Question the first: "Apparently Lem's other works - Cyberiad at the very least - received more attention, and therefore did not flatly lump around in English, describing a great deal in monotone grey." What does that mean? I have read it four times now and am still completely baffled.

I have yet to read this (somehow I bypassed it in my exploration of Lem), but I have ordered it (after looking for it without any luck in Rome, Milan, London and Edinburgh -- why does no one stock this book? This lady at a shop in St. Pancras told me they had none stocked, but ten on order -- although that is not entirely true: I found one in Edinburgh but it had George Clooney on the cover) and hope to read it soon.

What you write makes reminds me of His Master's Voice, in the problem of communication and the structuralist attitude to symbols and language. The plots seem very different, of course, but that is another book with a frustrated scientist who cannot quite be a hero. I think you would like it.