Customer Reviews

The Cyberiad

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lem constantly reminds me of Dean Swift, and "The Cyberiad" reminds me of "Gulliver's Travels". So 5 stars right off the bat. Then bear in mind that this is a translation from the Polish! Astonishing. Much, much kudos to Michael Kandel for such a graceful, sly, and very funny translation.

Point to remember: Cyberiad was written in 1972 -- not a jolly time behind the Iron Curtain. The version of McCarthy-ism lasted decade after agonizing decade, with all the usual trappings: paranoia both official and social; social criticism frowned upon; political criticism stepped upon. But if you were cunning enough, you could get your message across with science fiction. Thus Pohl and Kornbluth and a host of others in North America; thus Stanislaw Lem in Poland. But Lem was smart enough to be much, much funnier. Sly!

If you have been a very good person long enough you deserve this book.

The Cyberiad is more than just "a brilliantly funny collection of stories for the next age," as the back cover claims. The tales within blend philosophy, mathematics, and computer science with cruel kings, pugnacious pirates, and improbable dragons. They chronicle the exploits of the robots Trurl and Klapaucius, renowned constructors who offer their services to the robot kings that rule the robot kingdoms comprising their universe. So great is their knowledge of the universe that they build a royal advisor that never errs, a perfect mechanical poet, a machine that can model anything in existence, and a machine that can fabricate anything beginning with the letter 'n'. Of course, their creations don't always work out quite the way they hope, but in edifying and entertaining ways. This combination of fanciful adventure and academia, often laced with delightfully clever wordplay, makes the Cyberiad well worth reading.

Imagine a mixture of Borges, Calvino, Saint-Exupéry, Pynchon, Douglas Adams, Samuel Beckett, L. Frank Baum, Dr. Seuss, Lewis Caroll, and perhaps a little Philip K. Dick. That's what this is like, sort of. It is a collection of stories, some profound, others 'merely' entertaining, written by a man who was clearly drunk on sheer linguistic exuberance. The sheer virtuosity of the language is breathtaking: the book is packed to the gills with puns, rhymes, nonsense words, and general verbal japery. Huge amounts of credit must of course go to the translator, Michael Kandel, on this score. I wish the book included translation notes; he must have had to rebuild innumerable language formations from scratch in order to make them work--and work dazzlingly well--in English. Particularly impressive in this regard are 'The Fifth Sally (A), or Trurl's Prescription,' a delightful bit of frippery driven almost entirely by verbal dexterity; and an extraordinary mathematical love poem related in 'The First Sally (A), or Trurl's Electric Bard.' The centerpiece of the collection, however, must surely be the 'Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius,' which, as you would expect, includes a flurry of internal stories, some of which in turn have stories inside them. One of these internal stories, that of Mymosh the Self-Begotten, is in my opinion the book's highlight. If Sam Beckett had turned his hand to science fiction, this is what he would have written. It's as strange and unsettling as any of Sam's short novels. Finally, some mention must be made of the highly stylized illustrations by Daniel Mroz scattered throughout the book; they complement the action to perfection.

Lem is clearly having fun with The Cyberiad, and it's contagious. I had tried, some time ago, to read Tales of Pirx the Pilot, but I found the first tale so mind-numbingly dull that I couldn't bring myself to finish it. This, on the other hand, is a truly excellent collection, and you can rest assured tha I'll be checking out more of Lem in the near future.

Two creator robots travel around the universe providing their services to one despot after another. The writing and translation are of a quality you rarely find in sci-fi, possibly because Lem transcends sci-fi and soars into art. Think Borges meets Hawking meets Python.

If you have not read any other Lem then this book will be the most refreshing amazing experience and an overall break from the normal sci-fi. It's about two "constructor" robots, trurl and klapacius, who go on wacky adventures allways trying to out build eachother. The story itself is not only very funny but profound and genious. He actually makes a love poem about a giant robot who owns 16 female robots writien in calculous! This here is a great read wether you've read other Lem or not and may just be the best book IO have ever read

I agree with Shadowfire below about many things. Those who come to this from Solaris, expect something different. These are cybernetic pseudo-scientific fairy tales... amazing translation job, but I can't help thinking that the stories are a bit too dull.

I agree with Shadowfire below about many things. Those who come to this from Solaris, expect something different. These are cybernetic pseudo-scientific fairy tales... amazing translation job, but I can't help thinking that the stories are a bit too dull.

"The Cyberiad" is not "science fiction" any more than is "Gulliver's Travels" - with which it should be justly compared. These "simple" little fables discourse wittily upon Love, Art, Death - all of the grandest themes of literature - with a subtlety and wisdom that never fail to move me, no matter how many times I read it.

Lem's book has the surest mark of a masterpiece: it is a work that deepens in meaning as the reader returns to it at advancing ages.

This book still remains one of my all-time favorite reads. Lem's clever plots and twisted logic (technological concepts so absurd they almost make sense) make The Cyberiad a journey into sci-fi insanity that will have you laughing out loud. Once you get into it, you won't want to stop until you reach the back cover.

"I had a little froggy." Now THAT'S good poetry.

I wholeheartedly enjoy Lem, have done so since childhood (which is when I originally read "The Cyberiad"). It is essentially a collection of stories that are, well, fairy tales with robots instead of humans. We have the same kingdoms, kings, princes, and princesses, sinister advisers and ingenious alchemists and mechanics, who, being robots, can also pull off any trick that pulp fiction has to offer: here empires span constellations, characters cook up outrageous devices at will, and galaxies hang in the sky only to spin in the wake of our plucky hero's rocketship. This all serves to engender an atmosphere incredibly conducive to all sorts of wit, sarcasm, criticism, parody, and bombast, which is precisely the end towards which Lem works very diligently. Indeed, taken bit by bit, idea by idea, Cyberiad is full of zero-magnitude stellar gems: "Once, a terribly important war never got declared, and all because the King, decked in spangles and crystal pendants, hung three days from the ceiling and passed for a chandelier, holding his mouth to keep from laughing out loud at the ministers rushing about frantically below." Hilarious, isn't it?

But something happened between my two readings of this wonderful epic. Yes, I previously read this in the original, but whoever translated this did a terrific job: even Klapaucius' "poem about a haircut... lofty, noble, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom... six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter s" is faithfully translated, though it forces the English language to bend over backwards trying to accomodate its requirements. But, somehow, between waves of nonsense, pseudo-sci-fi terms, and downpours of Latin phrases and statements, I came away almost yawning. Perhaps it's the abridgement: I remember the original being much larger; here, for example, only the stories involving Trurl and Klapaucius, a duo of inventors, are included. I am at a loss to find anything else at fault. Just... don't start with excessively high expectation.