Word: lem
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...LEM ENDOWS HIS narrator with an urbane wit which frequently turns upon Western decadence and indicts the depersonalized world of modern technology. John's sarcastic wit carries the novel through its occasional slow stretches such as his lengthy drive from Naples to Rome...
...Lem's narrator, a retired French-Canadian astronaut named John, relates the details of an undercover investigation into the mysterious deaths of eleven tourists visiting a health spa in Naples. As with most writers of detective stories, Lem never lays all his cards on the table; the reader only gradually learns that the victims were all middle-aged foreigners, balding and of athletic build. (Is it by chance too that the picture of Lem on the book's back cover matches this description?) In addition, the men were wealthy, single, and had been receiving treatments for rheumatism at the Vittorini...
...lost. The Chain of Chance's most distinctive feature, when seen in the context of Lem's body of work, is that it purports to have a solution. In the book's denouement, John unravels the mystery and at last everything becomes understandable. This may be routine for a detective story, but for Lem it is a radical break from his tradition of leaving stories open-ended...
...Lem's protagonist is both a product of the scientific community and an outcast from it; his cynicism seems to stem from wounded pride after he was relegated to the position of back-up astronaut. In modern technology, where remote-control computers are "the highest order, the symbol of our civilization," John says facetiously, there is no room for human failings: acute hay fever forced his demotion when a space mission unexpectedly discovered vegetation on Mars. Rather than remain a member of the backup crew, he quit, joining the undercover investigation in the hope that it would satisfy his attraction...
Occasionally John succumbs to a flaw Lem's other protagonists do not: his witty cynicism turns to bromides and offending overstatement, as in the remark "despite the exhaust fumes, I could make out the scent of flowers in the gently fluttering breeze." For this we have Lem to blame: in his eagerness to emphasize the irony behind scientific progress that has backfired, he commits the sin of self-indulgence...