Solaris - Stanislaw Lem, A review

I think most people go into Solaris expecting it to be an emotionally deep story about meeting people from your memories brought to life in an isolated station on a planet with a living ocean. That is what I expected when I began reading, and I soon found it difficult to match up my expectations for the story with the reality of the text before me. The book, really is less about the planet Solaris and the strange things it is able to do, but moreso is obsessed with relaying the story of solaristics, the fictional field of study dedicated to the planet. The book is largely a recollection of the years of study into the planet, the rifts in the scientific community, theories, long drawn out explanations of phenomena and descriptions of scientific articles and experiments. What is illuminating about all this research, at least when comparing it to any other scientific field we know of in the real world, is that none of it has really taught us anything about the planet solaris and its…