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From: pct@vaxine.UUCP (Pierre Trepagnier)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Stanislaw Lem
Message-ID: <175@vaxine.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Jan-84 11:07:58 EST
Article-I.D.: vaxine.175
Posted: Mon Jan 30 11:07:58 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 31-Jan-84 03:22:42 EST
Organization: Automatix Inc., Billerica, MA
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The January 30 issue of The New Yorker has an autobiographical article by
Stanislaw Lem which makes for interesting reading. He discusses his work and
the impulses behind it. Here is a quote [He is discussing growing up in Poland
during WWII.]:

"The unfathomable futility of human life under the sway of mass murder cannot
be conveyed by literary techniques in which individuals or small groups of
people form the core of the narrative. It is, perhaps, as if somebody tried by
providing the most exact description of the molecules of which the body of
Marilyn Monroe was composed to convey a full impression of her. ...I began
writing science fiction because it deals with human beings as a species ...
and not just with specific individuals, be they saints or monsters."