This is one of his earliest, and it kinda let me down. A guy working in an insane asylum. Kinda haunting at times, not terribly interesting though. It sounds as if Sekulowski is supposed to be saying some really neat stuff, but it all sounds like a bunch of fluff to me. Not the greatest, but it's Lem.

I loved this book. Lem's partially auto-biographical Transfiguration is set in a WWII era insane asylum in Poland. He tells a compelling story of a time and place when you had to look hard to tell the difference between the doctors and the patients.

Though some of it is a little fluffy, over all i found this book to be intresting and spellbinding.

This is a good slang-type of dictionary. The phrases or words are colorful because ordinary terms are used in a vulgar meaning. Hence, most of the entries are translated into the English 'F-word.' But are funny if you think about the literal meaning of the words. It makes American vulgar-slang look so boring and limited to a few words. I don't know why the other reviewer thought there should be religious references because the book seems to be thorough (I'm not sure that any cultures have religious obscenities for that matter).

This book is full of deliciously vulgar phrases. I wouldn't recommend actually using them unless you want a black eye, but as far as I can tell, having spent a summer in Poland, they're mostly accurate and up to date. The author also provides many literal translations, which are usually the funniest phrases in the book.

I was surprised to find that the book has almost no religious profanity. This seems strange, given that Poland is about 95% Catholic, and the author doesn't indicate if it's an omission or if there simply aren't any such curses. I also would have liked a scale of some sort to indicate which phrases were obscene and which were merely naughty. Still, it's a fun book, and if you've ever been ripped off by a Warsaw cab driver it's a useful one too.

I found this book totally by accident, while browsing the sf&f shelves of one of the big bookstores without much hope, and I'm glad I did, because Lem's essay, "Science-fiction : a hopeless case - with exceptions", really crystallised a lot of the things that concerned me about science fiction, and showed that at least one other person thought that sf should at least try to be literature. (Although written in 1970, and from the isolated position of Communist Poland, this essay is still depressingly accurate - although things have improved since his time.)

The guy is a heavy thinker, and come from a European tradition of taking science fiction seriously as a literature of ideas (Lem wrote the classic Solaris, which was made into a Russian movie). He is quite readable, however, and is obviously passionate about his subject. This book is essential for any academic study of science fiction, and for any reader who takes the genre's potential seriously.

One of the essays in this book got the author's honorary membership of the American SF Association revoked. Or rather, some of it did, in a way. "Science Fiction - A Hopeless Case with Exceptions" was published in the US in a mutilated "translation" under the tactful title "A Scientist's Choice of the World's Worst Writing", and Lem was unceremoniously booted out of the organisation. The essay in question is in fact a harsh, but in its essentials accurate, dissection of the deplorable state of science fiction and science fiction criticism as compared with the rest of literature, and deserves serious attention. (The exception discussed, by the way, is the work of Philip K Dick, and a detailed review of Dick's Ubik, justifying its claim to be taken as serious fiction, also appears in Microworlds.) There is also a fine review of the Strugatsky brothers' extraordinary novella Roadside Picnic, which was the basis for Andrei Tarkovsky's equally extraordinary though somewhat different film Stalker; an interesting essay on Jorge Luis Borges, noting the unique qualities and the limitations apparent in his stories; and, perhaps most valuably, a couple of long essays on what science fiction could be if it could only kick its maleficient Star Wars-style good-guy/bad-guy simplemindedness. Lem is precise, logical, detailed, cantankerous and fascinating. The world's greatest writer of grown-up science fiction and fantasy is once again pointing the way for the rest of us.

Not as thoroughly satisfying as Gerould's Madman And The Nun And Other Plays By Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, this books sandwiches the playwright's crowning achievement (The Water Hen) between his two most accessible works (Madman And The Nun and Crazy Locomotive). Nothing really new here, but since other English editions of Poland's greatest 20th century playwright are currently out of print, this slender volume should be considered indespensible. I just wish the publishers saw fit to include more. As for Gerould's translations, they are quite splendid, of course, as well they should be since they have occupied the greater part of this dramaturgical scholar's life.

good photos excellant format well worth the price for trainees in eye preparing for exams and for senior ophthalmologists to refresh the memories

A mystery story involving, of course, dead bodies.

