For numerous days, he avoids being seen by them. Yet one night, he is awakened from his sleep by some noise and is startled to witness that the grassy hillside of the island is crowded with people who are merrily dancing and singing. The story begins when the narrator finds himself on an island that he believes to be uninhabited by anyone but him. And if I am to die this diary will leave a record of the aging I suffered.” But in the meantime, writing down what happened helps me to organize my thoughts. “When I am less agitated I shall find a way to get away from here. The novella doesn’t have the form or the structure of an ordinary epistolary literature, but whatever we read is undeniably refracted through the mind of the narrator, despite his meticulous recordings in his diary: And encircling it is the reiteration of everything by the narrator in his diary. There is the central plot with all the characters- Morel, Faustine, the narrator. The Invention of Morel is akin to a story within a story. Prior to that resolution, there are perplexing appearances, (arguably) drab utterances, and a hopelessly messy (or messed up?) narrator. That final resolution of the impending mystery, somewhere two-thirds into the work, is rightly posited as an exemplar of Adolfo Bioy Casares’ craft and depth of imagination. There comes a moment while reading The Invention of Morel when you finally begin to understand what’s happening.
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