A Perfect Vacuum
Encyclopedia
A Perfect Vacuum is a 1971 book
by Polish
author Stanisław Lem. It is an anthology
of review
s of nonexistent books. It was translated into English
by Michael Kandel
. A Perfect Vacuum can be seen as a compilation of Lem works: some of the reviews remind the reader of drafts of his science-fiction novels, some read like philosophical pieces across scientific topics, from cosmology
to the pervasiveness of computer
s, finally others satirise and parody everything from the nouveau roman
to pornography
, Ulysses
, authorless writing, and Dostoevsky.
Reviewing nonexistent books is not a theme unique to Lem (consider Jorge Luis Borges
' Investigations of the Writings of Herbert Quain), but the idea of an entire anthology of such pieces is rather novel. Lem attempted to create different fictional reviewers and authors for each of the books. In his own words: "I tried to imitate various styles – that of a book review, a lecture, a presentation, a speech (of a Nobel Prize laureate) and so on". Some of the reviews are lighthearted, concentrating mostly on the story; others, however, read more like serious, academic reviews. Some of the reviews are parodies, or the books being reviewed are parodies or complete impossibilities, others are quite serious and can be seen almost as drafts for novels that Lem never got around to write. It can also be said that in this book Lem criticizes the postmodernist "games for games' sake" ethos, turning it against itself.
to nonexistent books, as written by artificial intelligence
s. One of those Lem eventually developed into a book by itself: Golem XIV
is a lengthy essay on the nature of intelligence, delivered by the eponymous US military computer. He also wrote One Human Minute, a book containing three reviews, the one with the same title being a review of a book of statistical tables, a compilation that includes everything that happens to human life on the planet within any given 60 second period.
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
by Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
author Stanisław Lem. It is an anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
of review
Review
A review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...
s of nonexistent books. It was translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Michael Kandel
Michael Kandel
Michael Kandel is an American translator and author of science fiction. He received a doctorate in Slavistics from Indiana University, and is an editor at the Modern Language Association. Kandel is also a part-time editor at Harcourt, editing Ursula K...
. A Perfect Vacuum can be seen as a compilation of Lem works: some of the reviews remind the reader of drafts of his science-fiction novels, some read like philosophical pieces across scientific topics, from cosmology
Physical cosmology
Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...
to the pervasiveness of computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, finally others satirise and parody everything from the nouveau roman
Nouveau roman
The nouveau roman is a type of 1950s French novel that diverged from classical literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the title in an article in the popular French newspaper Le Monde on May 22, 1957 to describe certain writers who experimented with style in each novel, creating an essentially new...
to pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
, authorless writing, and Dostoevsky.
Reviewing nonexistent books is not a theme unique to Lem (consider Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
' Investigations of the Writings of Herbert Quain), but the idea of an entire anthology of such pieces is rather novel. Lem attempted to create different fictional reviewers and authors for each of the books. In his own words: "I tried to imitate various styles – that of a book review, a lecture, a presentation, a speech (of a Nobel Prize laureate) and so on". Some of the reviews are lighthearted, concentrating mostly on the story; others, however, read more like serious, academic reviews. Some of the reviews are parodies, or the books being reviewed are parodies or complete impossibilities, others are quite serious and can be seen almost as drafts for novels that Lem never got around to write. It can also be said that in this book Lem criticizes the postmodernist "games for games' sake" ethos, turning it against itself.
Reviews
The book contains reviews of 16 imaginary books and one real book: itself.- A Perfect Vacuum: review of the book itself, by the author himself.
- Les Robinsonades
- Gigamesh: fictional 'Gigamesh' is to the GilgameshGilgameshGilgamesh was the fifth king of Uruk, modern day Iraq , placing his reign ca. 2500 BC. According to the Sumerian king list he reigned for 126 years. In the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh, and his son Urlugal, rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil, in Tummal, a sacred quarter in her city of...
legend what James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's UlyssesUlysses (novel)Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
is to OdysseyOdysseyThe Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...
