The central theme of the book is the total lack of failure of human beings to understand an extraterrestrial intelligence. Kris deals with some very conflicting feelings about this strangeness and although he knows this version of Rheya is not real, he still becomes quite attached to her, the ocean then seems to test the minds of the scientists by confronting them with their most painful and repressed thoughts and memories. It is a strange phenomenon that they question that it may have something to do with the ocean, and how it could be a massive brain that creates these incarnate memories, but they don’t know why or what the purpose of this is. He soon finds out that not only him, but his workmates on the planet are also being plagued by their own version of Rheya, whoever it may be. He is suddenly visited by his ex girlfriend who died on earth many years ago, but is very much alive on Solaris, she is the spitting image of his ex lover Rheya. While Kris is on Solaris, something very strange happens. The scientists on Solaris have studied this ocean and planet for decades and in vain may I add, they still have not come to a clear conclusion about the workings of this mysterious planet. The novel follows our main character called Kris Kelvin, a psychologist who arrives at this mysterious planet called Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface (BTW the ocean is so trippy in this book). Solaris is a straight up Science Fiction novel from renowned Polish novelist and satirist Stanislaw Lem.

Solaris s lem