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The Invention of Morel
Borges Stories - M.R. 2013
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Discussion - Week Eighteen - Borges - The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares
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Just finished this, really looking forward to what people have to say! I need more time to think about this one, but a Borges parallel that jumps out is the fact of the manuscript itself, with its questionable pedigree and unnamed editor.Who is said editor? A few of his notes had almost Kinbote-like digressions. Note [8] I found particularly confusing. The narrator repeats a paragraph from early in the manuscript about how he felt his manuscript was becoming a will (the paragraph that ends with him adopting Ostinato rigor as his motto). In the footnote, the editor says this statement does not appear at the beginning of the manuscript. Why the discrepancy? Is the editor working with an incomplete projection of the original? If so, what version are we reading that has the complete manuscript as well as the editor's notes?
It seems to me that the final note [10] about coexisting realities and sensations defining the world seems to sum up the central questions of the entire manuscript, which are also rather Borgesian.
One area in which it is decidedly lacks affinity to Borges is in having a romantic interest :-)
Of interest, the poetry that one of the characters on the island was reciting was Verlaine, "Dear soul, do you recall?". Here's a link: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/ame-te-...
I'm looking forward to participating in this discussion, but I'm currently awaiting the book's arrival... well, I'll peek in once in a while. Meanwhile, enjoy!
Whitney wrote: "Just finished this, really looking forward to what people have to say! I need more time to think about this one, but a Borges parallel that jumps out is the fact of the manuscript itself, with its..."Very insightful, Whitney.
Like yourself, I just did finish my initial read-through of The Invention of Morel. This is my first book by Adolfo Bioy Casares. I plan to give it a more careful read. Similar to the writing of Borges, there is a lot to get your mind around here.
Is the novella we are reading, in fact, the narrator’s diary along with the 10 editorial comments? Is there a possibility the narrator and editor are one and the same person in two different phases of experience – say, pre-transformation via Morel’s Invention and post-transformation? Any other possibilities?
And, yes, editorial note #10 is indeed Borgesian. Anybody who has studied epistemology knows just how tricky the whole question, ‘How do we know what we know about the world?’ can be. Borges was much influenced by the philosophers Berkeley (To be is to be perceived) and Schopenhauer.
And, yes, unlike the narrator’s romantic feelings for the young lady, there isn’t too much romance in Borges. However, there is that one short tale – Ulrikke – in The Book of Sand, where the narrator (Borges, perhaps) has an intense, romantic walk and evening with a beautiful woman.
Jim wrote: "This discussion covers the novella, The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy CasaresA convicted man rows his way to self-imposed exile on a diseased, deserted island. Interrupted by u..."
Judging from this one novella of Adolfo Bioy Casares, he does indeed share a lot with his mentor and friend, Jorge Luis Borges.
• The Invention of Morel is only 100 pages, not too much longer than Borges’s longer tales. ABC also wrote shorter tales.
• Similar to stories like The Circular Ruin and The Aleph, and many, if not most of Borges's other tales, this novella deals with more than one level of ‘reality’.
• The language and writing is beautiful (this comes through in English translation). This novella is more like Borges writing in Doctor Brodie’s Report and The Book of Sand, where Borges for the most part let go of his more ornate, baroque style.
Whitney wrote: "Of interest, the poetry that one of the characters on the island was reciting was Verlaine, "Dear soul, do you recall?". Here's a link: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/ame-te-......"Thanks, Whitney. I especially enjoy the first part of this poem ---Dear soul, do you recall, there in Paradise
Auteuil station* and trains of long ago
Which brought you here daily from la Chapelle?
From my own experience, paradise is a state to be found in this human form, not all the time, but some time.
Ok,I'm late to the discussion since Glenn seems to have covered pretty much everything!Still my two cents:
Borgesian influences:
The Circular Ruins- the strange,unnamed island*, the eerie descriptiveness of the narrator's arrival in the island,humanbeings as projections of someone else's thoughts/dreams, the idea of eternal return,immortality.
Tlön,Uqbar,Orbis Tertius: mirrors,objects replicating themselves,manifestation of thoughts as objects,the products of Tlön overwhelming the real world as Malthus' Law is invoked in terms of the safety of the island.
But the catch is both these stories were published in Sur in 1940, the same year that Invention of Morel was published! So who is influencing whom?
Bioy,as we know,was a frequent collaborator of Borges so they must've influenced each-other's thoughts.
In his Preface,Borges highly praised TIoM for its "reasoned imagination"- now that's a curious choice of words cause we tend to think of imagination as essentially being free & wild as associated with the Romantic Movement but Borges' training was in the classics & that same economy of expression,precision are noted in Bioy's narrative style. Borges also called it a masterpiece of plotting but the second half when the explanation started tended to be not so impressive. I think Borges would've concluded it differently- make it perhaps more dense & mysterious so we keep coming back to it again & again with different probable theories.
