Morel’s Invention, A Precious Reflection On Immortality

The fear of death is one of the oldest fears of the human being ; the desires for eternal life and love forever are some of the most present in humanity. Morel’s invention , by Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, combines these fears and desires, questions them, reflects them, and proposes new ways to address them.

Morel’s invention has also inspired films, plays and series such as the 1961 film ‘The Year Last in Marienbad’, the series ‘Lost’ or the 1986 Argentine film ‘Man Looking at the Southeast’, among others. The novel, published in 1940, was what paved the way for the science fiction genre in Latin America.

Bioy Casares was an author who had a lot of recognition in his native country, Argentina. A friend of Borges and linked to the Ocampo sisters because he was married to one of them, he surrounded himself with the most notable writers of the time when various literary movements were taking place in Buenos Aires. Such was the friendship with Borges that in The invention of Morel  we have a prologue written by Borges himself.

Fiction and everyday life in The invention of Morel

We could say that Bioy Casares was ahead of his time, because he knew how to mix everyday elements with science fiction. In your novels, we appreciate very realistic characters in a not-so-realistic environment.

In Morel’s Invention  we have a main character, the fugitive, who lives on a remote island fleeing the law. We don’t know his name or what he did to be forced to escape the law, but we’ve identified him as a very everyday character whose emotions are very real.

The island where he lives was abandoned years ago, the buildings are old and in disrepair; soon, he notices that strange things happen there, some intruders appear who repeat his actions and to whom he appears to be invisible.

Among the intruders is Faustine, a young woman with whom the fugitive falls in love, often tries to talk to her, but she doesn’t seem to see him, it’s as if he doesn’t exist. On the other hand, we have Morel, a scientist who also seems to be in love with young Faustine and whom the fugitive hates.

We will soon realize that these intruders are nothing more than images from the past that allude to people who have already been to the island ; Morel created a machine that was able to record all these movements and all these people, it was able to store their essence, their desires, their thoughts… All of their being. In this way, they would live forever in a happy memory that they would not remember, something like the Nietzschean eternal return, but reliving a week of their lives for all eternity.

Fear of Death and Immortality in Fiction

Death has been part of us since we were born, every day, every minute and every second of our lives brings us a little closer to it. The problem comes when it becomes a fear and there are problems with accepting it. To overcome this fear, some religions and philosophical currents propose the idea of ​​“the afterlife”: a promise of a better life after death.

The belief that man is the union of body and soul says that to free the immortal soul, we must act on certain issues and be good men and women. In this way, our immortal part, after dying in the physical plane, can live eternally in peace.

Other religions, such as Buddhism, propose an immortality based on reincarnation. What these faith-related stories demonstrate is that, since ancient times, mankind has sought ways to overcome death, to explain why we died, and thus to try to accept it in the hope of a spiritual life dissociated from the physical passage.

When we had the opportunity to make a picture of immortality in the world of fiction, we imagined immortal beings like the elves in The Lord of the Rings , or mythological beings, that is, deities. In this way, we see that the price to pay for immortality or to try to imitate it is always high. In Morel’s Invention , scientist Morel created a machine capable of giving us the immortality of the soul, but this will come at a very high cost to our mortal body.

Through cinema and the new technologies of the time, Bioy Casares raises many thoughts and anticipates what we know today as virtual reality. He introduces us to other forms of immortality. Immortality in Morel’s Invention is sought by the protagonist from the beginning, but in an indirect and unconscious way.

Literature is, in a way, immortal, and we revive an author every time we read his works. The protagonist narrates the facts in a kind of diary with the hope that someone will find him in the future. By recording this in writing, we can say that he is looking for that immortality.

Love and immortality in ‘ The invention of Morel’

When the intruders cannot see the fugitive, when they are ignorant of his existence, he refuses to believe that they have not seen him, prefers to think that it is some plan to capture and deliver him; that is, he refuses not to exist.

The intruders cannot see him because they are images, memories, but the fugitive cannot accept this invisibility, and no human being would accept such a thing. The non-existence, the being invisible to everyone, is a kind of death for the individual ; something unacceptable because it is a living death.

On the other hand, the novel also explores love, the idealization of love and how love keeps the fugitive alive: it is his only escape route, his only desire. Love is as natural and as human as death, as is the protagonist’s fear of loneliness.

Despite what would happen if he was discovered, he fantasized about evil plans against him, believed they conspired to betray him. The fugitive fears loneliness and these thoughts are a very human trait. Likewise, jealousy is also present in him. On the other hand, he realizes how illogical his thoughts are, but he has difficulty containing them, as does anyone who is exposed to a similar situation.

In this case, love is related to its Platonic ideas and also to the literary theme religio amoris , where the beloved is shown as an unreachable, superior and divine being. Furthermore, love in romance will be what leads to immortality; it will be the trigger for everything, it will be what awakens in Morel the desire to immortalize himself with Faustine, and what makes this same desire appear in the fugitive as well.

Bioy Casares, thanks to his passion for cinema and his great skill as a narrator, leads us to an almost visual work, worthy of a cinematographic script, introduces us to a character who loses his mind on several occasions, who writes to record everything the one who lives on the island, but this is a very human character and certainly any of us would act similarly in such a situation. It is, without a doubt, a work that is worth reading, that invites reflection.