QUESTION: You said that the inspiration for La invención de Morel came to you, at least partially, from the vanishing of Louise Brooks from the movies. What happened with you and Louise Brooks?

ADOLFO BIOY CASARES: I was deeply in love with her. I didn’t have any luck, because she disappeared quickly. She went to Europe, she made a film with Pabst, and then I didn’t like her so much as when she was in Hollywood. And then, she vanished too early from the movies.

QUESTION: Could she be seen as one of the characters in La invención de Morel?

ADOLFO BIOY CASARES: Yes, she would be Faustine. -INTERVIEW: with Bioy Cesares (Fernando Martin Peña and Sergio Wolf,July, 1995, Film)

Adolfo Bioy Caseres was a compatriot of Jorge Luis Borges and shared his love of British detective fiction and the adventure stories of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson and company. In this novella, Bioy Caseres riffed on the Island of Dr. Moreau, with a protagonist who flees the law and ends up on an island that is reputedly plagued by deadly disease. But something far stranger is going on: a sophisticated party of other castaways shows up and he becomes obsessed with one beautiful woman. [She is a stand-in for the author’s own obsession: the actress Louise Brooks.]

Our hero mostly hides from the others but eventually is able to summon the courage to address his Faustine. She though completely ignores him, as do the others. It’s all quite mysterious and, to be honest, confusing, reminding me of the sort of mid-range episodes of Lost. It was no surprise to read that a character in that show is seen reading this book.

[SPOILERS ahead] The protagonist becomes jealous of the Morel of the title, the host of the island party who shares an interest in Faustine. He searches the few buildings on the island and discovers machinery that Morel used to first record all these guests at some point in the past and now project their gathering endlessly even after they’ve left. Faustine is become Louise and our islander become Bioy Caseres. The love/lust here is for an image displayed for viewing pleasure, not a flesh and blood person we interact with. Quite clever.

(Reviewed:10-Dec-24)

