Gregory, un joven teniente de Scotland Yard, recibe el encargo de investigar una serie de extraños sucesos que tienen intrigada a la policía. De diversos puntos de la zona metropolitana de Londres llegan informes sobre cadáveres aparentemente resucitados que empiezan a levantarse y caminar, a vestirse y recorrer largas distancias antes de desaparecer sin dejar rastro. Nadie encuentra una explicación racional para lo sucedido, y lo que comienza siendo una anécdota intrascendente acabará convirtiéndose en una auténtica plaga. ¿Se trata realmente de muertos que vuelven a la vida? ¿Estamos ante un caso de ladrones de cuerpos? Pronto se hará evidente que el principal misterio no radica únicamente en la investigación en sí, sino en los efectos que los sucesos tienen sobre el propio lector.

Indagini ai confini della realtà

Ambientato a Scotland Yard, tutto è fuorchè un poliziesco tradizionale. Non è la conclusione dell'indagine a fornire risposte, ma sono le domande che il tenente Gregory si pone nel mentre a squarciare il velo di tante possibili verità. Fantastico Lem e senza tempo, come "Solaris".

Novela policíaca. Parece que los cadáveres de muchos sitios se despiertan y se van, desaparecen. ¿Cómo es posible con la policía vigiliando los depósitos? La historia de un detective inglés, su jefe y unos cuantos personajes raros. Entretenido por lo que juega con el lector. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2015/05/review-of-investigation-by-stanislaw-le... ( )

"As long as there are human beings facts don't exist in a void" -- Armour Black, a fictitious writer in Lem's "The Investigation" who puts in a brief appearance to offer up such writerly tidbits of wisdom

I have always enjoyed Lem though it is probably 25 years since I last read one of his works, his "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub". Lem's books when available are shelved in the science fiction section for lack of a better place to put them but most are difficult to classify if not sui generis.

Reading Lem is like swimming in a soup of Borges, Kafka, Zoshchenko, Cortazar, Gogol, Fowles, the Strugatsky brothers (Definitely, Maybe), and even Dostoyevsky (Gregory, the main character in this novel, spends a great time wondering around in a fog much like Raskolnikov). You get the general idea if you have read even a few of these authors. Good company to be in but I do think one must have a taste for this kind of thing. In many ways this book is an investigation that will separate those who need a relatively straight line from incident to satisfying solution from those who are interested in the process of getting from 'A' to ...well, to where? To 'H'? To 'P'? To 'Y'?

This book begins with what appears to be a supernatural phenomenon and explores the terrain between the natural and supernatural. Lem is interested in how we tackle the spectacularly unfamiliar and how we embrace the categories available to hand and attempt to pigeonhole data using them. In all of this, Lem's own perspective is anything but absolutist but he is not unsympathetic to those of us who must deploy the categories at hand and do so simply to get on with living in a fashion that works for each of us.

Dr. Sciss, who views the data through a statistician's lens offers up this indictment of those around him stuck in the muck of common sense : "So-called common sense relies on programmed nonperception, concealment, or ridicule of everything that doesn't fit into the conventional nineteenth century vision of the world that can be explained down to the last detail."

Having retrieved a few more Lem paperback novels from my basement with their very colorful covers, I will keep them handy and pick them up when the mood for more Lem coincides with the need for a book that actually is an old-fashioned paperback size.

If you have not read Lem, you should. This might not be the best novel of his to start with but it is representative of his particular flavor. ( )