The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, is a remarkable and strange tale of the experiences of a marooned fugitive on a now deserted island. The tale unfolds as a kind of Dr. Moreau1-on-the-holodeck2 – an eternal return3 groundhog’s-week4 of mechanical reproduction5, all watched over by machines of loving grace6.
The slight water damage to the library’s copy of this book will merely assist in transporting you to the island’s tidal marshlands where the narrator jots down his notes (the book you’re reading). He’s been driven there when the appearance of newcomers causes him to flee the abandoned museum with its aquarium floor, statuary idols, and alabaster urns.
To say much more than the cryptic sentences above would give away too much, so I’ll just add that if you like adventure stories with speculative elements, a forthright narrator (of questionable veracity), and the heartfelt pull of unattainable ideals – especially love – then this short book will be one you’ll remember long after finishing it. Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian master of fantastic stories, has said about the book: “to classify it as perfect is neither an imprecision nor a hyperbole.”
Incredible and fantastic. Don’t miss it.
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1.The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells
2.Star Trek technology
3.Nietzsche
4.Harold Ramis / Bill Murray
5.Walter Benjamin
6.Richard Brautigan
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