Also the psychological profile of the narrator & the romantic angle- you wouldn't find that in Borges.
In her intro Suzanne Jill Levine has raised many interesting points,which,coupled with Borges' Preface provided sure footing into this phantasmagoric world. Having already watched Last Year at Marienbad,I could easily slip into the mood of this book which brings me to TIoM's influence on popular culture- Groundhog Day,The Prestige,Lost,& god knows how many more movies & tele serials may have been inspired by it!
*"H. G. Wells's scientific romance The Island of Dr. Moreau, in which a mad scientist turns beasts into men, becomes a kind of leitmotif throughout Bioy's novels, from Morel (the name an obvious allusion) and A Plan for Escape (1945) to Asleep in the Sun (1973)."
Mod
The editor's comments I read as being by Bioy (same as in The House of Leaves). Anyone else imagine them differently?
Anyone have any thoughts about Morel's discussions of television? The supposed year that the people were on the island is 1924, and of course, the book was published in 1940, so how common was knowledge of television? I suppose since this is speculative fiction that it makes sense, but my own consciousness of tv places it in the late 1940's for being common knowledge. Anyway, a minor point, I suppose...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_...
Jim wrote: "Great comments, all!The editor's comments I read as being by Bioy (same as in The House of Leaves). Anyone else imagine them differently?
Anyone have any thoughts about Morel's discussions of te..."
Thanks, Jim. Thinking in terms of television and other media prompts an entire range of reflections on this novel.
The 1920s are the heyday of silent films. The first commercially successful sound film, The Jazz Singer, was released in 1929. Black and White 1940s TV was as raw as raw can be – just look at those 1949 TV shows on You Tube. In 1940 (the year The Invention of Morel was published) ideas about what would become TV where ‘in the air’; what really had a grip on people’s imagination in the 1920s and 1930s was film, first silent film then sound film.
So, one can imagine a sensitive, imaginative literary artist like Adolfo Bioy Casares (born 1914) experiencing silent film in the 1920s as a boy and then sound films as a teenager and young man. One thing that makes The Invention of Morel so compelling is just how much of what the narrator and others in the novel experience is parallel to the reader’s experience of a world saturated with films and TV and now, the virtual reality of the computer age.
Here are several quotes from the novel with my somewhat random reflections:
“They are at the top of the hill, while I am far below. From here they look like a race of giants . . .” (page 12) ---- Darn, if this wasn’t my exact experience when I went to my first movie. I was so overwhelmed by the race of giants ‘up there’ on the screen, I fled from the theater minutes after the movie started.
“I saw the same room duplicated eight times in eight directions as if it were reflected in mirror.” (page 18) --- Darn again. I recall my almost disbelief when I saw the same image repeated a dozen times when I first saw all those TVs turned to the same station in a department store. There was something freaky about the exact movement and image repeated on all those sets.
“I went back to see her the next afternoon, and the next. She was there, and her presence began to take on the quality of a miracle.” (page 25) How many teenagers, young men and women and even older adults have fallen in love with a movie star and go back to the movies to see their loved one the next night and the next?
“ . . . words and movements of Faustine and the bearded man coincided with those of a week ago. The atrocious eternal return.” (page 41) In a way, isn’t that the world of movies – the same exact people doing exactly the same thing night after night up there on the screen. Live performances and live theater doesn't even come close to the movie’s eternal return.
“ . . . horrified by Faustine, who was so close to me, actually might be on another planet.” (page 53) How many men and women who have fallen in love with a star in a film or on a TV show where they are so close they can press their hands against the star’s face (the TV screen) come to realize their emotions and feelings are for a being a universe away, far beyond their actual touch.
““Tea for Two” and “Valencia” persisted until after dawn.” (page 62) Most appropriate! Films and TV thrive on easy-to-remember songs and jingles.
“I began to search for waves and vibrations that had previously been unattainable, to devise instruments to receive and transmit them.” (page 69). It is as if the author were touching into the collective unconscious desire in 1940 to expand film in different ways, one way being what would become TV.
“ I was certain that my images of persons would lack consciousness of themselves (like the characters in a motion picture).” (page 70) This is part of a 3+ page reflection by Morel. There is a lot here. One reflection: how many people have sacrificed their flesh-and-blood existential reality to make it as a star up there on the silver screen? What happens to the soul of the people in a city (LA, for example) when the city is taken over by an entire industry dedicated to producing films and shows populated by stars?
I recall a quote from the main character in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when he goes into a roadside diner and can’t get the waitress’s attention because she is watching TV. He says, “I don’t exist since I’m not on TV.”
Glenn wrote: "Thinking in terms of television and other media prompts an entire range of reflections on this novel..."I love all these thoughts of how the narrator's experience relate to the experience of film, especially the parallel of actors in Hollywood essentially surrendering theirs souls to the movies!
