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You have been dosed. Or is it everyone else that has been dosed? You peel back the veils of reality whenever you have such an opportunity and struggle to determine which theory is true. I think everyone has confronted this problem to some extent--either from hallucinogens, nightmares or simply from a high fever--which is why this book is so relevant.
Right now, the pharmaco-genetic industry is one of the most powerful segments of high technology commerce. People are readily accepting chemical therapy for every conceivable malady--real or imagined. It's becoming part of the culture. Prozac is an interesting example, because now people are starting to take it just because their co-workers are taking it. They need to feel as upbeat and productive as everyone else around them. Steroids and growth hormones for young fitness freaks are another example of the mainstreaming of drugs. These are definite cultural vectors. They are trajectories. They are the initial conditions for the chaotic system which Stanislaw Lem weaves and explores in The Futurological Congress.
Congress begins with the attendance of protagonist Ijon Tichy at a futurologists' summit. Imagine the biggest convention center you have ever seen, mix in Disney World and every stripe of fringe-culture social theorist you can think of, and put it in a skyscraper in Cost Rica. Add drugs and explosives.
Costa Rica is in the throes of a guerrilla war, and the Government--for the first time in history--has engaged in "cryptochemocracy" by dosing the water suppply with "equal parts Felicitine, Placidol and Superjubilan" (just think: gateway drugs). Shortly thereafter, a group of rioters outside and inside the resort building is dosed with LTN (love thy neighbor). How do people behave? Suffice it to say that everyone has a different way of dealing with reality.
This is our departure point into a world of rampant and all-pervasive "psychem" (Lem uses this word to describe both recreational and clinical uses of mind-altering substances). Drugs--in usage both autocratic and casual--become so interleaved into the culture that life literally becomes one big trip. Or is it a multitude of many trips? Ijon Tichy, in particular, has a very special experience since he enjoys a cryonic voyage, and discovers just how much psychem is destined to become part of... life.
Lem takes a typical hallucination, turns it inside out, and stirs and spreads it and tweaks it until he can offer you its full anatomy. As each veil of reality is pulled back, each episode of Tichy's memoirs cascade and crash with breakneck speed and reckless abandon. The result is projected with steadfast focus onto an implied analysis of our own culture: Consumer culture. Fashion. Sex. The Machine. Futurology. Third-world versus first-world. Pain, lots of pain. Ecstasy.
This book is the most meaningful commentary about the interplay between perception, reality, culture and society that I have encountered. And it's a real kick to read. If you have never read Lem, start here. Have a nice trip. --A.R.
(review date: 5/17/97)
Mandarin
Reign of Toads PO Box 40498 Albuquerque NM 87196-0498 USA