Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999)

I already knew the secret before reading this book (like Citizen Kane), but it is so well-plotted that it is still gripping. What an odd, interesting, intriguing little novella. It is a tale of unrequited love mixed with equal parts H. G. Wells, Borges, and Crusoe. It keeps your interest though it's slim, and it aspires at points to grand literature, though it is written in the disjointed passages of a shipwrecked diarist. Without giving away the plot, I can say that this book is well worth show more the few hours you'll put into it, and anyone who likes Borges or has held an unrequited love for someone will understand the book's message. show less

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It's worth chasing down, as an example of surrealism meeting magical realism. The unnamed protagonist finds himself on a possibly deserted island, and becomes increasingly obsessed and frustrated by its inhabitants, who he can see perfectly well but is unable to interact with. The sinister scientist Morel appears to be behind it all. Like Kallocain, the story reflects on the surveillance society, though in a different and perhaps more modern way, show more tying in also fairly explicitly with the then-recent invention of television.

As with Kallocain, the (male) narrator's attempt to conduct a relationship with a woman under the new conditions is the emotional hook of the story - somewhat creepy rather than desperate here, which reduces one's sympathy for the central character. But the story itself kept my attention and will probably get one of my nominations for Best Novella. show less

The stories in this volume often seem pointless, but are seductive. The first half of the collection are short stories on love, and they don't make a lot of sense; not that they're confusing, but more that they just happen like a blip. Bioy Casares is most famous for his magic realist fiction, but that doesn't come to the second half, and when it does it's like a revelation. If I could compare Bioy Casares to any filmmaker it wouldn't be Woody Allen like the dust jacket says, but Jacques show more Rivette. These stories may not have the impact of The Invention of Morel, or Where There's Love, There's Hate (co-written with Silvina Ocampo, another titan of Argentine literature, and Bioy's wife), but they're still quite interesting and enigmatic. show less

This is enticingly vague and atmospheric at first, but I quickly became uneasy on behalf of, and then about, the fugitive. As some things become clearer, others become less so, prompting complex, and often paradoxical, philosophical questions. When you can't trust your senses, what is truth, and how do you know if you are dead, dreaming, hallucinating, or mad? When nothing makes sense, and cause doesn’t seem to lead to the expected effect, how do you make decisions, or are you a mere show more plaything of malign gods or Fate?

Add to that the obsessive desire (he calls it “love”) of an apparently unattainable woman and it sounds overloaded. It’s not. Approaching the midpoint, I was underwhelmed. But then Bioy carefully pulled out all the stops: I was bombarded by a bewildering cacophony of the “adverse miracle”. I lived the story. Wonderful.

The English title can be interpreted in two ways. There’s truth in both.

Image: Faustine watching the sunset. One of Norah Borges de Torre’s illustrations.

Avoid spoilers

The brilliance and unsettling joy of this book is in thinking alongside the fugitive, trying to work out what is going on, how, and why: questioning your sanity as the impossible begins to seem merely improbable and even likely. As you gradually figure it out, you have to unravel, rewind, and analyse all your assumptions, not just about the story, but the very fabric of reality.

I'm glad Bioy kept it short, despite the many ways he could have expanded it: that way we each invent our own Morel.



A few thoughts:

• The first person, present tense creates an immediacy and immersion in a conventional chronology. That turns out to be cleverly at odds with that of the story.

• As early as page 11, Bioy plants major clues. The people dancing on the hill, “their clothes are from another era”, are dismissed as eccentric. I fell for that misdirection for a while.

• The name Faustine comes from the Latin for “fortunate one”, but I expect most readers think of Faust’s bargain with the Devil, as I assume was Bioy’s intent.

• Morel raises the question of recording without consent, but what about the fugitive following Faustine, and even sleeping under her bed, observing and listening. At that point, he knows enough to say “I am now able to view Faustine dispassionately, as a simple object”. Object? My instinct is to object, but if she has no consciousness, it shouldn’t matter. However, applying similar logic to online images is trickier.

• Goldfish famously have very short memories. The replenished fishtank, even though they weren’t goldfish, was a nice touch. It echoed the pain of the fugitive watching the endless repetition of others, while for him, each moment was unique.

• Morel and the fugitive initially seek a form of life after death in different ways: Morel via his invention, and the fugitive by the diary he thinks will prove his innocence. But the fugitive is seduced by Faustine and the invention of Morel. Is that a happy ending?

• This was written in 1940, but Bioy is envisaging something far more advanced than a 3D hologram.

Image: "Double Exposure Love" by Alexander Lefler (Woman and man's shadowy faces overlapping to create a more solid composite) (Source)

Quotes - spoilers

• “They were not two copies of the same book, but the same copy twice.”

• “Faustine lives only in this image, for which I do not exist.” [The most extreme form of unrequited love.]

See also - spoilers

• From quite early on, I was thinking of The Sixth Sense.

• There are more similarities with HG Wells’ 1896 novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau than just the surnames.

• I gather this has been filmed, but I don’t want to watch as poor special effects and cinematography would ruin it. It could make a good episode of Black Mirror, except that Charlie Brooker writes or commissions all the stories himself.



Borges

Bioy, as he liked to be known, was a protégé, collaborator, and friend of the slightly older, fellow Argentinian writer, Borges. This was his first “successful fiction”, aged only 26. In the prologue, Borges writes, of the book dedicated to him:
“To classify it as perfect is neither an imprecision nor a hyperbole.”

Image: Empty shoes by a puddle whose reflection shows a couple wearing the shoes. Surreal photo by Olaf Bathke. (Source)

See also

There are additional links in the spoilered section, but their titles are spoilers.

• The cover photo is of actor Louise Brooks, a literary inspiration for this novella. See also Louise Brooks Society.

• On the first page, and several times afterwards, the fugitive praises Malthus and wants to write a book promoting his ideas. I reviewed his An Essay on the Principle of Population with Swift’s A Modest Proposal HERE.

• In Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, a solitary man is battling not just to stay alive but also to work out what's going on, whether death would be easier, and questioning his sanity. In other respects, it’s quite different. See my review HERE.

• Bélidor was an engineer, specialising in hydraulics and ballistics. The fugitive pockets a book Bélidor wrote.

• It’s impossible to read of a man, apparently unjustly tried and sentenced, battling unknown forces, without thinking of Kafka, especially The Trial, which I reviewed HERE.

• The opening makes you wonder if it will be like Robinson Crusoe. But it's not.

• In Jay Parini’s delightful memoir, Borges and Me, Borges mentions his admiration of this book. See my review HERE.

• One of Borges’s early stories has a character with a similar name: The Cruel Redeemer of Lazarus Morell. It's about a bid for freedom. I reviewed it HERE.

• I’ve reviewed all of Borges’s Collected Fictions HERE.

• Casares explores similar themes, with a similar sort of twist, in his short story, Venetian Masks, which I reviewed HERE. However, I think Morel is far superior, so if you only read one, make it this.

Quotes

There are more in the spoilered section.

• “Plants, grasses, and flowers overtake each other with more urgency to be born than to die, each one invading the time and place of the others in a tangled mass.”

• “Hope is everything I must fear.”

• “The effort needed to kill myself was superfluous now, because with Faustine gone not even the anachronous satisfaction of death remained.”

• “Troops with rented uniforms and deadly aim.” show less