allusions

Instead of posting an exhaustive (and for me, obscure) list of allusions tied to "Invention of Morel," I'll just link to the Wikipedia article the newfangled way. But, some of the allusions and connections it has includes:

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells
XYZ by Clemente Palma
The video game Myst (I do not play video games)
An episode from "Lost" called "Dave"
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Film: Last Year in Marienbad
Film: Man Facing Southeast


If you are familiar with any of those above or in the link, or plan to see/read one (like kc. I'd like to read Dr. Moreau now), discuss!

On my part, I have seen the lovely and baffling "Last Year in Marienbad," which I remember thinking had a challenging plot (if there was one) but had this otherworldly romance at its center, much like "Morel."

One of the other comparisons was to the 1987 English horror film "Bloody New Year," but in my professional opinion, that's bollocks. BOLLOCKS!

The soul

I thought there were a lot of interesting ideas in "Morel" about what constitutes a soul. Here's what Morel says to his guests: "When all the senses are synchronized, the soul emerges. That was to be expected. When Madeleine existed for the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, Madeleine herself was actually there."

I have bad news.

You will spend the rest of your life alone on a desert island with a marvelous mansion/museum, chapel and swimming pool. Assuming survival needs are plentiful, what else do you pack for your exile? (What's in your library?)

Alternate realities

"The habits of our lives make us presume that things will happen in a certain foreseeable way, that there will be a vague coherence in the world. Now, reality appears to be changed, unreal. When a man awakens, or dies, he is slow to free himself from the terrors of the dream, from the worries and manias of life. Now it will be hard for me to break the habit of being afraid of these people."

I also thought of this story as a bit of a mystery because of the time we spend with the narrator trying to decipher why his lonely but otherwise coherent life has been turned upside down. He names several theories for what might be happening to him (sick and hallucinating, alien beings, so on). Did you give credence to any particular idea before the mystery of Morel's invention was unveiled?

Next pick

"An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter" by Cesar Aira

Part travelogue, part meditation on art, this brief, increasingly riveting fictionalized history by Argentinean author Aira (How I Became a Nun) reinvents German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas's ill-fated 1837 South American journey. Rugendas, a genre painter influenced by naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, first recorded the "exotic" landscape of the New World in the early 1820s and had early success with the illustrated Picturesque Voyage Through Brazil (1827). