The Invention of Morel (New York Review Books Classics)

A hidden gem of a novella. I loved this book.

The Invention of Morel was adjudged a perfect work by Jorge Luis Borges, the author's mentor/friend/frequent collaborator. Anybody familiar with the essays and short fiction of Borges can appreciate what it would mean for one of the great masters of world literature to make such a pronouncement. Perhaps part of Borges's appraisal reflects how Adolfo Bioy Casares does indeed share much of his same aesthetic and literary sensibilities (after all, they collaborated on 12 books). More specifically, here are some obvious similarities between the writing of the two authors:* The Invention of Morel is only 100 pages, not too much longer than Borges's longer tales.* Similar to stories like The Circular Ruin and The Aleph, and many, if not most of Borges's other tales, The Invention of Morel deals with more than one level of `reality'.* The language and writing is beautiful (this comes through in English translation). This short novel 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.Since a number of people have made more general comments about this novel, for the purpose of this review, I will focus on one aspect of this work: the relationship between the novel and the author's and our experience of film and television.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 a number of quotes from the novel coupled with my 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) --- Again, darn. I recall my almost disbelief when, as a kid, 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 (Los Angeles, 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."

I had no idea what to expect of this book and I think that’s the best way to go in to it! Clever and unique writing style that keeps you reading even if it’s a very, very slow paced book. I felt like by the end I had no idea what or who to believe and it felt like you were diving into madness right alongside the protagonist. Good read for a plane ride/trip as it’s pretty short!

An interesting philosophical examination of the relationship between perception and consciousness. Is our existence simply a series of phenomena that impinge on the senses? If so, can we achieve immortality by playing back the sensations our existence produces in others who observe us? Morel believes the answer is "yes".Our narrator here slowly discovers the truth of the invention, passing through phases of confusion and consternation, pausing to reflect on the nature of existence and the conundrum of multiple timelines that is the fodder of so many Star Trek episodes. Here the resolution is sharp and brutish. To exist in Morel's animation means one will cease to exist in your own timeline.It's the narrator's infatuation with Faustine that brings this point to a head. He is not content to live outside of the invention, but must somehow merge with it.There is a fair bit of resonance with the technology of our world today, including topics such as DNA cloning and artificial intelligence."I approve of the direction he gave, no doubt unconsciously, to his efforts to perpetuate man: but he has preserved nothing but sensations; and, although his invention is incomplete, he at least foreshadowed the truth: man will one day create human life".Left unanswered though, is the "why". Was Morel's motivation intellectual curiosity? If so, it was rather sadistic to pursue it in this way. Or was it a vain attempt to bind himself forever with Faustine?

A man chronicles his strange journey while marooned on an island with strange machinery in his diary. As he obsessively dissects the island with his considerable perception to understanding what is happening, he, in turn, ends up disassembling and learning more about himself.This book is masterful in its thematic throughline. I have always been fascinated with perspective and perception. Without feedback from other people, we become disturbingly reliant on motivated thinking. It is so crucial to a persons' identity that we interact with other people; without it we never really know ourselves at all. How much of what we see is actually just a projection of ourselves? Without any means of distinction, reality takes on an unknowable Otherness.With the stream of consciousness that fits very well with a diary written in blissful, straightforward prose, the mind of the man cultivates almost uncanny anticipation of the readers’ thoughts. Even as he does something absurd, or has not taken something crucial into account, or is overly cruel in his observations—you have only to turn the page and discover he himself knows this and wrestles with the same problem.It’s also more frenetic than a modern thriller, almost genre-bending as our man desperately tries to make sense of the goings-on. And as such, the reader establishes synchronicity with the story as it unfolds. Something of a feat given how old the text is. It still feels fresh and original and regards a human experience that will forever be, (ironically, if you’ve read it), timeless.It made me think about more than that. But any more would be considerable spoilers and this is a book with a reading experience where the less you know, the better, in my opinion.

This is a short little book but it’s captivating. It took me through many emotions as the story twisted and turned. Loved it

Enjoyable. I took a punt with this title and I wasn't disappointed.

Jorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of the Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. This fantastic exploration of realities also bears comparison with the sharpest work of Philip K. Dick. It is both a story of suspense and a bizarre romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious.Inspired by Bioy Casares's fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel has gone on to find such admirers as Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year in Marienbad, this classic of modern Latin-American literature also changed the history of film.

Totally absorbing.