SOURCE: “Stanislaw Lem's Star Diaries,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 13, Pt. 3, November, 1986, pp. 361–73.

In the following essay, Jarzebski examines the development of Lem's philosophical perspective in his Star Diaries stories, drawing attention to Lem's mockery of intellectual arrogance and positivist views of human progress.

Among Lem's story-cycles, the Star Diaries has a special place. Chronologically, it is the oldest, but the author has continued to develop it up to the present day. Moreover, so far as its tone and problems are concerned, it is the most heterogeneous of Lem's fictions. For these reasons it is worth analyzing in depth.

The first parts of the cycle were published as early as the collection Sezam (1954). It began in a cheerful mood:

The famous star traveller Ijon Tichy, Commander of the Galactic Long Distances, trapper of comets and meteors, the indefatigable discoverer and explorer of eighty thousand and three stellar bodies, doctor...