The struggle of science to study Solaris is actually the point of the book, something which was discarded by the movie adaptations. People who know the story solely through the movie adaptations know that Solaris is manifesting people; but that is arguably the least interesting aspect of the story.

If you like Lem's description of fictitious scholarly research, I strongly recommend Jorge Luis Borges' short stories ("The Library of Babel", "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and "Funes the Memorious" come to mind). The collection Labyrinths has some of the best ones.