The Book “Morels Invention “: A Reflection On Immortality
The fear of death is one of mankind’s oldest fears. The desire for eternal life and endless love is in turn one of our highest desires. This is something that is mentioned in the book Morel’s invention.
It is written by the Argentine Adolfo Bioy Casares and combines these fears and desires. It questions them, reflects on them and suggests new ways of approaching them.
The book Morel’s invention has inspired films, plays and series, including El Año Pasado en Marienbad (Last Year in Marienbad), the Lost series and the Argentine film Hombre Mirando al Sudeste (Man Looking to the Southeast).
The novel was published in 1940 and opened the door to science fiction in Latin America.
Bioy Casares was an author who was well known in his home country. He was friends with Jorge Luis Borges and married to one of the Ocampo sisters.
He surrounded himself with some of the most outstanding writers of the time, which was also a period when many literary movements took place in Buenos Aires.
His friendship with Borges was so close that he wrote the preface to Morel’s invention.
Fiction and everyday life in the book Morel’s invention
It can be said that Bioy Casares was ahead of its time thanks to his ability to mix everyday elements with science fiction. In his novels we can see very realistic characters in unrealistic environments.
In Morel’s invention, we have a main character who is a fugitive who lives on a remote island to stay away from the law. We do not know his name or what he did. He is portrayed as an everyday character with very real emotions.
The island he lives on has been abandoned for years: the buildings are old and dilapidated. He soon notices that strange things are going on, such as intruders appearing and constantly repeating the same actions.
The escape, however, seems invisible to them.
Among the intruders is Faustine – a young woman the fugitive eventually falls in love with. He tries to talk to her, but she does not seem to see him. It’s like he does not exist.
On the other hand, we have Morel, who is a researcher who also seems to be in love with the young Faustine and whom the fugitive detests.
We soon notice that these intruders are nothing more than images from the past of the people who once lived there. Morel created a machine that could record all these actions and people.
He managed to save their essence, their desires, their thoughts and their existence. That way, they could live forever in a happy memory that they could not remember.
It brings to mind Nietzsche’s eternal repetition, but in the form of reliving the same week of his life forever.
Fear of death and immortality in fiction
Death becomes a part of us as soon as we are born. Every day, every minute and every second of our lives brings us a little closer. The problem arises when this becomes a fear and something we can not accept.
To overcome this fear, some religions and philosophical orientations have put forward the idea of ”another life”: a promise of a better life after death.
The belief that man is a union of body and soul says that in order to liberate our immortal soul we must live our lives in a certain way. In this way, our immortal part can live forever after we die on the physical plane.
Other religions, such as Buddhism, suggest an immortality based on reincarnation. What these stories demonstrate is that since the cradle, humanity has sought ways to overcome death.
It has tried to explain why we die in order to accept it in the hope of a spiritual life after our physical bodies take their last breath.
The beginning of virtual reality
When we have tried to portray immortality in the world of fiction, we have imagined immortal beings like the elves in The Lord of the Rings or mythological beings who are in some way divine.
In this way we see that the price for immortality or for trying to emulate it is always high. In the book Morel’s invention, the researcher creates a machine that can give us immortality in the soul. However, the cost to the physical body is high.
Through file and the new technologies of the time, Bioy Casares gives us several different reflections, and he also in a way predicts today’s virtual reality (VR).
But he also presents other ways of obtaining immortality. The main character in Morel’s invention seeks immortality from the start, but in an indirect and unconscious way.
Literature is in a way immortal. We revive an author every time we read his or her work. Literature becomes part of posterity, and in this way the work is immortal.
The protagonist tells about these facts in a type of diary in the hope that someone will find it in the future. Since he preserves this in writing , we can say that he seeks a kind of immortality.
The idealization of love in the book Morel’s invention
As we mentioned earlier, intruders cannot see the fugitive and ignore his existence. The fugitive refuses to believe that they can not see him, but imagines that it is a plan to capture him.
He refuses to exist! The intruders can not see him because they are just pictures and memories, but the fugitive refuses to accept this invisibility. No one would probably be able to do that.
To not exist, to be invisible to all, is a kind of death for the person in question. You do not accept it because it is like being dead.
The novel also explores love, the idealization of love and how love keeps the fugitive alive. It is his only refuge, his only desire.
In fact, love is as natural and human as death, just like the fear of loneliness expressed by the main character.
Despite what his discovery would lead to, he forges evil plans against them. He thinks they are conspiring to betray him, but in the end it does not directly bother him.
He is afraid of loneliness, and these thoughts are very human traits. There is also a lot of jealousy within him.
Love and immortality
However, he realizes how illogical his thoughts are, but finds it difficult to control them.
Love is linked to platonic ideas and also the literary subject religio amoris, where his beloved is shown as unattainable, superior and divine.
The love of the novel is what leads to immortality. It triggers everything and is what arouses Morel’s desire to immortalize himself with Faustine.
It is also the trigger that evokes the same feeling in the fugitive.
Thanks to his passion for film and his great ability as a narrator, Bioy Casares can take us to a world that is easy to visualize.
The book presents a character who loses his temper on several occasions but still manages to write down everything he went through on the island. It’s a very human character, and many of us would probably have acted the same way.
It is without a doubt a work that is worth reading and that really invites us to reflect.