The spirit of the novel is best contained in the statistician's remarks on gravity. The word "Gravity" doesn't really explain anything, rather it gives a name to the tendency of objects to fall toward the center of the earth. If something like that happens every day, we give it a name of some sort and accept it as normal. If something like that seldom happens, then it's exceptional and warrants investigation.

Although I was dissatisfied with the ending, the reasoning employed along the way there is pretty engrossing. The story is also strange enough in places to be bleakly humorous. Maybe an extra half-star, for being different.

As every detective and scientist should know, objectively there are facts and relationships between facts. Sometimes there are causal relationships between facts, and the facts are correlated; sometimes there are no causal connections between facts, and the facts may or may not show some statistical correlation. The situation where the facts display at least chance correlations but may not be linked causally provides the leitmotiv for Stanislaw Lem's "The Investigation" (and his "Chain of Chance" for that matter).

Correlated facts are suggestive, but when the number of facts does not amount to a meaningful statistical sample the correlation may be an artifact, and then sound inductive reasoning often gives way to wild speculation. In "The Investigation", lieutenant Gregory of Scotland Yard desperately tries to puzzle out a consistent explanation for a bizarre series of disappearing corpses while receiving input from a scientist, a doctor, and fellow detectives --- each with his own ideas. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be enough solid evidence to decide whether the facts of the case have causal structure or whether they simply form "fortuitous patterns". Hmmm.

The category of "science fiction" is usually reserved for whimsical flights of fancy, but here we have a book that breathes fictional life into part of the intellectual apparatus that is at the very heart of science --- the empirical, or scientific, method. No pedantic statement is made about the empirical method, it's darker corners simply serve as a compelling thematic backdrop for a detective story. "The Investigation" is not a detective novel in the traditional sense though, and the ending will throw Agatha Christie enthusiasts for a disconcerting loop...but, an enjoyable one.

The narrative style is pleasingly "cinematic" in that, with few exceptions, only things that can be seen and heard are described --- it reads something like a well-written screenplay. This narrative approach is nothing new, though, and its lack of originality kept me from getting too excited; but, my fetish for stylistic originality is probably not shared by most readers. The book is also intellectually provocative without being didactic in that the story conjures up a small whirlwind of intriguing questions, not a parade of dubious and facile answers. Most importantly, it's a fun and engaging story. I really liked this one.

For years I'd heard a lot about Stanislaw Lem as a great Polish science fiction writer, maybe one of the world's greats in that field, but I hadn't ever read him. Therefore, when I saw a book of his at a yard sale, I bought it. The price was certainly right. But, I must report that I still haven't read any of his science-fiction because THE INVESTIGATION turns out to be one of his few works in other genres. But what genre is this ? You might say it's a detective novel, but "metaphysical detective fiction" would describe it better. How many other books fit into the same field ? Good question. Here we find bodies removed from graveyards and mortuaries; sometimes they turn up elsewhere, sometimes not. Gregory, a suspicious policeman, is assigned to catch the perpetrator. But is there a perpetrator ? Discussions of statistics and probability, as well as mysterious speculations, pepper this novel, which takes place in cold, foggy, rainy or snowy conditions in England, a country that does not emerge very realistically from the background. I was constantly reminded of Ismail Kadare's novel "Doruntine" by the similar philosophical nature of the writing which marks both books, by the rain and cold, and even by the names of characters-Stres in the Albanian book, and Sciss (the statistician) in Lem's. I can't say that this is a characteristic Lem novel because it's the first I ever read. But a detective novel that asks "what if everything that exists is fragmentary, incomplete, aborted, events with ends but no beginnings, events that only have middles, things that have fronts or rears, but not both, with us constantly making categories..... ?" cannot be considered average. Lem's novel may not be to everyone's taste---especially if you are looking for sex, violence, or lots of action---but it is unusual and well-written.

This is the Second World War memoir of Major General Stanislaw Sosabowski (1892-1967), commander of the Polish airborne brigade that was dropped near Arnhem in September 1944. Some readers may recall that the actor Gene Hackman in the film A Bridge Too Far portrayed MGN Sosabowski. As war memoirs go, Freely I Served is unfortunately not toward the top of the deck. It is quickly apparent that MGN Sosabowski either did not have access to the relevant wartime records and diaries or chose not to use such resources to refresh his memory. The result is a very generalized account of his wartime experiences, and there are no startling insights into the failed Market-Garden operation here.

