The Voyages of Ijon Tichy 20
Podróż dwudziesta
English release: The Twentieth Voyage Literal: Journey twenty
by Stanisław Lem
After the time mish-mash of Ijon Tichy’s seventh voyage, it
wasn’t clear whether Ijon would ever ply the channels of time again, but here he is,
traveling back in time to persuade himself to go forward in time
and take up the helm of THEOHIPPIP—a.k.a. Teleotelechronistic-Historical Engineering to
Optimize the Hyoerputerized Implementation of Paleological Programming and Interplanetary
Planning. It takes a few attempts for older Ijon to convince younger Ijon to head to the
future on a one-man chronocykl, but when he does, the younger Ijon begins the
unexpectedly hard task of righting history’s wrongs. As a
sophisticated time traveler yourself, you’ll spot what’s
happening early on, while you also get a tour of history from the formamtion of the Solar System to the extinction of
the dinosaurs and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. You’ll
also recognize the fun Lem has at the expense of the bureaucracies of mid-20th-century
Poland.
— Michael Main
Zresztą Bosch nie powstrzymał się od niedyskrecji. W „Ogrodzie uciech ziemskich,”
w „piekle muzycznym” (prawe skrzydło tryptyku) stoi w samym środku dwunastoosobowy
chronobus. I co miałem z tym robić?
Even so, Bosch couldn’t refrain from certain indiscretions. In the “Garden of
Earthly Delights,” in the very center of the “Musical Hell” (the right wing of
the triptych), stands a twelve-seat chronobus. Not a thing I could do about it.
[ex=bare]“Podróż dwudziesta” | Journey twenty[/ex] by Stanisław Lem, in Dzienniki gwiazdowe, expanded
third edition, by Stanisław Lem, (Czytelnik,
1971).