Grade: (B) Orrin C. Judd

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Adolfo Caseres Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Adolfo Bioy Casares
    -WIKIPEDIA: The Invention of Morel
    -ENTRY: The Invention of Morel novel by Bioy Casares (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -ENTRY: Adolfo Bioy Casares Argentine author (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Adolfo Bioy Casares (IMDB)
    -AUTHOR PAGE: Adolfo Bioy Casares (New Directions)
    -AUTHOR PAGE: Adolfo Bioy Casares (NY Review of Books)
    -ENTRY: Adolfo Bioy Casares Author, Spanish (Center for the Art of Translation)
    -ENTRY: Summary Bibliography: Adolfo Bioy Casares (Internet Speculative Fiction Database)
    -ENTRY: Bioy Casares, Adolfo (1914–1999) (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ENTRY: Bioy Casares, Adolfo (SF Encyclopedia)
    -ENTRY: Adolfo Bioy Casares (World Without End)
    -ENTRY: Adolfo Bioy Casares (Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells)
    -FAN TWITTER: @bioyblogsborges
    -BLOG: Bioy Blogs Borges
    -INDEX: Adolfo Bioy Casares (Internet Archive)
    -VIDEO ARCHIVE: Adolfo Bioy Casares (YouTube)
    -OBIT: Adolfo Casares obituary: Tales of mystery from a flat land (Nick Caistor, 18 Mar 1999, The Guardian)
    -OBIT: Obituary: Adolfo Bioy Casares (Andrew Graham-Yooll, 09 March 1999, Independent)
    -STORY: Plans for an Escape to Carmelo (Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Carole L. Kaye and Alberto Bolanos, April 10, 1986, NY Review of Books)
    -ETEXT: Borges - Adolfo Bioy Casares (Internet Archive)
    -
    -STUDY GUIDE: Invention of Morel (NYRB)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Invention of Morel (
    -STUDY GUIDE: Invention of Morel (eNotes)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Invention of Morel (Super Summary)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Invention of Morel (New Book Recommendation)
    -PODCAST: Tim Marlow and Marina Warner (BBC: A Good Read, 3/27/07)
    -ESSAY: Analysis of Adolfo Bioy Casares’s The Invention of Morel (NASRULLAH MAMBROL, Literary Theory and Criticism)
    -VIDEO: The Invention of Morel and the Eternal Return
    -ESSAY: The Invention of Marienbad: Resnais, Robbe-Grillet, Morel, and Adolfo Bioy Casares on the Left Bank (Ann Manov, August 14, 2021, BrightLights Film)
    -ESSAY: Last Year at Marienbad: An Intertextual Meditation ( Thomas Beltzer, November 2000, Senses of Cinema)
    -ESSAY: Louise Brooks and The Invention of Morel (Louise Brooks Society)
    -ESSAY: The Lost Book Club: The Invention of Morel (James Brush, 6/05/08, Coyote Mercury)
    -ESSAY: The Best Metaphysical Thrillers (recommended by Greg Jackson, % Books)
    -ESSAY: A Poetics of Misencounters: Adolfo Bioy Casares (Alicia Borinsky, Biblioteca Virtual miguel de Cervantes)
    -ESSAY: Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, a Friendship Unlike Any Other (Susanne Ramírez de Arellano, August 17, 2022, Nuestro Stories)
    -ESSAY: Adolfo Bioy Casares (Tony McKibbin, 19/01/2015)
    -ESSAY: Latin America’s Kafka: What a Sly Argentine Has in Common with a Tubercular Czech (Scott Esposito, fall 2008, The Quarterly Conversation)
    -ESSAY: Reading Bioy Casares (Arnon Grunberg, October 1, 2007, World Without Borders)
    -ESSAY: Cinematic Desire and Fantasy in Adolfo Bioy Casares’ La Invención De Morel (1940) (Cadernos Cajuína, September 2024)
    -ESSAY: Morel_Moreau_Morella: The Metamorphoses of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ Invention in a (Re)Animating Universe (María Lorenzo Hernández, 4/30/13)
    -ESSAY: Louise Brooks: Silent Muse (Thomas Gladysz, September 04, 2022, Fiction)
    -ESSAY: Bolaño's Author List (Robert Bolano, New Directions)
    -BOOK LIST: Short Novels (5 Books)
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    -REVIEW: of The Invention of Morel (Stuck in a Book)
    -REVIEW: of The Invention of Morel (Words and Peace)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Mookes and the Gripes)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (A Different Stripe)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Books Yo)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (An Enduring Romantic)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Fiction Advocate)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Knowledge Lost)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Rebecca Reads)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Elif the Reader)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (The Forgotten Geek)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (JacquiWine's Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Pechorin's Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Turn and Work)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Art & Thoughts)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (746 Books)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Mantex)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (David Auerbach, Waggish)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Seamus Sweeney, SF Site)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Omnitudo)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Metalocus)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Finding Time to Write)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Oddly Weird Fiction)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (1st Reading)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Magic Realism)
    -REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Recurring Bafflement)
    -VIDEO REVIEW: of Invention of Morel (Better than Food)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo (Mookes & Gripes)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (JacquiWine’s Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Emma Garman, Worlds Without Borders)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Tobias Carroll, Vol 1 Brooklyn)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Bitter Tea and Mystery)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Pretty Sinister Books)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (1streadings Blog)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (My Reader’s Block)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Serraillon)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Pechorin’s Journal)
    -REVIEW: of Where There’s Love, There’s Hate (Complete Review)
    -REVIEW: of Borges By Adolfo Bioy Casares (Complete Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Seventh Circle by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares (Jose Ignacio Escribano García-Bosque, A Crime is Afoot)
    -REVIEW: of “The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink” by Adolfo Bioy Casares (Classics of Science Fiction)
    -REVIEW: of Adolfo Bioy Casares: A Plan For Escape (Heteronym, World Literature Forum)
    -REVIEW: of Adolfo Bioy Casares: Dream Of Heroes (Heteronym, World Literature Forum)
    -REVIEW: of Adolfo Bioy Casares, Asleep in the Sun (Recurring Bafflement)
    -OPERA REVIEW: Long Beach Opera’s ‘Invention of Morel’ offers a fascinating journey (Jim Farber, Mar. 20th, 2018, OC Register)

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