As you point out, Casares would have been in his impressionable late teenage years when the silent movies were being replaced by the great cinema of the 30's. I wouldn't be surprised if seeing this change would lead to thoughts of how many more levels of reality could be added to the world of film. It also makes me wonder if perhaps the narrator of the book wasn't overly taken with the world of film.
There's a discussion somewhere out there (I couldn't find it again) about whether the title refers to Morel's invention, or the narrator's invention of Morel. The story of the fugitive, with its intrigue and romanticism, is rather like an adventure movie. Is there an implication that the entire island and its 'inhabitants' were invented whole cloth by the narrator? If so, where does the fantasy start and what part of the narrative is real, if any?
I'm sorry I'm late!
I really really enjoy the book. I was partial to the metaphysical aspect and secondary - immortality. Great selection.
I really really enjoy the book. I was partial to the metaphysical aspect and secondary - immortality. Great selection.
I just started reading TIoM so I'm a little behind but I love the ominous atmosphere of the island. It reminds me of Doctor Moreau's Noble Isle, with all of its strangeness and isolation. The reference to Malthus and the possibility of a will indicate that danger, even death, surrounds our fugitive. The relationship between the narrator and editor is confusing and intriguing - immediately after our fugitive commits himself to the Truth, the editor points out that there's no way the narrator's island is part of the Ellice Islands. So where is the narrator? Is it a physical location? Or are we in the realm of fantasy? He admits to losing his way en route to the island and yet, bafflingly, he finds the island. He seems fated to have arrived, despite himself, to his "journey's end" a mysterious island populated by ghosts who always dance to the same haunting melodies... as if on a big theater screen, they are forever frozen in time.
And Glenn - we (the audience) love and idolize our stars and you're right - they are (always) a world away from us. But perhaps not just. They are also separated from us by Time - they are the timeless, the eternal, we (again, the audience) are the ones who must grow and die. I have a HUGE crush on Louise Brooks (especially in that tragic attire from Beggars of Life). * swoon *
Tia wrote: "I just started reading TIoM so I'm a little behind but I love the ominous atmosphere of the island. It reminds me of Doctor Moreau's Noble Isle, with all of its strangeness and isolation. The refer..."Thanks, Tia. Yes, who reading this has not had a crush on a star? Certainly not me!
As we know, Tibetan Buddhists and Hindus have a rich tradition of visualizing female and male deities with their eternal energies of enlightenment and compassion – Tara, Durga, Shiva, Vajrapani, et al, but what happens in cultures such as ours without such deities to visualize? Perhaps our stars take their place.
Whitney, Mala and Jim point to how this novel lends itself to multiple structures. We can ask such questions as: Who is writing the editor’s footnotes, the narrator or the author? Is ‘The invention of The Invention of Morel the author’s invention (after all, ABC wrote the novel spun from his own imagination) or is the Invention Morel’s machine within the novel? Such multiple takes certainly was the aesthetic of Borges. And ABC shared his mentor’s aesthetic sensibility --- after all, these two authors collaborated on 12 books. On the subject of multiple takes and overlaps, here are a couple of examples. Anybody want to add to this list?
• I’ve always been fascinated with the play between writer and reader. For instance, when we read this novel, in some way the invention of Morel is our invention since we create our own vision of the machine. Also, on some level, we invent the novel as we read it; in this way there are as many novels as there are readers reading. And each time we re-read the novel changes for us. Again, all very much in the spirit of Borges and ABC.
• The overlapping of realities: the narrator writes his diary and the author writes a novel about a narrator writing his diary. Is this a perfect overlap or is there a place or a time when we can see two suns in the sky?
Glenn wrote:"I’ve always been fascinated with the play between writer and reader."A text has a three way dimension- the writer,the text,and the reader- elsewhere on a Borges story thread there was a heated exchange on whether a book loses its intrinsic value if there is no one to read it or not- Derrida wrote there is nothing outside the text- of course,philosophy being your area,Glenn you can better expound on that!
Borges' fiction,from all the 103-105 stories that I read in his Collected Fictions,always shows the possibilty of A Garden of Forking Paths- of endless interpretations & delight,hence the narrator-editor's conflicting opinions in TIoM,provide that added layer of doubt & richness so the book doesn't end up as a one-trick pony.
The overlapping of realities- is again the metafictional element that's so common to Borges & the same influence shows here in Bioy.
Here's Proust on reading & writing from Albertine disparue or The Sweet Cheat Gone:
On seeing his first published article in the Figaro, Marcel,the writer shows the overlapping impressions of a writer reading his published work ( and he finds only flaws in it!),& Marcel reading that as a reader:
"The truth of the matter is that the value of an article(...)the main part of their beauty dwells in the minds of the readers.
And it is the original sin of this style of literature, of which the famous Lundis are not guiltless, that their merit resides in the impression that they make on their readers. It is a synthetic Venus, of which we have but one truncated limb if we confine ourselves to the thought of the author, for it is realised in its completeness only in the minds of his readers. In them it finds its fulfilment. And as a crowd, even a select crowd, is not an artist, this final seal of approval which it sets upon the article must always retain a certain element of vulgarity.”
