Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
by Stanislaw LemTranslated by Michael Kandel and Christine Rose
a.b.e-book v3.0 / Notes at EOF
Back Cover:
"A major figure who just happens to be a science fiction writer. . . very likely, he isalso the bestselling SF writer in the world." -- Fantasy and Science FictionWith over six million of his books in print worldwide, Stanisiaw Lem is perhapsthe most popular -- and most critically acclaimed -- science fiction writer of ourday. In MEMOIRS FOUND IN A BATHTUB, he projects a future America wherea Uranian virus threatens the destruction of all paper. The final stronghold of the"papyrocracy" is the hermetically sealed underground structure known only as "TheBuilding." Its labyrinthine net of corridors is a world of complete subterfuge -- withpolygraph mittens, bugged percolators, and microphone pillows. Into the clockworkprecision of this vestigial Pentagon plunges a young wanderer, unaware of the self-devouring complex of espionage that is a way of life, the rhythm of The Building. . .Lem has created a chilling, brilliantly satiric vision of "the ultimate bureaucracy" --where everyone is a spy, but no-one knows his mission."Lem is capable of an amazing richness of image and a great knack forcharacterization. He is wildly comic, he is sardonic, perplexing, insightful." --THEODORE STURGEON, in
The New York Times
Original edition:
Pamietnik znaleziony w wannie,
published by Wydawnietwo Literackie, Cracow, 1971.Work by Christine Rose by arrangement with Forrest J. Ackerman.AVON BOOKSA division of The Hearst Corporation959 Eighth AvenueNew York, New York 10019English translation copyright © 1973 by The Seabury Press.
Published by arrangement with The Seabury Press.Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-10586ISBN: 0-380-00456-9All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this bookor portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information addressThe Seabury Press, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017First Avon Printing, September, 1976Printed in the U.S.A.
Introduction
"Notes from the Neogene" is unquestionably one of the most precious relics of Earth's ancient past, dating from the very close of the Prechaotic, that period of decline which directly preceded the Great Collapse. It is indeed a paradox that weknow much more of the civilizations of the Early Neogene, the protocultures of Assyria, Egypt and Greece, than we do of the days of paleoatomics and rudimentaryastrogation. While those archaic cultures left behind permanent monuments in bone,stone, slate and bronze, almost the only means of recording and preservingknowledge during the Middle and Late Neogene was a substance called papyr.Papyr was whitish, flaccid, a derivative of cellulose, rolled out on cylinders and cutinto rectangular sheets. Information of all kinds was impressed on it with a dark tint,after which the sheets were collated and sewn in a special way.In order to understand what brought about the Great Collapse, that catastrophicevent which in a matter of weeks totally demolished the cultural achievement of centuries, we must go back three thousand years. Metamnestics and datacrystallization did not exist in those days. Papyr performed all the functions nowserved by our mnemonitrons and gnostors. True, there were the beginnings of artificial memory; but these were large, bulky machines, troublesome to operate andmaintain, and used only in the most limited, narrow way. They were called"electronic brains," an exaggeration comprehensible only in the historicalperspective, much like the boast of the builders of Asia Minor, that their sacredtemple Baa-Bel was "sky-reaching."No one knows exactly when and where the papyralysis epidemic broke out. Mostlikely, it happened in the desert regions of a land called Ammer-Ka, where the firstspaceport was built. The people of that time did not immediately realize the scope of the impending danger. And yet we cannot accept the harsh judgment delivered by so
many subsequent historians, that these were a frivolous people. To be sure, papyrwas not distinguished by its durability; but one should not hold a Prechaoticcivilization responsible for failing to foresee the existence of the RV catalyst, alsoknown as the Hartian Agent. The true properties of this agent, after all, werediscovered only in the Galactic Period by one Prodoctor Six Folses, who establishedRV's origin as the third moon of Uranus. Unwittingly brought back to Earth by anearly expedition (the eighth Malaldic, according to Prognostor Phaa-Vaak), theHartian Agent set off a chain reaction and papyr disintegrated around the globe.The details of the cataclysm are not known. According to verbal reports crystallizedonly in the Fourth Galactium, the focal points of the epidemic were enormous datastorage centers called
li-brees
. The reaction was practically instantaneous. In placeof those great treasuries, those reservoirs of society's memory, lay mounds of gray,powdery ash.The Prechaotic scientists thought they were dealing with some papyrophagousmicrobe, and wasted valuable time in the attempt to isolate it. One can hardly denythe justice of Histognostor Four Tauridus's bitter remark, that humanity would havebeen better served had that time been spent engraving the disintegrating words ontostone.Gravitronics, cybereconomics and synthephysics were all unknown in the LateNeogene, when the catastrophe occurred. The economic systems of various ethnicgroups called
nashens
were relatively autonomous, and wholly dependent upon thecirculation of papyr, as was the flow of supplies to the Syrtic Tiberis colony onMars.Papyralysis ruined a great deal more than the economy. That entire period is rightlynamed the Era of Papyrocracy, for not only did papyr regulate and coordinate allgroup activities, but it determined, in some obscure way, the fate of individuals (forexample, the "identity papyrs"). The functional and ritual roles of papyr in thefolklore of that time (the catastrophe took place when Prechaotic Neogene was at itsheight) have yet to be fully catalogued. While we do know the meaning of someexpressions, others remain empty phrases (
cheks, dok-ments, ree-seets
, etc.) In thatera one could not be born, grow up, obtain an education, work, travel, marry or dieexcept through the aid and mediation of papyr.Only in the light of these facts can one appreciate the full extent of the disasterwhich struck Earth. The quarantine of whole cities and continents, the constructionof hermetically sealed shelters -- all such measures failed. The science of the daywas helpless against the catalyst's subatomic structure, the product of a most unusualanabiotic evolution. For the first time in history society was threatened with totaldissolution. To quote an inscription carved upon the wall of a urinal in the Fris-Koexcavations by an anonymous bard of the cataclysm: "And the heavens above thecities grew dark with clouds of blighted papyr and it rained for forty days and fortynights a dirty rain, and thus with wind and streams of mud was the tale of man
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Lem, Stanislaw - Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
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