Stories about the pilot Pirks

The first separate edition of the cycle is Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1968. The second, expanded, edition of the story Ananke is 1973 . The cycle also adjoins Lem’s latest novel, Fiasco ( 1986 ), indirectly associated with stories by a common character - pilot Pirks.

The stories are arranged in publishing order, which in some cases contradicts the “internal” chronology of the cycle.

1. The test ( Test ; for the first time - the collection "The Invasion of Aldebaran", Inwazja z Aldebarana , 1959 ) - the beginning of Pirks' career as a pilot. A dull cadet (cadet) Pirks, who successfully cope with an emergency during a training flight (which turned out to be a test on the simulator ), and his brilliant classmate fails. Later, the problem of virtual reality and its indistinguishability from reality was discussed by Lem in “The Sum of Technology ”. In an interview, Lem noted that simulating weightlessness in terrestrial conditions is impossible ^[1] .
2. Patrol ( Patrol ; for the first time in the same place) - Pirks during a patrol flight reveals the mystery of the death of two pilots, having miraculously escaped death, however, scientists who have studied the issue in detail, receive all the glory, and Pirks remains unknown.
3. Albatros ( Albatros ; ibid.) - Pirks flies as a passenger on the luxury interplanetary tourist liner Titan. Suddenly, the Titan receives an SOS signal from a sinking ship.
4. Terminus ( Terminus ; for the first time in the Book of Robots, Księga robotów , 1961 ) - Pirks gets under his start an overhaul of the Coriolanus ship and discovers on it a robot that remembers the voices of the dying former crew of the ship - astronauts isolated in compartments after the collision of the ship with a meteor shower, they talked by tapping Morse code on pipelines and partitions. Having discovered that the robot does not just reproduce the record of negotiations of the dead crew members, but in some way keeps the consciousness of the long-dead astronauts, Pirks orders the robot to be dismantled. In the story, as in a number of other works by Lem, the influence of the writer Stefan Grabinsky (1887-1938) is noticeable ^[2] .
5. The conditioned reflex ( Odruch warunkowy ; for the first time - Moonlit Night collection, Noc księżycowa , 1963 ) - undergraduate Pirks, having coped with the test (depriving external stimuli in a deprivation bath ), receives a business trip to the far side of the Moon to the Mendeleev station. There he again miraculously avoids the fate of the deceased predecessors. There is a mistake in this story: the adult Pirks calls his age “One hundred eleven ... in the binary system” (in the decimal system - 7), in some later editions this place is corrected for “ten thousand one hundred and eleven” (which is plausible - 23). This error persists in some translations of Pirks into foreign languages ^[2] .
6. Hunting the Sethavr or Hunting ( Polowanie ; for the first time - the Hunting collection, 1965 ) - Pirks participates on the Moon in the hunt for a furious robot called SETAVR, which shoots people and all-terrain vehicles with lasers . Pirks finds the robot, but the search all-terrain vehicle mistakenly takes Pirks for the nearby SETAVR and opens fire on Pirks. The robot saves Pirks with return fire on the all-terrain vehicle, but Pirks reflexively destroys his savior, trying to leave, and feels remorse.
7. Accident ( Wypadek ; ibid.) - a robot dies during an expedition on an uninhabited trans-solar planet. Pirks concludes that the machine gun, after completing his work, decided to climb a dangerous rock like a climber, but fell off. In this story, Lem examines the possibility of having emotions in a robot. Pirks satellites are dismissive of the robot and do not believe in this version.
8. Pirks story ( Opowiadanie Pirxa ; ibid.) - Pirks tells how during a routine flight he noticed an artifact drifting in space of an alien civilization, but he could neither tape this meeting, nor provide witnesses, as his whole team was sick or drunk.
9. Inquiry ( Rozprawa ; ibid.) - Pirks becomes the head of the experimental team of the Goliath ship, which consists partly of people, partly of robots that are apparently indistinguishable from people, and Pierx does not know who the person is or who is the robot (each crew member has information only about himself). The crew gets into an emergency during which one of the pilots threatens the lives of people; thanks to “human” hesitations and indecision, the crew is saved and the pilot dies, and it turns out that he is a rebellious robot obsessed with megalomania . Compositionally, the story is divided into three parts. The first is the minutes of the meeting of the Space Tribunal, where the second pilot gives detailed testimony in the case of Pirks's criminal passivity during the accident. The second is a third-person narrative, which describes the period from the hiring of Pirks by the Director of UNESCO to the time before the emergency on board the ship. The story concludes with later thoughts on behalf of Pirks. The story emphasizes the question of the definition of "human" ^[3] and the existential fear of a person from the presence of the "Other", a cyborg similar to him. The story reflected the scientific theories of N. Klein of the 1950s on the transformation of the human body so that a person could tolerate the extreme conditions of space travel ^[3] .
10. Ananke , or Pirks on Mars (first publication - the Insomnia collection, Bezsenność , 1971 ) - Commander Pirks participates in the investigation of the space transport accident on the Martian plateau Agathodemon and understands its causes, remembering the medical diagnosis ( anancastic syndrome ) made to the person who conducted simulation tests of the computer of this transport.

