An Interview With Stanislaw Lem

Abstract

I conducted this interview in Krakow, Poland, in May 1981, at Lem's house on the outskirts of the city. The meeting was arranged by phone through another Polish writer who is the translator of my fiction into Polish. I was travelling with Jerzy Kutnik, a young Polish critic who teaches contemporary American literature at the University of Lublin, and who served as my guide and interpreter during the three weeks I spent in Poland lecturing and reading from my work at various universities and for the Polish Writers' Union. We arrived afew minutes late, having had difficulties finding a taxi. I had visualized Lem 's house to be a huge, ultra-modern mansion (there are a few such houses in Poland), but instead we found ourselves in front of a rather small and unpretentious house, even according to Polish standards. I had expected something more imposing, especially for a writer of such international renown. But speaking of the incongruous, as we did later in the interview, parked in front of the house was the latest model of a Mercedes-Benz-450 SL, I believe-bright green. We were greeted by Stanislaw Lem himself at the gate of the little garden which surrounds the house. He looked exactly the way I had envisaged him: short and plump, jovial and energetic, in his early 60s. He wore gold-rimmed glasses, a heavy wooi cardigan with leather patches at the elbows, corduroy pants, and heavy yellow walking shoes. We went directly up to his study on the second floor after being briefly introduced to his wife, an extremely attractive woman, perhaps a few years younger than Lem. I took a quick glance around the house as we walked in. Somewhat messy, or rather, no, not messy, but cluttered with objects in every corner: gardening tools, tennis racquets, skis, boots, etc. In Lem 's study I was struck by the mess on the large desk: piles of books, papers, magazines, and all kinds of objects, and abandoned on top of all that, a small portable typewriter. Around the room, covering the walls from floor to ceiling, bookcases full of books, papers, magazines, in no discernible order, except for one large bookcase facing the door in which the books were neatly arranged, and beautifully bound-Lem 's own books in many different editions, in Polish and foreign translations. Stacks of magazines on the floor, some in English, French, Russian. I noticed on the desk the latest issue of Newsweek, quite difficult to obtain anywhere in Poland. On top of one of the bookcases, a large photograph of the Polish Pope. When Lem's wife brought in coffee and cookies on a tray, he pulled up a small table on wheels which I had not noticed earlier. Lem sat on a very old and rather uncomfortable-looking chair, while Jerzy and I sat in small, but comfortable armchairs, much lower than his antique chair. We were a few minutes into the interview when I asked Jerzy to check and make sure his Russian-made tape recorder was working properly. And luckily we did. The tape was hardly audible. Lem immediately offered that we use his tape recorder, a brand new German model.