The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
A Great Book
Trurl and Klaupacius are constructor robots who try to out-invent each
other. They travel to the far corners of the cosmos to take on freelance
problem-solving jobs, with dire consequences for their employers. “The
most completely successful of his books... here Lem comes closest to
inventing a real universe” (Boston Globe). Illustrations by Daniel Mr—z.
Translated by Michael Kandel.
Personal Review: The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
So it takes a Polish SF writer to craft a literary response to George
Herriman's "Krazy Kat"? Actually, that probably wasn't the intent but the
similiarities of this book to one of the newspaper's greatest comic strips is
interesting. Herriman crafted his masterpiece around a simple concept,
the cat loves the mouse, the mouse wants to hit the cat in the head with a
brick and the cop wants to arrest the mouse while being in love with the
cat. It's utterly simple and yet for years he found almost infinite variation in
the premise.

And here we are, with another vastly simple premise. Trurl and Klaupacius
are robot inventors, the best around. And they spend their time careening
around the universe trying to out-invent each other. Most writers would
find simply play it for straight comedy or saddle each story with a heavy-
handed "message". Lem, brilliantly, does both and neither and manages
to sustain for the length of an entire book. From the opening tale where
they learn what happens when you tell a machine that can make anything
to make nothing to the last strange and wonderful love story, Lem keeps
finding inventive ways to tell the same tale.
And what a way he tells it. Also much like Herriman, Lem clearly loved the
pure sound of words and using them much like you use sound effects to
color a good movie, as cadence and rhythm and atmosphere, coming up
with names that make no sense but read perfectly well and probably have
multiple meanings if you know six different languages. It approaches
Joyce in its virtuosity and what makes it even more amazing is this isn't
even the book's native language . . . it was written in Polish and translated
later and the fact that the translator was able to take all this, the wordplay
and the nonsense syllables and the rest, and make it into something
readable, is worth mentioning on all its own.
But what about the stories? In a word, fantastic. Those expecting straight
science-fiction are liable to be disappointed because while the inventors
live in a universe where you can hop planets with ease and build giant
robots and the like, most of the "science" comes perilously close to
technobabble or just Lem making things up for the sheer heck of it. Trurl
and Klapacius live in a universe stuffed with kings and bizarre aliens and
the impossible happening all the time and yet a certain sense of reality
hangs over it. The characters know when to take it seriously and know
when to go "Gosh, this is all rather ridiculous" and as such forces us to
kind of accept that reality.
And boy, is it fun. Most of Lem's books, while having their moments of
humor, are clearly serious affairs, generally him finding a way to use the
story to make a comment on the genre or its conventions. Here, he's
doing the same but letting his hair down in the process, having fun with
words and language and not afraid to go for the absurd if the story calls for
it. Gleefully so. As I mentioned in my title, they end one war by shooting
babies out of cannons. And it's not horrible at all, and its kind of funny but
at the same time feels like the most logical solution possible. So you go,
"Of course, that's how it has to be." Gloriously so!
What I thought might be an interesting slog through a clearinghouse of
ideas winds up being perhaps more substantial than most of Lem's works
I've read so far. Yes, some of the stories are slight and probably just
intended to make you laugh, there's a number of them that are making
serious points underneath all the robot creating goofiness and strange
words. The first page notes that these are "Fables for the Cybernetic Age"

and while that age is way closer to us now than when Lem originally wrote
the stories, that doesn't make them any less timely or more appropriate.
We need to live in a world where the worst problems can be solved not
only by ingenuity and determination, but by a good story. And barring that,
entertaining us until we figure out how to make the bad times go away. As
Lem says in the final tale, "There are certainly fables enough in this world.
And yet, even if the story isn't true, it does have a grain of sense and
instruction to it, and it's entertaining as well, so it's worth the telling." We
need more stories worth the telling.
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