1. If you went to Solaris . . . .

[John]

1. If you went to Solaris, who or what would your visitor be?

[Zombie]

I'm not really sure. I thought about it a lot but was having trouble deciding.

[Eadie]

Whoever was foremost in my memory or a love interest I was obsessing over in my mind.

[Pip]

That is a difficult question. Probably my mother, whom I only met once, for about an hour.

[Kate]

That's an extremely personal question John! I JUST finished the book so haven't had a lot of time to digest yet and do not have a quick answer. As a human being in her sixth decade of life I of course have lots of regrets, many things that I would have done differently perhaps to steer certain relationships in another direction, but no one choice or person jumps out at me as something that would "haunt" me. I'm curious whether I'll dream about this novel tonight, though my dreams are seldom cooperative enough to answer this question.

[Sushicat]

There are some event in life you go back to time and again. For me these are mostly tied to one person I'm pretty sure would be my visitor.

[Wolf]

It IS pretty personal. Maybe to the point of being unanswerable... Wasn't it part of the definition of the "guests" that a lot of it was subconscious? I also wonder if only guilt and death can tie someone this tightly to your conscience. The persons I think about most (that I'm conscious of, that is...) seem to have gotten there in a more positive context. And since I've been very close to a lot of animals, too, I also wonder what Lem would have done with an equine guest in his spaceship...

[Anna]

I think about my grandma multiple times a day. Before her death, I always thought you would slowly stop longing for your loved ones that pass away. I know that is not true. She lived well into her 90s and died of natural causes. Her death was expected. I would think she would be my visitor.

[[deleted user]]

I would say hubbie but not for reasons of guilt just because he is the person most in my thoughts constantly

[Kate]

Wolf wrote: " And since I've been very close to a lot of animals, too, I also wonder what Lem would have done with an equine guest in his spaceship...
"
Oooh, fascinating thought Wolf. As a zookeeper I'd have a very interesting selection of dearly departed to choose from, hmmm the tapir, the zebra, the maned wolf, the Andean Condor... who would it be?

[Kristel]

It would be my mother. My relationship with my mother was good and difficulty but the main reason she would be the one is that I cared for both my parents as they died. Caring for dad went as would be expected and it was hard but peaceful to let go and we all had time to say goodbye. With mom, she did not do well with the chemo and probably developed chemo fog which none of us recognized at the time. She became increasingly withdrawn from us and she died alone one day before I got home from work. None of us were able to say bye. I think about her more than dad and I think it is because I didn't get to say good bye. I just lost her the way one would with Alzheimer's i imagine.

I also was not with my grandmother when she died and was very close to her but in a way, grandmother had said good bye to us many times and we all knew she was at peace with going.

[Kristel]

On the subject of animals; I would like to have my two dogs that have passed but I think it is more about those relationships that may have had some conflicts or unsaid things that we think about so I don't think it would be a animal friend that would visit us.

[Wolf]

That was actually more of a funny thought that crossed my mind, but now I have to defend it of course. Take into account that I'm extremely lucky and even at my advancing age none of the human people I love has died yet and maybe I just don't want to imagine that. Or, also possible, that I'm one of those sad nutters who turn to animals because they can't deal with people. I don't think so, but who sees themselves objectively?

Anyway, I'd argue that you can have just as deep and ambivalent relationships with animals. My first cat was with me for 19 years and I'm going into the 10th year with my dog and the 25th year with my horse. We've endangerd and saved each other's lives at several times (the dog and horse, that is, the cat not so much), have shared about anything apart from sex (well, in a secondary, abstract way maybe even that, when I once tried to have a foal bred from her and a stud I'd selected). And there was plenty of oppurtunity to accumulate guilt over the years. And one dreaded day I will probably have to make the decision (which is luckily still a rare one to make with human relations) if they are to continue living or not, which I know will leave me feeling very guilty, however appropriate to the situation it will be (i.e. was, with the cat). Ugh. Actually, that's something I don't really want to think about either. But, one last cautionary remark: That doesn't mean I anthropomorphize. I don't spoil them, overfeed them, or dress them, or try any other way to turn them into humans. They are not and I appreciate this difference. I think it is amazing that we can live with and communicate across species boundaries. I don't even believe in this "unconditional love" myth. We can never really know what goes on in their heads but we can't stop trying if we want to coexist. For me, that's a lot of what's Solaris is about and if an animal hat been important enough for one of the scientiststo be their "guest", it might even have had a better chance of driving this point home.

[Kristel]

Maybe the ocean could not create the animal visitors because it was looking for images in the brain that was most similar to the being that it was exploring (human).

I had to put my two dogs down and it was a very, very sad and heart wrenching experience and I miss them still but when the question was asked above by John, my thoughts didn't even go there so I guess in my case, my visitor would not have been one of my dogs but my dogs would have been a welcome visitor.

[Wolf]

Well, being welcome might have excluded them anyway. (Which still goes for mine, too) ;)

[Jen]

It is a very personal question and as someone else (I believe Wolf) mentioned part of the process involved thoughts and feels buried deep inside ourselves so may be impossible to answer.

If I had to guess, I'd say my grandmother. My father and I got into a major falling out over how certain things with my grandmother were handled when she got sick and later passed. She died about 5 years ago and I still feel a lot of guilt for not being a stronger advocate for her and for not seeing her as much in the last two years of her life. It was my grandmother who instilled a love of reading in me. I loved her and miss her very much.

I also had a close friend who was killed by a drunk driver when I was in high school. I think about him frequently although the emotional baggage is much stronger with respect to my grandmother.

[Patrick]

Hard to say. Like many mentioned, these arise from deep thoughts and memories, and would generally involve dead people. I can't think of any specific people whom I have known and are now deceased who would qualify outright as a visitor. It would be more likely to involve people who are still alive.