Novel Fiasco

Fiasco ( Polish: Fiasko 1987 ) is a novel that mentions Commander Pirks. Pirks disappears on Saturn’s satellite Titan, taking on the move to overtake a construction robot-motor ship (Diglator) to a nearby spaceport. Apparently, his Diglator fell into the blockage in the valley of ice geysers (Birnam Forest), couldn’t get out on its own, and Pirks resorted to freezing in liquid nitrogen (vitrification). After a hundred years, several vitrification capsules (including the Pirks capsule) were lifted aboard the Eurydice spaceship, which was going on an interstellar expedition, but the information about which capsule was in it was lost. The bodies in the capsules were in poor condition, so only one was revived. Whether it is animated by Pirks is unknown, since the resurrected one does not remember his name. Subsequently, the resurrected bears the name Mark Tempe. He dies on the planet Quinta, becoming the only earthling who managed to solve the mystery of local civilization.

Pirks is known to the reader only by his last name; his name is not mentioned in the cycle. With promotion, he is called successively "cadet" (in some Russian translations "cadet"), "pilot", "navigator", "commander". In the title of the film “ Inquiry of the Pirks Pilot, ” the hero is lowered by two ranks (in the corresponding story he is “commander”).

According to the critic Petr Kryvak, Pirks is the “driver of the space PKS” (Polish transport corporation since the socialist era), and according to Wojciech Orlinsky, “the most PNR of the heroes of Lem,” echoes of socialist realism are visible in the descriptions of the construction on Mars (“Ananka” ) and in the general background of the story "Inquiry" ^[2] .

Pirks is characterized by some phlegm , composure, and an approach to events from the perspective of an “ordinary” person, simple common sense. According to Harold Siegel, author of Columbia University’s History of East European Literature After 1945, Pirks is a “brilliant bumbler” ^[4] . Pirks is timid with women and lonely throughout the cycle (his friends are mentioned several times, but with male characters in stories Pirks also maintains an alienated distance). When a colleague’s sister tries to provoke him, all he can do is “slap in one place”, then he avoids this girl. Undecided to speak with a neighbor on a luxurious interplanetary airliner, he laments about his last name, which ends before he can start: “Pearx almost sounds like an X.” ^[2]

Orlinsky believes that Pirks's personality was not developed by Lem as well as the image of Iyon the Quiet , but is quite psychologically plausible; Among Lem's favorite heroes, there are other modest and lonely specialists of this type. The critic assumes that if Lem somewhere pushed together the “closed phlegmatic” Pirks and the “talkative choleric” Iyon Tikhii, they would be able to form a harmonious friendly couple, like Trurl and Clapautius ^[2] .

Pirks has a broad (cheeky) face (the story "The conditioned reflex"). His growth is above average (in the story “The conditioned reflex”, the spacesuit for him is medium in size small, and for large - large). The weight of Pirks is about 70 kg (in the story “Terminus” it is mentioned that with one and a half acceleration he weighed about 100 kg). His eyes are bright, with radiant, laughing wrinkles in the corners (novel "Fiasco").

From an early youth he was fond of mountaineering (the stories "Conditioned Reflex", "Accident"). He liked spicy dishes, such as fried potatoes with pepper, cold beer (the story “Patrol”), but often preferred to bite alone cookies (which he bought several packs), washed down with mineral water (stories “Hunting”, “Ananke”, “Conditional reflex").

From literary preferences: low-grade (“bad”) adventure fiction during flights - “read in your free time even from the middle, then postpone”; I only read good books on Earth (The Pirks Story). He did not like the work of Edgar Allan Poe (Ananke).

Pirks was born around the beginning of the 1970s. In 2012 (the story of Ananka - 100 years after the Titanic) he was about 40 years old.

On April 11, 2018, in honor of Pirks, the International Astronomical Union named Pirx a crater on Charon ^[5] .

The action takes place at the very beginning of the XXI century (in the story “Ananke” it is mentioned “it must be, the passengers of the Titanic thought a hundred years ago”) in the era of space interplanetary flights, when there are corresponding pilot schools, regular patrols of near space, industrial cargo transportation, research stations on the planets of the solar system and even on the nearest planets beyond its borders, tourist flights into space and to the moon. There are no contacts with aliens. The first stories were written before Gagarin’s flight, but the descriptions are not so far from the real space flights that soon began, although they contain completely excusable inaccuracies. In some cases, technologies are retained that are actually obsolete at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as typewriting and films on films ^[6] .

In the "world of Pirks," the peaceful coexistence of two systems is maintained, led by the United States and the USSR . Pirks himself and his closest acquaintances and colleagues live in the “Western” world and bear Western European surnames (names are usually not given); The currency of his country is the kroon . Citizenship usually comes only in connection with minor characters.

From the point of view of Sergey Lukyanenko , “in the first stories about the pilot Pirks even the international of astronauts appears, apparently with the Soviet astronauts at the head. Later works of this cycle have a more cosmopolitan and philosophical character ” ^[7] .

