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Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
I have some history with Lem's work. Years back, I went on a serious Stanislaw Lem bender. I read and loved pretty much all of his stuff. So it came as a surprise to me to run across Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (hereafter MFiaB). It was published in 1971, so it was certainly out and available when I was reading Lem left and right; I must have just missed it somehow.
And in a way I'm happy that I left accidentally left my future self this treat. MFiaB is a fantastic piece of work. I won't give away any spoilers that happen after the first ten pages or so. The setup alone, though, is pretty representative of what you're in for if you pick up this book.
MFiaB is perhaps the most overtly political thing I've read from Lem, which is saying a lot: Lem specializes in parables and satire that expose the absurdity of modern life in general and politics in particular. MFiaB tells the first-person story of a man who lives in "the Building." The Building is an entirely self-contained society that the book explains was built when the United States and Russia both relocated their critical governmental functions to isolated bunkers after the appearance of a paper-eating bacteria destroyed civilization as we know it.
It seems that the Building is at war with the Anti-Building, and it's a fierce war between two incredible bureaucracies. Everyone is a potential spy, most people could be double agents, triple agents aren't uncommon, and the recent appearance of quadruple, quintuple, sextuple and even septuple agents has really increased the confusion and paranoia level. Of course, agents aren't just working for the Building or anti-Building -- the various departments and fiefdoms within the Building itself spy on each other and attempt to unmask each others' agents.
The story is told in the first-person by a cadet of some sort in the Building. His name is never mentioned in the book, a parallel to Kafka's The Castle where the protagonist is referred to only as "K." As with The Castle, our protagonist is sometimes very sympathetic and sometimes very frustrating; it's clear who we're following, but I was never quite clear what to think of the fellow.
In marked contrast to The Castle, though, our protagonist in MFiaB starts out by receiving a Mission. A Secret Mission, from the Commander in Chief himself. Or maybe it was the Chief Commander - or maybe someone else entirely. Problem is, his superiors won't tell him what the mission is, let alone the proper chain of command to clarify it. Through accidental subterfuge and persistence, he finally corners someone into providing his mission briefing, however some part of the officialdom steals it back before he can read more than the first somewhat disturbing page. (According to the one page he has time to read, phase one of his mission involves cornering his superiors and forcing them to provide the mission briefing.) However, it's possible that pursuing the ambiguity of the mission is his mission, so he's duty-bound to get on about it. Besides, he really doesn't know what else to do.
It goes on from there. A serious reflection of cold-war paranoia and partisanship, MFiaB is an exploration of how a closed, bureaucratic, paranoid society can become dependent on its own closed, bureaucratic, paranoid ways to the point where any attempt to introduce sanity is an act of treason.
While the book centers on the claustrophobic / claustrophilic society in the Building, it's not at all abstract and detached -- there are several fairly violent scenes, and at least one suicide. Not to mention numerous arrests, betrayals which might actually be assistance, and other more ambiguous but just as disturbing events. MFiaB really succeeds in bringing home the mental-health effects of constant vigilance and its inevitable descent into paranoia. Again like Catch-22 or The Castle, MFiaB succeeds as a comedy, a tragedy, a farce, and a cautionary tale. I found myself reading some sentences a couple of times and getting completely different feelings from them each time.
If you haven't read Lem before, this may or may not be a good place to start. MFiaB is dense, and dizzying. If you've got a penchant for traditional literature, MFiaB is probably an excellent introduction to Lem. The use of language, neologisms, and wordplay is amazing, the more so because the book is translated from Lem's native Polish.
If you're looking for a lighter and quicker read that is still representative of Lem at his best, I'd probably recommend the also-excellent Futurological Congress. For short story fans, Tales of Prix the Pilot is an good choice. If you're willing to put some energy into it, though, MFiaB is certainly well worth the investment of time and energy, and really puts all of Lem's formidable skills to use in service of a great story. Highly recommended.
You can purchase Memoirs Found in a Bathtub from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Like I've always said, if it's a gobble-toothed schvoogie behind the keyboard fisting and gloating a white woman's triangle with his derf, it's not worth reading.