26 September 2001
The Cyberiad
Stanislaw Lem
(Trans. Michael Kandel)
1967
236 pp (PB)
This review was posted to the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.sf.written. You can read the discussion here.
It is often said that science fiction is a literature of ideas. Often, this is taken to be ideas about possible technologies, or how a technology will affect society, or what a society based on some technology will look like. The Cyberiad is not that sort of science fiction, although it is chock full of ideas. Many purists would probably not call it science fiction at all, for all that it's set in an intergalactic civilization composed almost entirely of robots, and I don't know that I'd disagree. It's really a work of "fictional folklore" in the vein of The Silmarillion or Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana and Time and the Gods.
And what fun fictional folklore it is. The book is a series of stories concerning the adventures of Trurl and Klapaucius, two great "constructors" who build fantastic machines to solve the problems of their fellow robots, to amuse themselves, and to make a quick buck. In the grand tradition of folk heroes everywhere, Trurl and Klapaucius can be wise, foolish, altruistic, greedy, ingenius, or capricius, depending on the needs of the story at hand. The joy one gets from these stories does not arise from logical consisteny, or plausibility of premise, but in the wildly imaginative ideas they illustrate and the sparkling language used to tell them.
As an example of the latter, I'll quote a bit:
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, so you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller, yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade, when there was not a speck of dust to be found in outer space, nor any nebular debris-- in those good old days it was the custom for constructors, once they had received their Diploma of Perpetual Omnipotence with distinction, to sally forth ofttimes and bring to distant lands the benefit of their expertise. And so it happened that, in keeping with this ancient custom, Trurl and Klapaucius, who could kindle or extinguish suns as easily as shelling peas, did venture out on such a voyage. (from "The First Sally, or the Trap of Gargantius")
As an example of the former, I'll just say: quantum dragons.
One thing that kind of bugged me about The Cyberiad is how it changed tone a little more than halfway through. "How the World was Saved," "Trurl's Machine," "A Good Shellacking," and "The Seven Sallies of Trurl and Klapaucius" are light-toned, folk-tale-esque stories which are pure fun. However, "Tale of the Three Storytelling Machines of King Genius" and "Altruizine" are much darker and drearier, full of harsh social criticism and the futility of human endeavor. They're well-done social criticism (for example, Lem brilliantly skewers both Communism and Capitalism in rapid succession, during "Three Storytelling Machines"), but the change in tone is jarring. The final story moves back towards the folktale/fairytale tone of the first half of the book, (it feels kind of Arabian Nights-y), but it displays a level of misanthropy which is absent in the others. It makes me wonder, were the stories of The Cyberiad written at different times, and collected later, or were they all written together? To conclude, this book was really fun. I have no idea if Lem's original Polish prose is this good, but Kandel's translation is awesome. If you like wild flights of imagination and adept use of language, buy this book and read it. You'll be glad you did.