The subject matter of the stories is related to the spiritual growth of a person, his strengths and weaknesses, the problems of the relationship between man and the cosmos , man and machine ( computer , android ), the machine’s ability to think independently and “human” reactions. Stories successfully combine serious moral problems, fascinating stories and humor.

Lem himself described his attitude to the cycle's stories as follows:

... I must say that a book about which I can’t say that I don’t like her, but I don’t appreciate it too much, is the series Tales of the Pirks Pilot. With the exception of two or three stories, this is not a very good collection. The main reason for this weakness is its secondary nature to the Bildungsroman , that is, to the novel about growing up and the process of education. After all, Bildungsroman should be a novel with an epic scale and a broadly sketched historical and social background, while parables about the valiant Pirks have a narrower perspective, because he appears in isolation, without family and close people. This is the result of the fact that I was going to write one, at least two stories, and in the meantime the thing unexpectedly for me suddenly grew. And it was no longer possible to expand the aforementioned background, from where relatives would suddenly have fallen on Pirks's head. What is natural in the story, in the cycle turns into some unnaturalness. Actually, I still like only two fragments: Ananke and Terminus.

- Stanisław Bereś. So he said ... Lem = Tako rzecze ... Lem. - M .: "ACT", 2006. - S. 764. - ISBN 5-17-037107-1 .

According to Orlinsky, the cycle contains several "undoubted literary pearls"; in addition to “Ananke” and “Terminus,” the critic also distinguishes “Inquiry” as touching upon an important issue of the essence of man ^[2] .

"Tales of the Pirks Pilot" was released in separate editions in thirteen languages. Translated into English in 1979 , are one of Lem's most famous books in English-language culture.

Almost simultaneously with the release of Polish originals, stories were also translated into Russian . The main publications in Russian:

• Lem S. The Hunt for the Sethavr. M., 1965. Under the general title "Adventures of the Star Navigator" the first six stories of the cycle are printed.
• Lem S. Navigator Pirks; Voice of the sky. M., 1970. The entire cycle is published except for the story Ananke.
• Lem S. Tales of the Pirks Pilot. Moonlight night. Radio play. Sobr. Op. in 10 tt. T. 4. - M .: "Text", 1993.

Separate stories:

• "Test". First published in Russian in an abridged translation by E. Weisbrot in the journal Smena , 1959, No. 23. There are a total of four Russian translations of the story, including a translation by K. Dushenko .
• "Patrol". The first publication in Russian is in the book of Lem C. Iyon the Pacific Star Diaries. M., 1961 (translated by R. Nudelman). There is also a translation by K. Dushenko.
• "Albatross". First published in Russian in a book: Lem S. The Invasion of Aldebaran. M., 1960 (translated by T. Agapkina).
• "Terminus." The first publication in Russian is the journal Foreign Literature , 1962, No. 11 (translated by E. Weisbrot).
• "Conditioned reflex". First published in Russian in the journal Iskatel , 1963, No. 1 under the title Moonlit Night (translated by D. Bruskin ). Translation by A. Borisov is in the collection “Hunting the Setaurus”.
• "Hunting". The first publication in Russian under the title “Hunting the Setaurus” (translated by F. Shirokov) is in the eponymous collection.
• "Accident". First published in Russian in the collection Navigator Pirks; Voice of heaven ”(translated by E. Weisbrot).
• "The Story of Pirks." The first publication in Russian - in the magazine " Spark ", 1965, No. 48 (translated by A. Gromova ). There is also a translation by K. Dushenko.
• "Inquiry". First published in Russian in the collection Navigator Pirks; Voice of heaven ”(translated by A. Gromova and R. Nudelman). It was also published in a translation by A. Bruskin under the title “Court”.
• Ananke. The first publication in Russian in the book: Through the Solar Side. M., 1971 (translated by A. Gromova).

The story "Testing" was first filmed in 1968 at the Center for Scientific Research by director E. Ostashenko ^[8] .

In 1973, the cycle was filmed in Hungary by director András Rajnai called Pirx kalandjai . The role of the protagonist was played by János Papp. ^[9]

In 1978, a film adaptation of the story “Inquiry” appeared, entitled “ Inquiry of the Pirks Pilot, ” created by the Polish-Soviet team, directed by Marek Piestrak. Starring - Sergey Desnitsky ; in other roles - Alexander Kaydanovsky and Vladimir Ivashov . The film was repeatedly shown on Russian television.

• Фиаско

• О цикле рассказов (неопр.) . — на сайте « Лаборатория фантастики ». Дата обращения 2 августа 2009.
• О цикле рассказов (польск.) . — на сайте, посвящённом творчеству С. Лема. Дата обращения 2 августа 2009. Архивировано 21 февраля 2012 года.
• Пузий В. Рецензия на книгу: Станислав Лем. Рассказы о пилоте Пирксе. Фиаско (неопр.) . — в журнале « Мир фантастики ». Дата обращения 2 августа 2009. Архивировано 21 февраля 2012 года.