“I imagined some female reader into whose room I would have been so glad to penetrate and to whom the newspaper would convey if not my thought, which she would be incapable of understanding, at least my name, like a tribute to myself."
But in “writing remote from them, and that if I began to write in the hope of seeing them indirectly, so that they might have a better idea of myself, so as to prepare for myself a better position in society, perhaps the act of writing would destroy in me any wish to see them, and that the position which literature would perhaps give me in society. I should no longer feel any wish to enjoy, for my pleasure would be no longer in society, but in literature. if I chose to imagine their attention as the object of my pleasure, that pleasure was an internal, spiritual, ultimate pleasure which they themselves could not give me, and which I might find not in conversing with them”.
And on misreading a text:
“We guess as we read, we create; everything starts from an initial mistake; the mistakes that follow (and not only in the reading of letters and telegrams, not only in reading as a whole), extraordinary as they may appear to a person who has not begun at the same starting-point, are all quite natural. A large part of what we believe to be true (and this applies even to our final conclusions) with a persistence equalled only by our sincerity, springs from an original misconception of our premisses.”
I don't know if they relate well to this discussion but hey,it's always great to quote Proust!
Ps. Fantastic contributions,Glenn- Brain Pain needs/deserves more such Glenns!
Glenn wrote:"As we know, Tibetan Buddhists and Hindus have a rich tradition of visualizing female and male deities with their eternal energies of enlightenment and compassion – Tara, Durga, Shiva, Vajrapani, et al, but what happens in cultures such as ours without such deities to visualize? Perhaps our stars take their place."Well,speaking as a Hindu,I'd say that western culture has an advantage over us there cause unlike yourselves,we can't project our erotic fantasies on our Gods-Goddesses- heaven forbid,that would be blasphemous,sinful :O
@ Tia: That Louise Brooks cover is telling- visual media is central to the reading of this book as Glenn has so ably demonstrated.
I read Morel over the weekend.On the surface, it is a thought-experiment which applies the notion of a camera stealing the soul (mentioned in the text) to what are, for lack of a better term, hyper-holograms. By extension, this would apply to film (video) as well. An idle thought: perhaps the more faithful the recording, the faster the deterioration of the subject whose soul has been stolen (photographs leaving no mark, film causing moral corruption, hyper-holograms causing physical decay). One wonders if the story, being inspired by the author's infatuation with a film star, provides a commentary on the soul-crushing nature of fame and celebrity.
The tale, however, is told by an unreliable narrator (and whipped into shape by an unidentified editor). This is a man who thought it would be a good idea to flee to a plague-ridden island (instead of a foreign country), who panics when people do not respond to his greetings (instead of making eye contact, throwing a rock, whatever), and who falls so completely in love with a woman he has never even talked to that he is willing to give up his life just so that his image will appear next to hers for eternity.
Some of these are of course period trappings (the love-at-first-sight thing), and perhaps a few are the author trying not to tip his hand (e.g. no real interaction with the simulacra before they are revealed as such), but let's face it: this guy is not playing with a full deck.
That is all well and good; an unreliable narrator is generally an enjoyable device (Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, etc).
In Morel, however, I feel it was a wasted opportunity. The unidentified editor serves only to validate the main narrative, not to elucidate or contradict it (perhaps by introducing new evidence, such as an Improv Everywhere stunt on the island, or a clinical history of the narrator's hallucination and paranoia). The book suffers, I think, in treating the narrator as reliable, when the narrator's own words and actions demonstrate this is not the case.
The demonstration of a choice between physical and spiritual immortality (and, perhaps, none), and the portrait of the type of individual who would choose the former over the latter (Morel and the narrator), is perhaps the most interesting and unique theme in the book. The reader shudders to think which of one's friends and family might choose the former over the latter, as implemented by the scientist Morel.
In relation to Borges (in a last-ditch effort to address the initial question of this discussion), I suppose this makes a similar use of misdirection and of metafiction (fictional editors and such). For me, the resemblance ends there. I generally find Borges' stories to be fables (often dreamlike and mystical) or anecdotes (that is, the second-hand descriptions of stories are provided, rather than the stories themselves). Morel, in comparison, was a straightforward first-person narrative with a couple of tricks (initial misdirection of the reader, addition of an editor) thrown in to spice things up.
A final thought: I recently read The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman, which had a few (admittedly surface) similarities. The question of whether the fantasies in Hoffman were illusions, actual manifestations, or products of the narrator's mind is never fully resolved, which made for a weaker finish but a more satisfying read.
Faustine is an unusual name. The feminine equivalent of Faust - but in The Invention of Morel she does not seem to have made a pact. Also a name given to Roman empresses - Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant. Now that's more like it. Those who are about to die salute you. It also happens to be the preface to Swinburne's poem "Faustine" in which the empress achieves a kind of degraded, eternally reincarnated immortality:As if your fed sarcophagus
Spared flesh and skin,
You come back face to face with us,
The same Faustine.
