Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
by Stanisław Lem · first published 1986
54% recommend43% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Kafkaesque, darkly funny satire of bureaucracy, set in an underground Pentagon where everyone spies on everyone. Suits readers who like Lem's absurdist side rather than his hard sci-fi, and it also works as an audiobook.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Stanisław Lem had a genius for making fun of bureaucracy. I strongly recommend his novel Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. He could not criticize the Communists, so he made it about the USA, but I think it works perfectly well as criticism of any large bureaucracy. The story is about a man who is just joining The Organization…
on “The Future According to Stanisław Lem” ↗…have been lost to me for like two and a half decades. I actively look for these books I remember little snatches of... I thought this one was a Stanislaw Lem book, and though I really, really enjoyed "Memoirs found in a bathtub" - but that wasn't this. The chant of "sanitized for your protection" during the ritual use of the toilet really sticks out in my childhood memory. I wonder if it will be as great, reading it as…
on “British Museum realises 'vase' is in fact an ancient mace-head upside down” ↗Many great books are already enumerated here. If I am not wrong, nobody mentioned Roadside picnic yet. Also liked Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by S. Lem.
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite sci-fi books?” ↗https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Found_in_a_Bathtub Related, great Stanislaw Lem novel about the "Great Decomposition" of paper.
on “Feral desert donkeys are digging wells, giving water to parched wildlife” ↗Sadly unmentioned is Lem's quite distopion post-apocoliptic work, "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub", a future defined by mega-McCarthyism and the pursuit of any fragment of 'truth' however slimly defined that may be. Worth a read.
on “Why Stanislaw Lem’s futurism deserves attention” ↗If you haven't read Memoirs Found in a Bathtub do yourself a favor and get it post haste.
on “Found: first amino acid on a comet” ↗try Memoirs Found in a Bathtub if you haven't already. It's like The Man Who was Thursday meets Dr. Strangelove.
on “The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit)” ↗…(The funny thing is that the disintegration of books was not too realistic; but the possibility that we store all information on computers, and then we lose it, is very real.) In any case, for me the "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" (or at least its original "Pamiętnik znaleziony w wannie" - I am the lucky one, who can read Lem in Polish) is the best book by Lem (but not the most typical, and certainly not the easiest).
on “Why Stanislaw Lem’s futurism deserves attention” ↗>not how a bureaucracy thinks. Come on. Conspiratorial bureaucracies operate that way. Trust no one, allow nothing that can be used to undermine... Read Memoirs Found in a Bathtub.
on “82nd Airborne unit told to use Signal or Wickr on government cell phones” ↗Another interesting read: Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. It’s a bit dark, but a fun jump down the post apocalyptic bureaucratic wormhole where everyone is spying on everyone and nothing is safe.
on “The Case for Stanislaw Lem” ↗"Memoirs Found in a Bathtub" punches above its weight for Lem. Solaris is good too. I find Lem interesting but only sporadically enjoyable. The Strugatskys have gone from being "Roadside Picnic" + a largely unobtainable back catalogue…
on “Chernobyl's 'stalker' subculture” ↗…Earth, and "Wizja Lokalna" (which doesn't have a translation, as I said.) All these novels are often quite funny, unlike Solaris. He has also has written other great but much more unusual books, such as Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (a Kafkaesque story set inside an underground Pentagon which was cut off from the rest of the world) or A Perfect Vacuum (a collection of reviews of books which do not exist.)
on “Solaris movie review and film summary (1976)” ↗…a lot of Lem's writing is not sci-fi at all, period. Hospital of Transfiguration is an absolutely mandatory read for any fan of Lem, even though it will leave you depressed for a week afterwards. And memoirs found in a bathtub is just a masterpiece of absurdity, it has a very good English audiobook actually if anyone wants to try.
on “Stanisław Lem's vision of artificial life” ↗…That whole misadventure became to me a core part in how I experienced the game even though it effectively nothing more than a side quest to nowhere. If you ever read his (in my opinion) greatest work, "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub," it felt in some way very much like that book, pushing forward with no sense of progress but a vague sense of something very wrong.
on “An indie studio created a game based on Stanislaw Lem's novel” ↗…thing I most admire in Lem's work of being about true aliens - that is, not just us again but in a Halloween costume like a Star Trek alien - but somehow Solaris doesn't "work" for me even though say, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub or Futurological Congress do.
on “Philip K. Dick: Stanisław Lem Is a Communist Committee (2015)” ↗