This extraordinary novel from the favorite writer of my youth, Stanisław Lem, defies categorizations. While on the surface it is a suspense novel or a "mystery" (more precisely, a scientific and philosophical mystery/suspense), it is actually more of a treatise on the human species' place in the Universe. Mr. Lem, who began in 1940s as a science-fiction writer and became the world's most widely read science-fiction author, left his mark on the 20th century as one of the deepest thinkers writing about science, technology, and the future of human race. He was a philosopher, serious futurologist, humanist, and popularizer of science. "His Master's Voice" (Polish title "Głos Pana") is one of his first "serious" books, and definitely my favorite. I read it for the first time in 1968, immediately after it had come out, and loved it. I have now re-read it, and it is still one of the most enthralling books I know and certainly one of the most thought-provoking.The events described in the novel take place in the near future. A non-random, repeating pattern has been discovered in a neutrino stream recorded by astrophysicists at the Mount Palomar observatory. American government establishes a secretive project, dubbed "His Master's Voice", aimed at deciphering the "message from the stars". After a year of work, with the scientists no closer to understanding the message, new people are recruited to the project. A famous mathematician, Peter Hogarth, who is the narrator of the story, is among them. Dr. Hogarth is able to prove that the message has a topological property of "closure", which indicates that it is an object (a thing or a process) separate from the rest of the world. In the meantime, the project's biochemists and biophysicists manage to translate fragments of the message into physical substances that exhibit unusual properties. Perhaps most interestingly, it is discovered that the particular structure of the neutrino stream helps in creating the configurations of molecules that constitute the chemical backbone of life, and thus that the message increases the probability of creation of life.However, let's not forget that the project is largely controlled by the military who are hoping that the message will help construct some kind of super-weapon. Of course, their argument is that the other side (the novel was written in the times when there were just two superpowers - the U.S. and the Soviet Union) is probably also working to decipher the message and convert its contents into a super-weapon. I will not divulge how this subplot develops, but it is extremely successful in portraying the mechanisms of arms race, and the denouement is - I am sorry for using big words but they fully belong here - phenomenally clever. Neither will I divulge the overall conclusion of this scientific suspense novel - it is absolutely credible and it uniquely fits the premise. Find it for yourself!I am sort of a mathematician, albeit not a very good one, no wonder then that I totally love Mr. Lem's presentation of differences between mathematics and social sciences - I was laughing for an entire day having read how Dr. Hogarth's results were not recognized by social scientists working on the project because his "style of thinking [...] provided no scope for rhetorical counterargument". Hilarious! On the other hand, Mr. Lem expertly shows the natural arrogance of a mathematical genius, who knows that the statements he has proved will always remain true, regardless of current political trends and prevailing philosophy.When I came back to this book after 47 years, I expected I will find it dated and full of obsolete references. Amazingly, this is not the case at all. Written in pre-Internet times, "His Master's Voice" reads like an absolutely contemporary novel; it could have been written last year. The translation from Polish by Michael Kandel is superb.I have left what is the best for me for last - "His Master's Voice" does not read like fiction. It makes the reader feel this is a chronicle of actual events, something like the story of Manhattan Project from the 1940s or any other big-scale scientific project. Several times, when reading the novel, I caught myself thinking the events have actually happened, and I had to forcefully remind myself that what I was reading was only fiction.Trying to maintain balance, I need to mention that I do not like the Preface and the first chapter. They are a little overwrought and pompous, which makes me chip a quarter of a star off the rating for this masterpiece.Four and three quarter stars.
Immaginati in una stanza con una finestra chiusa.Ti avvicini e la apri. Da dentro la sua cornice vedi onde di colline marezzate di verdi, il cielo azzurro e tutte le nuvole che vuoi. Ma sempre dall'interno della stanza.Quello è un romanzo.Ora metti i gomiti sul davanzale e affacciati alla finestra. Hai le spalle e la testa fuori, così tanto che la coda dell'occhio riesce a farti pensare che quel paesaggio sia infinito. E senti anche l'aria fresca dell'altopiano.Quello è un romanzo di Stanislaw Lem.Ho finito da poco La Voce del Padrone. Lo scrisse nel 1968. Io l'ho letto nel 2014 prendendolo in prestito dalla biblioteca online di MLOL, eppure mi sembra che Lem, nonostante quei 46 di distanza, sia altri 100 anni avanti a me.È un libro che vorrei leggessero tutti, ma non lo consiglierei a nessuna delle persone che conosco.La prima asserzione scaturisce dal fatto che se tutti leggessero libri simili non ci sarebbero più daspo, violenze, guerre, filorussi ucraini e bambine nigeriane rapite.La seconda perché è un libro che richiede calma. Non ha niente a che fare con cliffhanger, metonimie, conflitti tra i personaggi; a un certo punto abbassa volontariamente anche i punti di climax anticipando fatti importanti.Perché allora questo libro è bello?Perché un libro che ha la sicurezza di farti evaporare la testa nelle ultime pagine nonostante abbia fatto di tutto per toglierti la suspense in quelle precedenti ha un coraggio grande così.E perché in quelle ultime pagine l'immaginazione metafisica di Stanislaw Lem riesce a creare paesaggi che ti fanno arrivare i brividini sulla schiena. Mica paesaggi reali. Pensieri così giganteschi sul cosmo che è come quando da bambino provi a immaginare l'inizio del tutto. Cioè quando ti metti lì con calma e sei sicuro di trovare una soluzione che non ha ancora trovato nessuno. Ma non ci riesci, perché tutto è più grande di te. Il pensiero stesso lo è.Stanislaw Lem è un gigante della letteratura. Non ho scritto "gigante della fantascienza" perché c'è sempre qualcuno che pensa questo genere sia solo un incubatore di film di Hollywood con le esplosioni, ma se quel qualcuno volesse leggere "Solaris" o "Barbagrigia" (di Aldiss) o "Futuro in trance" (di Tevis), si accorgerebbe che la filosofia e la metafisica possono trovarsi dove meno te lo aspetti o dove meno se lo aspettano i luoghi comuni; che sono comuni proprio perché non hanno alcuna voglia di essere approfonditi.Di questo libro ho sottolineato 44 segmenti.44...Te ne lascio alcuni.Uno smeraldo triangolare non cessa di essere uno smeraldo triangolare quando diventa un occhio umano nel disegno di un mosaico.