04-13-2006, 08:54 AM
It actually takes the Cyberiad 100 pages to get going (in fact, I remember back in the '80s giving the book to a friend and telling him not to give up until page 100).
I believe that generally holds true for Lem's other humorous novels.
He starts out rough and overly simplistic -- and I nearly gave up on the Cyberiad as well. But he just keeps pushing that snowball, and packing all kinds of things into it, until eventually you're not quite sure what that big convoluted thing is rolling towards you, but it's impressive.
It's an unfortunate style trait, because a lot of people give up, and I can't really blame them.
I'll have to revisit the Ijon Tichy and Pirx short stuff. For some reason I didn't get into those. I've been trying to check out his work from the Mountain View library, but some BASTARD has a lot of it checked out right now.
I believe that generally holds true for Lem's other humorous novels.
He starts out rough and overly simplistic -- and I nearly gave up on the Cyberiad as well. But he just keeps pushing that snowball, and packing all kinds of things into it, until eventually you're not quite sure what that big convoluted thing is rolling towards you, but it's impressive.
It's an unfortunate style trait, because a lot of people give up, and I can't really blame them.
I'll have to revisit the Ijon Tichy and Pirx short stuff. For some reason I didn't get into those. I've been trying to check out his work from the Mountain View library, but some BASTARD has a lot of it checked out right now.