"The Invention of Morel" by Casares up to page 53

I am about halfway finished with “The Invention of Morel” and what follows are my thoughts on that first half.

I think that when the narrator started the machine on the island and screwed around in the basement, the one where he got freaked out by his own echoing footsteps, he messed with the dimensions of his reality. He threw his reality of the island back into Faustine’s reality of the island (which could possibly be the past?). Also I think that Faustine’s reality is unfortunately doomed to repeat itself, as shown by the repeated conversation that Faustine and Morel had. So not only is the narrator in two realities, but he is caught up in the other’s loop; a rather harsh punishment for being curious.

This is only my current assumption though. While reading the book my opinion is constantly changing. In the beginning I thought that the people who had been on the island before the narrator (the ones the Japanese found without hair, skin, and fingernails) had been killed by robots that took their skin and whatnot so as to wear it as their own. If you are wondering how I came up with that it’s because Faustine seemed to be so set in a routine that the presence of the narrator didn’t even affect her. Like she was only programmed to do one thing, watch the sunset.

Other things on my mind:

Am I ever going to find out what the narrator supposedly did to become a fugitive? He’s skittish and always afraid someone will tell the police where he is, but what was he accused of? Why did he have to flee to some horrible island where he constantly gets sick from the food he is forced to eat? Another thing that keeps cropping up is the question of whether or not the narrator is who he thinks he is. In a dream of his the narrator finds that he has to kill a man, but he IS that man. Something I imagine is always troubling to realize. In another dream Morel is the director of an asylum, but sometimes the narrator was the director of the asylum. It makes me wonder if the fugitive and Morel could be one in the same. If not, then maybe the fugitive’s reality is so frayed that it is trying to correct itself by merging the two realities. That is, if there even are two realities.


What I am finding most difficult about the book is coming to any true conclusions about a character. I can’t yet comprehend what is happening on the island so how can I pass judgment? I have no idea who is real and who isn’t or even what is really going on in their lives. I feel like while reading I have to keep my feelings at arms length so as to better adjust when everything is finally revealed. If I get too distracted with the narrator’s obsession with Faustine am I going to miss something? It’s really hard not to get sucked in though. The narrator has developed feelings for a woman that he used to watch from the bushes and he has never talked to (or at least never had a conversation with). Furthermore, he says creepy things like, “I think I shall kill her, or go mad, if this continues any longer” (p. 37). The actions of the narrator make me really interested in finding out what he was accused of. I’m not so sure he was innocent anymore. Yes being alone on an island can make a person crazy, but he doesn’t even question if some of his thoughts about Faustine or wrong.

And what of perception? All I have is the narrator’s point of view. He could be missing the small things or interpreting them as something else. He passed off the repeated conversation, Faustine not talking to him, Morel’s indifference to his flower bed, and even the museum returning to normal after the partiers left. I wonder what details aren’t being written down that are small to him, but would be huge to me. I’m sure a lot of things are going on that the narrator just doesn’t feel are important enough to write about. I’d like to know what he or even the others on the island are doing during some of the time gaps.

Overall the confusion and anticipation for the answers are manageably frustrating. I’m excited to have things figured out and if that doesn’t happen then I’m at least excited to find out what Morel’s invention is.