Could be an inspiration - if Casares ever read Swinburne...
Mkfs wrote: "The demonstration of a choice between physical and spiritual immortality (and, perhaps, none), and the portrait of the type of individual who would choose the former over the latter (Morel and the narrator), is perhaps the most interesting and unique theme in the book.I agree & that metaphysical element ( even in the outlook towards love in this book) brings it closer to Borges' territory cause even though the characters here have chosen to be a simulacrum than the real thing,they've lost the soul in the process.
Great post,Mkfs! You've elucidated the text so well!
Peter wrote: "Faustine is an unusual name. The feminine equivalent of Faust - but in The Invention of Morel she does not seem to have made a pact. Also a name given to Roman empresses - Ave Faustina..."I was struck by that name as well & thought of the Faustian bargain but unlike yourself,I didn't follow that train of thought.
Don't know about Casares,but Borges did read Swinburne so the influence might've come secondhand to Bioy.
Here's a link:
"amongst the English poets, Shelley, Keats and Swinburne, whose work Jorge could recite by heart."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/w/...
Mod
I have to strongly disagree with this point. As is, the story is ambiguous as to exactly what is or is not going on on the island. Pinning it down by having the editor introduce correcting facts, or whatever, would take away from the mystery and ambiguity.
Ashley wrote: "Jim wrote: "Mkfs wrote: "In Morel, however, I feel it was a wasted opportunity. The unidentified editor serves only to validate the main narrative, not to elucidate or contradict it (perhaps by int..."Nice observations, Ashley.
A charming quality of this novel is the narrator’s relating his fantastical happenings:
“He fed me for several days while I hid in one of his Persian rugs.” (page 13). How do you hid in a Persian rug for several days? If someone rolled me up in a Persian rug I’d wouldn’t last an hour.
“ . . . he gave me instructions and a stolen boat. I rowed frantically, and arrived, incredibly, at my destination (for I did not understand the compass; I had lost my bearings: I had not hat and I was ill, haunted by hallucinations.)” (page 18). I can just imagine this young man and his instructor on the beach, where the instructor points out the direction of the island with his finger and tells him the island is in that direction. The young man hops in his row boat and starts rowing. Then, losing his bearings and unable to read a compass (not to mention he has no hat and is ill), he arrives at his island. --- How many Brain Pain readers would hop in a row boat sans compass, start rowing, confidently following the finger?
“I had nothing to hope for. That was not so horrible – and the acceptance of that fact brought me peace of mind. But now the woman had changed all that.” (page 20). I recall a quote from Nietzsche – “Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.”
Jim wrote: As is, the story is ambiguous as to exactly what is or is not going on on the island. Pinning it down by having the editor introduce correcting facts, or whatever, would take away from the mystery and ambiguity.I didn't find the events on the island to be at all mysterious or ambiguous. The nature of the events was pretty clear early on (except to the narrator), and the explanation provided by Morel (and related by the narrator) is fantastic but satisfactory. The editor does nothing to undermine or discredit the events or the explanation.
Compare this to a narrative in which it is never made clear which events truly transpired and which were imagination (The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman), or in which the events in a "found text" (such as the case here) are researched by a fictional editor (House of Leaves), or even where the editor has a clear agenda that hijacks the text (Pale Fire).
In The Invention of Morel, the reader is given no reason to doubt the narrator, aside from his rather unhinged personality. Sure, the events on the island may never have happened, there may never have been an island -- but so what? Then the fantastic tale turns out to be just a fantastic tale, which we as readers knew all along because we are reading fiction.
Without a counter-narrative to the unreliable narrator (whether in subtext, or provided by an editor), there is not much point in having an unreliable narrator in a fantasy tale such as this.
Ashley wrote: "Mkfs wrote: "Jim wrote: As is, the story is ambiguous as to exactly what is or is not going on on the island. Pinning it down by having the editor introduce correcting facts, or whatever, would tak..."I occupy something of a middle ground in this debate. I see where Mkfs is coming from. I'm guessing that, like me, he's engaged in a considerable amount of eye-rolling over some people's tendency to declare everyone to be an unreliable narrator despite the fact that there is no indication and no point to that being the case, e.g. "What if Scout just made up 'To KIll a Mockingbird' and none of those things really happened????" I also agree that without an implied counter-narrative, it's just, well, stupid. "It was all a dream!" SFW?
But, that doesn't mean there's no point in asking the question. And if there is a counter-narrative, asking the question is the first step to finding it. In the Case of Morel, the things that might lead one to doubt the narrator have been brought up by others. I said before I thought his story is essentially a (somewhat ridiculous) adventure film: exile and daring escape from his country, days hiding in a carpet, lost and adrift at sea then finding the island against all odds. And if we aren't meant to question the narrator's veracity, why the unnamed mysterious editor?
