"Stanislaw Lem - Ijon Tichy 02 - Memoirs of a Space Traveler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

Further reminiscences of Ijon Tichy -- [etc.]
I. Title.
PG7158.L39D9132 1982 891.8'537 81-47310
ISBN 0-15-658635-5 AACR2

Printed in the United States of America

First Harvest/HBJ edition 1983
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Publisher's Note

The pieces in this book -- the two Voyages of Ijon Tichy, his reminiscences, his open letter -- all
appeared in the 1971 Polish edition of Dzienniki gwiazdowe (The Star Diaries) but were not included in
the British and American editions titled The Star Diaries and published in 1976. The present book, in
effect, constitutes the second volume of Lem's work of that name.




Contents

The Eighteenth Voyage
The Twenty-fourth Voyage
Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy
I
II
III
IV
V (The Washing Machine Tragedy)
Doctor Diagoras
Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy)




The Eighteenth Voyage

The expedition I want to write about now was, in its consequences and scale, the greatest of my
life. I am well aware that no one will believe me. But, paradoxical as it may seem, the Reader's disbelief
will facilitate my task. Because I cannot claim that I achieved what I intended to achieve. To tell the truth,
the whole thing turned out rather badly. The fact that it was not I who bungled, but certain envious and
ignorant people who tried to thwart my plans, does not ease my conscience any.
So, then, the goal of this expedition was the creation of the Universe. Not some new, separate
universe, one that never before existed. No. I mean this Universe we live in. On the face of it, an absurd,
an insane statement, for how can one create what exists already and what is as ancient and irreversible as
the Universe? Could this be -- the Reader is likely to think -- a wild hypothesis stating that till now