**Universalizing Metaphors**

As a science fiction story, "Solaris Corrected" shows several significant features that belong to the traditional genre, including the 'estrangement' of the future perspective, a disturbing or frightening apocalyptic or dystopian development of society and living conditions, and technological innovations or changes. Among the technological changes we find not only robots and machines, as I have already mentioned, but also the rhetorical use of measures and numbers that signal science, precision—and change.

Var for to dagr sidan til sista seifacheck i sentrl 14.6. I lopet av 400 sporsmaal, 1123 picts og nearli 13,000 electric ljus-impuls dei scannat min breyn, all parts af min breyn, og spesi nucleus caudatus, ver redsl og sorg kommen fra og den hypothalmisk INAH 3 ver oren sex existen. KONCLUTION: AIG haf ein litl defect i venstr phantomic breynbark, ein noko for staerk production af eigne picts. (p. 41)

Although the terms here are actually genuine terms for parts of the brain, the numbers make little sense apart from rhetorically signaling scientific and factual accuracy. In "Solaris Corrected" such signals are more important than traditional lyrical elements such as literary tropes. Nevertheless, through the health check, we learn that the narrator has a deviation in the brain structure that results in an over-developed imagination. This corresponds to, and perhaps also explains why, the supervisor in an underwater industrial business writes poems. However, if we look specifically at the "own picts" he produces, we find that the text is only to a small extent a ffected by tropes. There are some local metaphors like "the bowels of the law" (p. 15), fingers referred to as sea grass and the robots as ants. A small section about a shoal of fish (pp. 31–32) is probably primarily meant to be read literally, but it has a metaphorical potential if related to the "collective brain" ("Kollective Breyn") (p. 10) mentioned elsewhere in the poem. In addition, we have already learned that some of the social classes have been described in terms that imply metaphorical meaning (shadows and drifters).

Except for these rather local metaphors, there are mainly two groups of metaphorical motifs in the poem. One is related to light and light reflection; the other focuses on gravity as a universal principle of existence. We meet the first of these metaphorical motifs in the depiction of satellite images of the globe at night. In such images, the geographical map appears quite vaguely, while the lights from the cities become clear. When seen from the satellite perspective, such night light from Kristiansand to Bergen resembles a sickle:

SOMTIIMS aig find og seer an min screen, seer an regio Norwg-West, picts takat fra ofven, seer all ljus om natt, spots eftr spots so tait og komplex, fra Krisand til Bergn. SPOTS af ljus i ein sigd, som om all saman hengr. EIN sigd klar til ou skera gennom all materie og all human life. (p. 11)

The image is expanded globally with China as an example ("Chin"), where the light sources that is, the cities, barely can be separated from each other. The sickles now become half-moons which are not as easy to imagine as the half-moon at the south western part of Norway:

... I Chin f. ex., der ne siddy kan skillast out, der infinit mengd af sigd i ljus er. OG liksom uppo kverodder, i ein gigant pattern, vanskl ou vita wat all sigdar tilsamman blir ... OR seer out som half moons, detta? SOM big mengd half moons

up ner, vid jord undr seg vid oren jord som ein dark, infinit univers undr seg? (p. 11)

Following this extension of the metaphor, the narrator reflects allegorically on the possibility of a universal or metaphysical superior source of light:

JA, er det detta wi er? EIN vorld af half moons? MEN wat er da oren sol? (p. 11)

The solar-moon relationship is repeated in the depiction of the drifters, the nomadic class in society, those without security system ("seifa system") around them (p. 14). They are clearly a part of society, and they are punished for quite minor o ffenses (p. 15). It may be the loneliness of the drifters the narrator wants to portray when he characterizes them as isolated suns without any moon to shine at:

DEI er openbara, hengr umkring som solar. SOLAR vidout moons ou skinna mot? (p. 14)

The final part of this metaphorical motif is related to the human body. The narrator has once had a bowel infection, and he had to take x-rays of his "botten-torso". He has later on repeatedly looked at his x-ray pictures, and discovered that his hipbones resemble sickles or half-months. This similarity makes him wonder about a possible unexpected and confusing universal unity. Some parts of the narrator are only partly his own, partly something else, "AS IF they live their own lives in me?" (SOM om dei lefr/siner heilt eigne lifs i meg (p. 16)). He cannot control that parts inside him which is something else:

OG ven dei sjuk blir, kan henda til det doyande, min breyn kan ne helpa dei. (p. 16)

However, he has no answer to the question of what this other one is. Yet the metaphorical motifs throughout the poem imply a connection between global structures and bodily characteristics at the individual level.

The second group of metaphorical motifs, the gravity metaphors, conveys a similar sense of universal unity.

Wat ne forsvinna kan, er gravitationen. GRAVITATIONEN existen ovfr all distans fra mill sol-agen away og strick back til uss. LITL so litl, veik so veik, men ne zero. GRAVITATIONEN er det minsta wi kan stola an. DEN er den onli total kommunicationen i univers. (p. 21)

The principle is not restricted to the spherical systems of the universe. It also applies on the social level. The people gravitate towards each other. In that way, gravity is also the basic principle of the individual's feelings of love and hatred.

DEN arbeiden ogso i uss. ALL haf wi gravitationkroppar, tick tock i oren celln og knokl. ALL wi arbeiden, all wi spiik: gravitationen. VEN wi love og hatr: gravitationen. (p. 21)

"Solaris Corrected", therefore, is not just about a future, dystopian society and the oil industry in the North Sea. Along the way, by means of lyrical structures, the poem also points to basic universal forces that form connections and universal unity. It appears as if there is a universalizing feature in the poem—without being dominant.

"Solaris Corrected" shows Øyvind Rimbereid's wide range as a poet. He is one of Norway's most original language artists today, something which is manifested in his constructing a whole new language and being able to use it consistently both grammatically and lyrically. The poem also shows Rimbereid's repertoire as a verse poet and a constructor of poetic metaphors. Simultaneously, "Solaris Corrected" demonstrates that Rimbereid is a highly engaged writer as well, deeply concerned with the challenges of contemporary society. Directing his focus towards historical events, he confronts his readers with fateful changes, changes with potentially irreversible consequences.

In the tradition of Scandinavian modernism, Rimbereid's poem can be said to hark back to the first "green poet" in Norwegian literature, Rolf Jacobsen. In the 1930's he was the first to introduce the world of industry and technology in Norwegian poetry—electrical turbines, airplanes and racing cars. In his later poems the challenges of modern times became an increasingly important topic in his writing. Even more obvious is Rimbereid's connection to the Swedish poet Harry Martinson and his famous work *Aniara. A Review of Man in Time and Space* (*Aniara. En revy om människan i tid och rum*) (1956). Martinson's work is a poem of science fiction, and might be regarded as a precursor to Rimbereid's "Solaris Corrected". However, it is obviously clear that the topic of an ecological crisis and dystopian perspectives have become increasingly relevant in modern poetry both in Scandinavia and Europe, as well as in literature worldwide.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
