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A review by paracyclops
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This very slim book, originally published in Spanish eighty-four years ago, manages to pack in an intricate plot, a detailed (if ambiguous) character portrait, an exemplary piece of SF speculation, and an essay in the craft and aesthetics of prose. For the last, a great deal of credit is due to Ruth L.C. Simms, whose translation was published 1964—I can't comment on how faithful or accurate it is, but it's a great piece of writing. Adolfo Bioy Casares was a protégé and close friend of Jorge Luis Borges, and The Invention of Morel has a similar character to many of Borges's stories. It's as interested in ideas as it is in psychology, or experience, or any of the other things literature is supposed to be interested in, and like a Borges story it hangs around for just long enough to explore the implications of the idea at its heart. If, like me, you're someone who wishes Borges could have interested himself in writing stories more than four or five pages long, it seems that Bioy (as he was called by everyone who knew him) may offer a remedy.
Taken purely on its merits, this is an exemplary science-fiction story. It postulates one particular technological innovation, and explores its implications through the narrow lens of a single character's encounter with it. Borges wrote an introduction for the novella that is essentially an argument for the value and importance of fantastical fiction, and Casares writes with full commitment to the consistency and coherence of his invention. This is not a piece of whimsy or 'magical realism'. However, it has been claimed by the establishment of 'literary fiction', and seems not to have been recognised by SF or fantasy people as a piece of their history. This makes it a very interesting text to consider in the context of debates around the definitions of the 'literary' and the 'fantastic', and the questions of hegemony and elitism that attend them. Perhaps because they never attached themselves to any particular community of writers, and always wrote with unimpeachable creative and technical rigour, Borges and Casares are rarely considered as authors of speculative fiction.
The first-person narrator, who we come to know through his diary (annotated by a later editor), is a fugitive, trapped in an isolated location. Mysterious other figures appear there after his arrival. They seem oblivious to his presence, but he is terrified of capture, inhabiting a lowland region subject to an unpredictable pattern of dangerous tides. This is a) just my cup of tea, and b) also a pretty fair description of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, another book that I love. Despite my life-long love affair with Borges, I have never previously read any of Bioy's work. I can see that I need to fix that, urgently, both for its influence, and for its intrinsic pleasures. There's not a great deal I can say about this book without dropping spoilers, but suffice it to say that it is ingeniously designed, meticulously crafted, and beautifully written. The narrator is sometimes naive, and sometimes incoherent, but Bioy somehow manages to convey that without ever compromising on the aesthetic or structural qualities of the prose. The Invention of Morel is an absolute gem of a book.
Taken purely on its merits, this is an exemplary science-fiction story. It postulates one particular technological innovation, and explores its implications through the narrow lens of a single character's encounter with it. Borges wrote an introduction for the novella that is essentially an argument for the value and importance of fantastical fiction, and Casares writes with full commitment to the consistency and coherence of his invention. This is not a piece of whimsy or 'magical realism'. However, it has been claimed by the establishment of 'literary fiction', and seems not to have been recognised by SF or fantasy people as a piece of their history. This makes it a very interesting text to consider in the context of debates around the definitions of the 'literary' and the 'fantastic', and the questions of hegemony and elitism that attend them. Perhaps because they never attached themselves to any particular community of writers, and always wrote with unimpeachable creative and technical rigour, Borges and Casares are rarely considered as authors of speculative fiction.
The first-person narrator, who we come to know through his diary (annotated by a later editor), is a fugitive, trapped in an isolated location. Mysterious other figures appear there after his arrival. They seem oblivious to his presence, but he is terrified of capture, inhabiting a lowland region subject to an unpredictable pattern of dangerous tides. This is a) just my cup of tea, and b) also a pretty fair description of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, another book that I love. Despite my life-long love affair with Borges, I have never previously read any of Bioy's work. I can see that I need to fix that, urgently, both for its influence, and for its intrinsic pleasures. There's not a great deal I can say about this book without dropping spoilers, but suffice it to say that it is ingeniously designed, meticulously crafted, and beautifully written. The narrator is sometimes naive, and sometimes incoherent, but Bioy somehow manages to convey that without ever compromising on the aesthetic or structural qualities of the prose. The Invention of Morel is an absolute gem of a book.