Whitney wrote: "And if we aren't meant to question the narrator's veracity, why the unnamed mysterious editor?"That is exactly what I was getting at, only put much more succinctly.
I enjoyed The Invention Of Morel, but I thought the device of an unreliable narrator was unwarranted (the story is fantastic, any fantastic story is suspect, so an unreliable narrator just makes a fantastic story even more suspect).
Even so, the unreliable narrator would have been unremarkable -- except there is an editor. And the editor (aside from some geographic notes about the island which may or may not be accurate, because hell, if the narrator is unreliable, why should the editor be), does not really change or contradict the narrator.
Hence my opinion that the combination of the unreliable narrator and the editor is a wasted opportunity for the author.
Of course, what Ashely said holds true: the fact that we are discussing this at all means that the author has, at the very least, drawn attention to the technique.
I wanted to share one of my favorite paragraphs in the book since it bespeaks of the narrator’s aesthetic sensibilities and dreaminess and the images are so vivid:“And yet the finished garden is quite beautiful. But I was not able to create it exactly as I planned. In imagination it is no more difficult to make a woman standing than to make one seated with her hands clasped on one knee, but in reality it is almost impossible to create the latter out of flowers. The woman is shown from the front view, with her head in profile, looking at the sunset. A scarf made of violet-colored flowers covers her head. Her skin is not right. I could not find any flowers of that somber color that repels and attracts me at the same time. Her dress and the ocean are made of blue and of white flowers. The sun is composed of some strange sunflowers that grow on this island. I am shown in profile view, kneeling. I am small (a third of the size of the woman) and green, made of leaves.” (page 32)
I just did finish ‘The Adventures of a Photographer in La Plata, a book by ABC published about 20 years after this one. A few observations:
• The story is told in objective 3rd person with the narrator dipping into the main character/photographer’s thoughts occasionally.
• The book is only slightly longer than TIoM with 63 chapters, each chapter 2-3 pages and set off with a bold roman numeral
• The story is ‘realistic’ and each chapter is like a snap from a camera; matter of face, the action and dialogue, lots and lots of dialogue, clicks off quickly
• There isn’t any dreaminess or any lyricism as there is in the above paragraph or in TIoM in general
Does anybody else have a favorite passage from the book? Has anybody else read another of ABC’s books and would like to make a quick comparison?
Mala wrote: "In his Preface,Borges highly praised TIoM for its "reasoned imagination"- now that's a curious choice of words ... Borges also called it a masterpiece of plotting but the second half when the explanation started tended to be not so impressive. I think Borges would've concluded it differently- make it perhaps more dense & mysterious so we keep coming back to it again & again with different probable theories."I assume that in the prologue Borges is flying the colours for non-realist fiction in general and was happy to nail them to the mast of The Invention of Morel as something of a challenge to the realists. I have not read anything else by Casares, but his earliest works are said to be surrealistic and "chaotic" - so "reasoned imagination" suggests a more disciplined approach to the non-real. But calling TIoM "a masterpiece of plotting" is surely hyperbole. The denouement, as you say, is extremely clunky - and typical of a science fiction B movie. Someone, ideally the mad scientist himself, has got to give An Explanation of the non-real events - and Morel not only does this, but gathers together his audience - in the best Hercule Poirot style - in order to make a big speech of it. He even records the whole thing for posterity - nonsensically within the framework of the novel ("Morel would be furious, I am sure, if I spread the news of his invention" says the Fugitive) but usefully for the reader. Borges, I agree, would've concluded it differently.
One odd thing. Why did Morel build a chapel on the island? Not Christian I presume, though the Fugitive's brief visit to the building mentions an altar. There are no priests on the island. No other visitors except Morel and his guests. Was it a chapel to Faustine?
I finally received my copy of the book and read it over the weekend. I decided to jot down a ten minute hasty "review" based on initial impressions, after reading the last couple of pages on the subway this morning. I aimed to get my impression down first while it is uncontaminated by others' ideas outside the text, so I haven't had a chance to read this thread yet, and I skipped the introduction within the book itself.First Comments: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I look forward to catching up on whatever inspired 32 comments so far in this group... too busy! See y'all in the Korean afternoon, maybe.
Okay, haphazard response.First, comparison to Borges:
-Similarities: mirrors play a role in the "recording"
-There's a theme of immortality.
-There is an eternal cycle of sorts.
-There is a man from nowhere protagonist (a la circular ruins)
Random Reflections:
-I liked that the trees that are too hard to cut are not explicitly explained, but we can deduce the reason which is rather obvious after all.
-I wondered, while reading, whether I'd like to know more about the actual characters who came to the island and had their little paradise recorded. I still wonder. Could this have been developed into a deeper and more interesting story if the framing concept gave us the opportunity to explore them, not as a phenomenon, but as people, as a mystery, as something nuanced that takes on different aspects each time they are viewed again with new understanding of context, etcetera?