. Lem spends his review doing the same sort of dissection of this fictional novel, word by word, phonemePhonemeIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
by phoneme, that critics have been doing to Joyce for years. - The Sexplosion: a novel concerned with the extinction of the sex driveLibidoLibido refers to a person's sex drive or desire for sexual activity. The desire for sex is an aspect of a person's sexuality, but varies enormously from one person to another, and it also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. A person who has extremely frequent or a suddenly...
. - Gruppenführer Louis XVI is a story about how an ex-Nazi in Argentina recreates the pre-RevolutionaryFrench RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
French Court in the jungle. - Rien du tout, ou la consequence: review of a book written entirely in negations ("The train did not arrive. He did not come.").
- Pericalypsis: - Lem's critique of reviewers and modern art.
- Idiota
- U-Write-It: a publication described as a literary erector setErector SetErector Set is the trade name of a toy construction set that is popular in the United States.It consists of collections of small metal beams with regular holes for nuts, bolts, screws, and mechanical parts such as pulleys, gears, and small electric motors.The brand name is currently used for...
. It gives the reader blank pages and strips containing fragments of some great novel and orders the reader to re-arrange them at will. - Odysseus of Ithaca
- Toi
- Being Inc.: review of a book that portrays the world as the result of elaborate computer planning of individual lives, a huge choreography of humanity;
- Die Kultur Als Fehler, or 'Civilization as a mistake': One of Lem's philosophical pieces, he argues that humanity has tried to give meaning to its frailties and weaknesses by claiming they are part of a larger plan of things. Now that technological progress has allowed us to evade many of these hardships, some people oppose that – consciously or not, because it would mean that all the previous suffering has been unnecessary and technology is our saviour.
- De Impossibilitate Vitae and De Impossibilitate Prognoscendi: two books reviewed in one review, both dealing with alternative history. The former consists almost entirely of tracking all the things that must have happened for the supposed author to have been born: his father must have married his mother, which in turn depended on them meeting during the War, which in turn depended on multitude of other events. Here Lem argues for the butterfly effectButterfly effectIn chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions; where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state...
: changing one thing has an almost infinite number of unimaginable consequences. - Non Serviam: perhaps closest to stereotypical science fiction, this review describes an attempt to model and breed intelligent beings inside a computer, and discusses the scientist's responsibility for his creation.
- The New Cosmogony: review of a fictional oration by a Nobel Prize laureate, who presents a new model of the universe based on his analysis to the Fermi ParadoxFermi paradoxThe Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations....
: the universe is a game.
Similar theme in Lem's works
In 1973 Lem wrote a similar book: Imaginary Magnitude (Polish: Wielkość Urojona), a collection of introductionsForeword
A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells...
to nonexistent books, as written by artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
s. One of those Lem eventually developed into a book by itself: Golem XIV
Golem XIV
Golem XIV is a science fiction novel written by Stanisław Lem and published in Polish in 1981. In 1985 it was published in English by Harvest Books in the collection Imaginary Magnitude.-Plot:...
is a lengthy essay on the nature of intelligence, delivered by the eponymous US military computer. He also wrote One Human Minute, a book containing three reviews, the one with the same title being a review of a book of statistical tables, a compilation that includes everything that happens to human life on the planet within any given 60 second period.
From reviews of A Perfect Vacuum
- "Lem is Harpo MarxHarpo MarxAdolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...
and Franz KafkaFranz KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
and Isaac AsimovIsaac AsimovIsaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
rolled up into one and down the white rabbit's hole." (The Detroit NewsThe Detroit NewsThe Detroit News is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival Free Press's building. The News absorbed the Detroit Tribune on February 1, 1919, the Detroit Journal on July 21, 1922, and on November 7, 1960,...
) http://www.amazon.com/dp/0810117339/ - "[Lem is] a Jorge Luis Borges for the Space Age, who plays in earnest with every concept of philosophy and physics, from free will to probability theory." (The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
) http://nupress.northwestern.edu/title.cfm?ISBN=0-8101-1733-9 - "One of the most intelligent, erudite and comic writers working today." Anthony BurgessAnthony BurgessJohn Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
(The ObserverThe ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
) http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780156849050-0