Podróż dwudziesta
- by Stanisław Lem
- Novelette
- Science Fiction, Comedy
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- Polish
- “Podróż dwudziesta” by Stanisław Lem, in Dzienniki gwiazdowe, expanded third edition by Stanisław Lem (Czytelnik, 1971).
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?
translate
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.
Tags
(45)
- Time Periods
- Formation of the Solar System (often 4600 Ma to 4540 Ma): the true history of: how the planets were formed, the tilt of the Earth’s, the alignment of the Earth’s magnetic north pole, the canals and moons of Mars, the craters of the moon, the atmosphere and day length of Venus, the formation of the asteroids, continental drift, evolution, and more.
- Circa AD 2200 to 2299: presumed, since he feels at home with 23rd-century furniture
- Near Future, AD 2300 and Beyond: the 27th century
- Timeline Models
- Single Consistent Timeline: Every move the project attempts simple results in what was already present.
- Time Travel Methods
- Time Fliers: A chronocykl :: chronocycle: consisting of “a pipe, a saddle, and an exhaust funnel, therefore one could easily mistake it—particularly in bad lighting—for a [flying] broom.”
- Themes
- Fix History!: “For World History to be regulated, cleaned up, straightened out, adjusted andperfected, all in accordance with the principles of humanitarianism, rationalism and general esthetics.”
- Self-Visitation: Although the elder describes his visits as being in “a closed curve in time,” it is not a closed timelike curve as we use the term.
- Time Corps: The ITS (Institute of Temporal Studies)
- True Histories: The story presents the true history of dozens of events and people.
- Real-World Tags
- Albert Einstein: “. . . little Albie Einstein.”
- Alchemists: Cagliostro, Simon Magus, and scores of others
- Aristotle: Harris Doddle
- Arizona’s Meteor Crater: its true history
- Berthod Schwarz: “. . . Berthod Schwartz and his powder (and where was I supposed to put him? In antiquity? So they could get to grapeshot all the sooner?) . . .”
- Cardinal Richelieu: Reichplatz
- Counterculture of the 1960s: its true history
- Egyptian Pyramids: their true history
- Extinction of the Dinosaurs: its true history
- Francis Bacon: “. . . happily, no one paid much attention to those references to jets and bethyspheres in Bacon . . .”
- Genghis Khan: General Angus Kahn
- Homer: Homer Gumby
- Ice Ages: the true history of the Cambrian and Pleistocene ice ages
- Jan van Eyck: Vance Eyck
- Jonathan Swift: “As for Swift and his Gulliver’s Travels, in which there is a reference, plain as day, to the two small satellites of Mars . . .”
- Julian the Apostate: Rosenbeisser
- Leonardo da Vinci: Lenny D. Vinch
- Marshall McLuhan: sent to the 20th century to spy on futurologists
- Napoleon: N. Betterpart
- Neanderthals and Other Cavemen: “. . . [Adler] became a prehistoric Casanova and begat the Neanderthals.”
- Plato: Pat Lado
- Ramon Llull: Lull
- Richard the Lionheart: Lowenherz
- Robert Joseph Boscovich: Dr. Rob Boscovic
- Science Fiction Writers as a Group: “. . . those who were trying to set themselves up as prophets—by turning out all sorts of rubbish (called ‘Science Fiction’) . . .”
- Spinoza: also the Wandering Jew
- Tower of Babel: its true history
- Tunguska Crater: its true history
- Fictional Tags
- Atlantis: the true history of its sinking
- Biblical Stories: the true history of the Old Testament
- Hieronymus Bosch: Harry Bosch
- Job: Joe Hobbs
- Minotaurs, Centaurs, and Other Mash-Ups: the true history of the Minotaur at Minos
- Wandering Jew: actually the Wandering Spinoza
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “Podróż dwudziesta” by Stanisław Lem, in Dzienniki gwiazdowe, expanded third edition by Stanisław Lem (Czytelnik, 1971).
Translations
(1)
- English.
“The Seventh Voyage” by Stanisław Lem, in The Star Diaries by stanisław Lem, The Seabury Press, 1976.
Indexer Notes
(2)
- Audio Reading (English)—The final paragraph is cut off in our copy of the audio reading. Here it is in full: “Without honors, without fanfare, without so much as a single word of thanks, or any sort of sendoff ceremony, accompanied by the deathlike silence of my ex-colleagues, who only recently had been paying me nothing but compliments from morning till night, competing among themselves to regale my mental horizons with some new surprise, and who now all turned their backs as I walked past—I headed for the embarkation hall. Petty maliciousness had prompted my former subordinates to give me the most dilapidated chronocycle they could find. Now I knew why I would be unable to brake in time and unfailingly knock over all those bookshelves! But I was unruffled by this last of many indignities. And though the chronocycle shook dreadfully on the curves of time (these are the so-called turning points in history), for the stabilizers refused to work, I left the 27th century feeling no anger, no bitterness, thinking only of how the Teleotelechronistic-Historical Engineering to Optimize the Hyperputerized Implementation of Paleological Programming and Interplanetary Planning would fare—under my successor.
- English Copyright Date—The Star Diaries, which is the first English translation of a significant portion of the 1977 collection Dzienniki Gwiazdowe, is sometimes cited as 1971, but that is a misunderstanding of the copyright page, which states: “English Translation ©1976 by the Seabury Press, Inc. . . . Original Edition: Dzienniki Gwiazdowe, published by Czytelnik, Warsaw, 1971.” This English collection was translated by Michael Kandel and uses the Polish spelling of Stanisław Lem with the letter ł. Later reissues use the English variant Stanislaw Lem.