As for the fundamental premise:
-I do appreciate the comparison to the fascination with movies, which I hadn't quite thought of before, but Glenn laid it out with some detail in this thread.
-The idea that a scientist believed recording people would somehow make the recording intelligent and eternal is rather ridiculous. When we stop thinking of it as science, and it becomes some kind of magic or too-scientifically-advanced-to-understand mystery, then we can semi-accept it and move on. Basically, one way or another, we have to get over that hump and accept that somehow Morel has invented a way to loop a life.
But carrying on this thought, it made me consider how some scientists in our world are guilty of extreme scientific stupidity. Compare the notion, which some have taken away from the concept of a "Turing Test", that a machine which simulates intelligence effectively must actually BE intelligent. (I understand that this was NOT Alan Turing's original assertion, but I think there have been many to uphold it). This is today's science equivalent to the goofiness of the religious assertion of Anselm, which when you boil it down is "God has to exist because it would be really great if he did." The Turing Test of artificial intelligence boils down to "you can't fool me, because if you fool me your illusion is the truth" or just "something is what it seems to be." By this logic, if only people were as stupid as crows, then scarecrows would be real-life intelligent beings (superior to the newly artificially-stupid humans). By this logic, also, stone idols would *actually* be Gods.
Anyway, scientists, magical thinking, food for thought.
-Louise Brooks! Oh, damn, I for some reason assumed the cover art was a picture of Kiki, but now I realize my error (guess I could have read the caption on the back).
-Regarding the footnotes: I didn't think much of them, but certainly did not ever consider the idea that they could have been by the fugitive himself. That doesn't make sense to me. I thought the footnotes were interestingish, that they were added at some time after the recovery of the diary, and that the diary is the only thing that reached the world... the evidence on the island has not been uncovered, as the author of the footnotes can't even confirm where the island could be. But, to tell the truth, the footnotes could be entirely omitted, and it would have almost no impact on my enjoyment of the novel. It was more of a trivial element of the novel than, say, the specific color of the motor room (blue).
Ashley wrote: "Or Casares is pre-empting ridicule and protecting himself by getting there first..."
I definitely thought this at times, and I appreciate it as a valid approach. The fugitive himself casts the greatest doubt on Morel's rather absurd conclusion that he was making their souls immortal, preempting our own doubt... but then, when the flesh of his hand is corrupted, and plants die, we are tempted over to the side that there is something more than a simulation... that by whatever brilliancy or idiocy, the mad scientist has blundered into a supernatural phenomenon.
Also, by the time the protagonist is too enamored of Faustine, and too sure of his own imminent death to consider any other options, we can accept that he will "record" himself in the way that he does... even if he isn't sure of actually preserving his own spirit, just a mere record is better that total oblivion, (hence the diary, which is no less "immortal" than filmed image, and which is the oldest way in which dead humans communicated with the living... well, The Novella "The Invention of Morel" does that too).
-But wait! Interesting that the protagonist undermines himself too. His recording will perpetuate the lie that he and Faustine coexisted and loved one another mutually, but his diary exposes his own lie. He should despise his own diary as much as he supposes Morel would despise having his invention publicized.
-Another reflection: I thought it rather funny, and probably the best way to handle it, how blithely and idiotically the fugitive went about recording his own hand, when to us as readers... well to me anyway, that would appear to be the stupidest blunder before he acted on it... so the author had to just throw it in there, without allowing any kind of period of premeditation.
Zadignose wrote: "Compare the notion, which some have taken away from the concept of a "Turing Test", that a machine which simulates intelligence effectively must actually BE intelligent. (I understand that this was NOT Alan Turing's original assertion, but I think there have been many to uphold it). This is today's science equivalent to the goofiness..."Okay, off topic, I know. But - when you say 'some have taken away' you are not talking about any scientists I know of. You may be talking about pop science writers et. al. who have abused the concept the same way quantum physics has been abused. In short it's not "scientist, magical thinking". It's "pseudo-scientist, magical thinking". Unless you can find an example of what you're asserting in a peer reviewed scientific journal published in the last 20 years. In which case I'll eat my laptop.
I'm willing to let the attribution fall upon pop-culture pseudo-scientists then. But later I'll do some browsing to find whom to point fingers at.
HI Having just finished this book. Some thoughts came to mind as i read it.
- In the beginning it had a sort of post-apocalyptic feel. Sole person on a desert island that has been wiped out by flesh eating disease.
- His boat trip reminded me of Gulliver's Travels for some reason.
- The fugitive does have a sort of detective like quality to him. He's looking to find pieces of a puzzle. In that the puzzle is the Morel's invention. He follows the ghost\projects around the island taking notes and hoping to find out some clue to the origin of the "invention"
- The fugitive displays the characteristics of the Failed detective trope. A majorly flawed detective that failed to find out the cause of the crime or becomes involved in it.
- Some cultures did/do believe in picture stealing or capturing the souls. Maybe this is a play on that belief.
