tristero at Hullabaloo recommends Solaris The Definitive Edition, a recent translation made directly into English of Stanislaw Lem's Polish science fiction classic, Solaris, an edition commissioned by Lem's estate, and now available to read in Amazon's Kindle-delivered ebook format.
I understand that the version of Solaris I read years ago was only more or less adequately translated into English from somebody else's mediocre French translation of Lem's original, and not to be taken seriously for all the reasons. I don't remember it as a very remarkable read. Tarkovsky's Solaris, on the other hand, is a very good thing to see, even granting tristero's point that Tarkovsky is trying to make over Lem's material for his own purposes entirely, not to realize Lem's vison of Solaris on the screen, but to realize his own. Steven Soderbergh tried not to remake Tarkovsky's film, but fell into its gravity well and the result was an English language version inflected by a Russian version of Lem's Polish original, translated from print to screen.
Lem hated versions of Solaris, print and film. He stood by the original.
The Kindle audiobook of the new English edition is more readily available than the text itself, a sign that the Lem estate not only commissioned this edition but also gave Amazon some exclusive limited right to distribute the thing. A collector's item in the age of mechanical reproduction.
March 27, 2012
March 20, 2012
The Once and Future Beach in Santa Cruz
The San Lorenzo River isn't notorious for its length. If you stretched it out on a ruler it wouldn't be fifty miles long. But when winter rains reach Santa Cruz County the San Lorenzo collects a prodigious amount of water from the steep hills on either side of the narrow valley it courses through. Characteristically enough, 17 inches of rain fell in Ben Lomond, about ten miles upriver from Santa Cruz, between Tuesday of last week and the weekend. All the other spots along the river, Felton and Brookdale and Boulder Creek, contributed their fair share as well, and the river, which carries hardly a creek's worth of water in the summertime, surged heartily out of the enclosing valley as is its annual habit and down onto the marine floodplain where Santa Cruz sits waiting to receive it year after year.
The river goes where it can, and has had its way with Santa Cruz many times. This year the river took an unexpected turn on its way across the last two hundred yards or so of beach to its meeting with Monterey Bay. Instead of barrelling directly through the sandbar that normally blocks its mouth in the summer, it swerved hard right, threatening the foundations of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Earthmoving equipment was brought in to build a levee of sorts to persuade the river back onto its normal course, but the river and the ocean tide are combining to make that a hard sell.
The river goes where it can, and has had its way with Santa Cruz many times. This year the river took an unexpected turn on its way across the last two hundred yards or so of beach to its meeting with Monterey Bay. Instead of barrelling directly through the sandbar that normally blocks its mouth in the summer, it swerved hard right, threatening the foundations of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Earthmoving equipment was brought in to build a levee of sorts to persuade the river back onto its normal course, but the river and the ocean tide are combining to make that a hard sell.
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| The San Lorenzo River passes under a railroad trestle on its way to the shore of Monterey Bay, March 20, 2012 |
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| A temporary levee attempts to contain the San Lorenzo River, March 20, 2012 |
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| Ocean waves lap the black bulkhead of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, March 20, 1012 |
March 16, 2012
March 15, 2012
It's Not Not Raining Today in Santa Cruz, CA
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| Plant life from last week, prior to the current rain delay |
March 07, 2012
Near Pescadero, CA
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| Pescadero Creek empties into the Pacific Ocean, March 4, 2012 |
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| An area of bog extends to the north of Pescadero Creek, March 4, 2012 |
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| Two hovels hug the shore near Pescadero Creek, March 4, 2012 |
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