__ Le biblioteche nascondono interi filoni di potenziali scoperte, inutilizzate solo perché non sono cadute sotto gli occhi di qualcuno competente in materia.__Uno dei primi compiti dello scienziato è di definire non le dimensioni del sapere acquisito, il quale si spiega da solo, ma le dimensioni dell’ignoranza, che di tale sapere è l’invisibile Atlante.__Non capisco come mai si vieti di guidare l’automobile alle persone prive di patente, mentre ai librai è permesso ospitare sui propri scaffali le opere di gente priva della più elementare decenza.E poi l'ultimo, anche se ce ne sarebbero di altri meravigliosi. Ma questo è curioso, perché nel 1968 Stanislaw Lem aveva predetto Facebook:Fin dal suo nascere, la scrittura ha sempre trovato un nemico nella censura delle idee espresse. Tuttavia, accade talvolta che la libertà di parola si riveli un mezzo ancora più micidiale per il pensiero. Le idee proibite possono circolare clandestinamente; ma che fare quando un fatto importante affonda in un oceano di informazioni fasulle, quando la voce della verità viene sopraffatta da un inaudito tumulto e, per quanto liberamente si diffonda, non arriva a farsi udire, visto che le tecniche dell’informazione hanno creato una situazione in cui è sempre il messaggio urlato più forte, anche se il più menzognero, a venire più facilmente captato?
What do You think about His Master's Voice (1999)?
In His Master’s Voice, scientists study a message received from the stars, encoded in neutrinos. Narrated in first person after the facts, His Master’s Voice is really a long philosophical essay, with just enough story telling to keep the reader’s attention (the book is one of the very few philosophical essay that I know of which is also a page-turner). The project, narrated by a participant – a famous mathematician – in a memory found after his death, takes place in a closed government facility, and of course there are plans to exploit the findings for military applications.A part of the message seems understandable, and the scientists find a way to use it to synthesize a new material with strange properties, perhaps a new life form sent from the stars. But the purpose of the new material is never understood, the rest of the message never decoded, and the goal of the project – decoding a message sent by an alien civilization – is muddled by more and more uncertainties. Perhaps the message is not a message at all, but radiation based on unknown science, broadcast to stimulate the emergence of life in the universe. Perhaps the signal is not even the work of intelligent aliens, but the outcome of unknown natural phenomena, perhaps related to residual radiation leaks between phases of a cyclic, expanding and contracting universe. But is there always a meaningful difference between the actions of intelligent life and the “mindless” works of the laws of physics? The question is left unanswered, and the signal from the stars remains a Rorschach test, onto which we project what is in our own minds.See full review:http://skefia.com/2014/01/04/lems-str...
—Giulio Prisco
An epic book, in scope, if not in length. Just short of a philosophical treatise on the origins and future of mankind, Lem weaves together a true arsenal of science fiction tropes and scientific knowledge of the day to paint a eerily realistic scenario that follows a discovery of an extraterrestrial signal. The book starts out a bit slow - with the narrator explaining to the reader why he is the one who is narrating the said book - but it picks up from there and the plot has a steady ramp-up to the somewhat anti-climactic conclusion. With this book though, the pleasure is in the journey.
—Nick
This is my roommate's favorite of Stanislaw Lem's books. I can see why he likes His Master's Voice. It's rich with philosophical arguments, and plenty of hard science. In this book Lem wonders what would happen if we heard noises from the distant regions of the universe, and what those noises would mean for humankind. I'm starting to think I'm not a huge fan of scientific prose. If I wanted such academic language, I would read a scientific study, not a novel. There were several times where I missed a major plot point because it was surrounded by the main character's commentary on his fellow scientists. I spent even more time backtracking, trying to discern what the heck I just read. To this day I'm still not sure exactly what the difference between Frog Eggs and Lord of the Flies is. The main character Peter Hogarth, is a misanthrope much like Dwight Schrute from The Office. He believes and expects the worst out of people. Hogarth refuses to believe in God because he's never been struck by lightning. His conclusions at the end are particularly fitting to his characterization. Peter Hogarth also brings to mind the head of the Department of Opposition in Dresden Kodak. He can be grating at times, but his blunt nature seems to make the reader trust him. As to the philosophy of the book, I would say His Master's Voice is highly influenced by Deconstrutionism. In fact, Lem and Hogarth frequently describe the subjects of the experiments as a message, code, or language--one that is too complex for the audience to fully understand. Every scientist, perhaps even Hogarth, uses his own presuppositions about the universe to interpret the noise, but in the end it's all guesswork.
—Sara