- Failed detective, Sci-fi elements and the meta-fictional appendix lends to thoughts of a post-modern novel
Glenn wrote: "The overlapping of realities: the narrator writes his diary and the author writes a novel about a narrator writing his diary..." Mekki mentioned: "...thoughts of a post-modern novel."The Discovered Manuscript is, of course, a venerable device for introducing and (sometimes) structuring an odd, exotic, or fantastic tale. The author or "editor" often writes a preface to the Discovered Manuscript, detailing how it came into his or her possession, and may sometimes add footnotes for pseudo-authenticity. If post-modernists use this framework they do so knowingly and ironically - thus The Name of the Rose (which is also a Discovered Manuscript) starts with the words "Naturally, a manuscript".
Published in 1940, The Invention of Morel is really too early for any knowing post-modernist japes. I'd agree with Zadignose that the Discovered Manuscript structure and footnotes are not particularly noteworthy. They seem to me to be part of Casares' hommage to The Island of Dr. Moreau, which is yet another Discovered Manuscript, complete with a straight-faced introduction and at least one footnote (concerning the whereabouts of the island).
Mekki also mentioned: "...Sci-fi elements"
Nothing to do with Casares, but there is an egregiously daft comment in Suzanne Levine's introduction to the NYRB edition - in fact a doubly daft comment: "Bioy's 'invention', like all good science fiction, was prophetic, and intuitively predicted future scientific realities." Since when has all good science fiction been "prophetic"? Or even bad sf, for that matter. And what possible "scientific realities" does she think are prophesied in TIoM?
Peter wrote: ""Bioy's 'invention', like all good science fiction, was prophetic, and intuitively predicted future scientific realities." Since when has all good science fiction been "prophetic"? Or even bad sf, for that matter. And what possible "scientific realities" does she think are prophesied in TIoM?"Good point. I frowned skeptically and then read on.
A passage in a book I am reading (Sebald's Rings of Saturn) reminded me that there is more to Borges' "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" than just the discussion of mirrors.In Part 1 (PDF), there is the following:
Bioy Casares had had dinner with me that evening and we became lengthily engaged in a vast polemic concerning the composition of a novel in the first person, whose narrator would omit or disfigure the facts and indulge in various contradictions which would permit a few readers - very few readers - to perceive an atrocious or banal reality.
This precedes the "we discovered that mirrors have something monstrous about them" bit, and appears to be part of a larger discussion about the as-yet unwritten Invention of Morel.
Mod
In Part 1 (PDF), there is th..."
Tlön and TIoM were both published in 1940, FWIW...
Mod
Jim wrote: I never figured out why the machine room had to be blue. Any thoughts on that?
Zadignose wrote: In some ways I tend to be a superficial reader. In any case, I just took this as an instance of specificity. The author gave a few specific notable details about various places to make them vivid, memorable, concrete. But I also thought the selection was arbitrary.
When the question arises about the sky--why is the sky blue?--I feel the most suitable answer is "because if it were yellow, you'd ask why is the sky yellow?"
Jim wrote: I suppose that's as good an answer as any. Still, he seems to linger a bit on the description. Either way, it created a lovely image in my mind.
And then for the win, Ashley wrote:
Ah the blue room. If I may....
1. The Museum is really a hotel with a glass floor which has water underneath.
2. 'Projections' of people inhabit the rooms of the hotel. It is both an exhibit, frozen, and a habitable place, alive.
3. There's a pool outside.
4. The protagonist came to the island through water.
5. In the basement is a blue room, with a glass ceiling. This is where all the 'projections' are created.
In short, I cannot think of a better way to evoke layers of consciousness using the imagery of water - specifically a pool.
In the deepest layer, or level, we have the machine. It is in a blue-tiled room with a skylight, to let you know this is a level of consciousness. It is in the basement to let you know it's the deepest. It's the generative level of awareness (or 'reality', or 'meaning' if you like).
Above that is the area of consciousness, where memory resides. These are the projections, the holograms. The rooms are the areas they inhabit in the mind. The glass floor reminds us of the subconscious. Or a gulf between the deep, instinctive level of awareness and the conscious, memory level.
Our man is trapped in memories, in the museum-hotel of the mind, where he can't change anything, merely observe the past replaying.
It is easier to sabotage the machine room, or to hack into it than to change its projections, the past. Psychiatry for one has sought to rewrite the past, to re-script it through invasive means. To get at the machine-room.
That's my reading of it. Water can mean a lot of things - it feels like it's being used as the nebulous subconscious, the dreamy underworld. Haven't read much Jung and Freud, or Joseph Campbell - but I have a rough idea of the territory.
Brain Pain
Books mentioned in this topic
The Name of the Rose (other topics)The Invention of Morel (other topics)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (other topics)
Gulliver’s Travels (other topics)
The Invention of Morel (other topics)
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After reading 17 short stories by Borges this year, can you sense any affinity in Bioy’s novella with the psychic territory Borges explored?