Lem

Book Overview

The Futurological Congress is the fourth satirical science fiction novel in the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy series from Kafka Prize-winning author Stanislaw Lem.

"Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem."--Paris Review

Bringing his twin gifts of scientific speculation and scathing satire to bear on that hapless planet, Earth, Lem sends his unlucky cosmonaut, Ijon Tichy, to the Eighth Futurological...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156340402
• ISBN13: 9780156340403
• Release Date: October 1985
• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

one of my all time favorites

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!!!

Livin' the lap of luxury...maybe...

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.

The Word Is ... Unreal!

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!

This book is a brilliantly maximal example of its genre.

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.)

A masterpiece by a great master

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.