The Men Who Loved Us

          Futurological Congress by the one and only Stanislaw Lem exemplifies the sci-fi genre as a medium through which many authors bring forth a non-nonsensical string of nonsensical images to project and warn the readers about a reality that may or may not exist yet, wherein humans become servant to their own creations. The best example to illustrate this observation is the evolution of  futurology from its early days. In this entry I’ll discuss futurology’s three-fold significance as it is presented in the first day of the Congress. With regards to its function in Tichy's imaginary future of the year 2039/ 2098, maybe some other time.

          The watcher-watched dynamics created by Tichy our narrator is what makes the beginning of this novel humorously dark compared to the rather serious tone of Tichy’s cryogenical experience in the second half. But there's more. Tichy was first and foremost a victim of the hallucinogens. The readers watch him going through all sorts of confusing mental and physical turmoil after he drank the drugged water. However, Lem does not want this course of event to make Tichy become an unreliable narrator. And this is where the stream of consciousness narrating style comes in. This style does not only place more emphasis on the confusion that Tichy and everybody in the Hilton hotel were having, but also puts the readers directly into Tichy’s shoes and consequently forces us to momentarily stop over-thinking, to overlook our doubts in the validity of his narration, and to instantly feel angry at/with him. In other words, much like how Tichy was midly appalled the moment he saw himself experiencing a love-hate complex with his archnemeses, readers would most likely be appalled while watching him watching himself (“Why would you worry about your archnemeses when there are possibly hundreds of time bombs scattered around in the vicinity of the hotel???”). To confuse and offend the readers with characters who confuse and offend themselves is part of Lem’s plan to project a reality where drugs pose a serious threat to the mental and physical well-being of humanity. And to know that it is part of Lem’s plan makes the premise of the novel (but not necessarily the characters themselves) hard to hate and ever more comically dark.

          Coupled with this narrating style is the absurd juxtaposition between the dire and horrendous assaults abound the Hilton hotel and the cordial atmosphere inside it. The juxtaposition is so rugged and so satirical that it almost begs the reader to not take the Congress seriously. There were stripteases, a Pope assassin, LTN bombs,  three Japanese scientists with the same name, countless deaths, and oral presentations in which spewing out numeral headings of research paper was not only not absurd, but necessary. The guest lecturers were nonchalant, apathetic, and serious to a fault, except for an unfortunate (or fortunate) few who had a whiff of the benignimizer. Meanwhile, the protesters were so convinced that the most effective method to stop the scholars from having these important discussions about the survival of humanity was to literally spread love into the air. This juxtaposition, in addition with the narrating style as discussed above, reveals that the novel’s quirky European dark humor has other two levels of significance. First, it shows that these scientists and scholars, who believed themselves to be the last hope for humanity’s future, nevertheless failed to see how far removed from reality they actually were. They were not so much a part of the solution as a part of the problem itself, as proven by the aggressive response from the protesters. And second, by stripping off the sophisticated façade of these men, by letting the readers know their inner thoughts, the novel means to help us reflect upon the state of the actual world that we the readers live in. For the most relevant real life example, think of the Hilton hotel as an isolated, small-sized liberal arts college in a rural setting where the best of the best convene to discuss grand ideas 24 hours a day seven days a week, and where many young male and female in their early 20s get intoxicated and who-knows-what-else on the weekends.

Here's something fun. Hilton is short for a hill in Clinton, or Hamilton College. Just kidding. Not really.