Sosabowski starts his memoir with a brief chapter on his early years in which he recounts how he served in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War. Although he notes that he was drafted in 1914, fought in a number of actions and finished the war as a Second Lieutenant, there is very little detail here. While he states that he helped to form the new Polish army in 1918, he gives no information on what role he played in the critical Russo-Polish War of 1919-1920. Was he a staff officer or a unit commander? Unknown. Nor does Sosabowski tell the reader much of anything about the period 1920-1939, other than to say he was an instructor at the military academy for a period of years.

The best chapter in the book covers the German Blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939. When the invasion started, Sosabowski was commander of the 21st Infantry Regiment in the 8th Division, located north of Warsaw. Although Sosabowski's regiment repulsed one initial German attack, his division fell apart and he was forced to withdraw into the Warsaw perimeter. When Warsaw surrendered, Sosabowski marched into captivity with his troops but soon escaped occupied Poland. Sosabowski was in France for six months, as deputy commander of the 4th Polish Division, but fled to England with his troops when Paris was overrun. The middle part of the book covers the formation of these remnants into the 1st Polish Parachute Brigade and the final part covers the unit's employment in Operation Market-Garden.

Sosabowski is not the most sympathetic character due to an unfortunate tendency to ignore the achievements of others. He claims that when he arrived in France in December 1939 that he was the "first senior officer to come straight out of occupied Poland..", which ignores the fact that Colonel Stanislaw Maczek had arrived in France in October 1939. Maczek had also commanded a brigade in the Polish campaign, and unlike Sosabowski, he commanded a Polish brigade in the French campaign as well. Maczek went on to command the only other major Polish ground unit stationed in the United Kingdom, the 1st Armored Division, but he is never mentioned in this account. According to Sosabowski, many of the other Polish officers in the West were overweight, overage cronies who had missed the fight in the homeland. This is a tremendous slight to his 100,000 countrymen who escaped Poland to continue the war against the Nazis. As a matter of fact, Sosabowski only mentions the names of a few of his subordinates. Although he twice tells us the name of his English landlady, he only tells the reader the name of one of this three battalion commanders and one or two other company-grade officers.

There is very little real detail in this account. I had to check Martin Middlebrook's excellent Arnhem: The Airborne Battle to ascertain the Polish brigade's composition at Arnhem. Sosabowski tells the reader a great deal about how the colors for the unit were covertly made in Poland and smuggled out to England, but he does not even tell the reader that 1,689 Polish paratroopers went into Holland and 203 were killed or captured (12% casualties). Although this was the highlight of his career, the author spends only 40 fairly uninformative pages on the Arnhem battle. The book ends when Sosabowski was relieved two months later due to friction with his British commanders; there is no mention of what happened to the brigade or its men after he left or even what he did for the next 23 years.

One would expect a great deal of recrimination here by Sosabowski about the poor planning of Market-Garden or the poor manner in which he was treated by the British command, but there is little of that here. He must have mellowed out by the time he wrote this over fifteen years later. Indeed, it is surprising to see the author support the notion that Field Marshal Montgomery's "single thrust" strategy into Germany was superior to Eisenhower's "broad front" strategy. Evidently, logistics was not Sosabowski's strong point. In the end, he blames the intelligence community and the air planners for the majority of the Arnhem disaster. The reader does have to sympathize with Sosabowski about the piece-meal and disastrous manner in which his brigade was committed into its one and only action, but the author does little commiseration. In short, this account adds no new insights into the Battle of Arnhem.

Excellent first hand account of what happened to the Polish Army during the invasion of 1939. Sosabowski describes how Polish troops escaped occupied Poland and arrived in Britain and formed units to continue the fight against Germany. He describes in detail, the Poles preparation, participation and execution of Operation Market Garden. He writes candidly about his run-ins with other Allied commanders. An excellent book for anyone who is curious about the seldom considered Polish perspective. This book also offers some insight about how other "beaten" countries managed to fight on even after their homelands had been invaded and occupied.