Solaris is the story of humans attempting to understand a being so alien as to have no common frame of reference. Scientists attempt to understand its nature, only to fall victim to their own inner flaws.
Lem does not give the reader the alien's point of view at any point in the novel. The alien is the ocean of Solaris. At various times, it creates wave formations; they do not initiate contact, nor do they refuse. The alien is also responsible for the creation of the visitors to the Solaris station. These visitors are solid recreations of people who engendered the strongest feelings within the scientists assigned to study the entity. None of these alien outgrowths or byproducts reveals initial motivation of any kind. Physically, they are the creations of the alien entity, but their content is generated by the humans with whom they interact. Alien characters are a staple of science fiction, but the readers know they are alien through use of language and movement that demonstrate their confusion when faced with humans and hint at their motivation. Do they ask too many questions about table manners and troop movements? Do they smile when they should frown, or tilt their heads too far to one side? Does touch repel or fascinate them? These cues are all missing from the story and I think it is deliberate.
The viewpoint character Kris Kelvin is a psychologist, the latest in a long line and wide variety of scientists to study the living ocean of the planet Solaris. He represents humanity's values, the need to understand, to label and quantify, to solve mysteries because the unanswered question is far too threatening. He reads and refers to research done by others in the century since discovering a planet that defies the laws of physics. Solaris was uninteresting until it defied human reasoning by acting contrary to previous human observations, challenging scientists to find answers that explained this contradiction. The unusual orbit was explained by the living ocean, but the living ocean could not be quantified. It behaved neither as a wise spiritual being nor as an idiot savant, defying category. It could not be studied outside of its native habitat, confounding the biologists, ecologists, and others representing the hard sciences. Frustrated in their attempts to study its body, scientists turned to its mind.
Kelvin is the only character with an alien visitor who explains their mutual history and why this person was important. The other characters, driven to alcoholism, madness, and suicide through exposure to their visitors, kept their secrets. Kelvin faces his demons, confronts the reasons why his former lover's appearance causes him so much pain. This confrontation seems to change the nature of his visitor from someone who is a lesser reflection of the lover he remembers to his ideal of the person she would be had she lived to face this situation. Her content is still a creation of his mind, as her solution to her problem is suicide, the same solution his lover chose when faced with the pain of his rejection. There is nothing alien in her reaction; it is still his psychodrama.
Lem shows us the alien through negative spaces in the text, by showing us what it is not. He leaves us with the mystery.
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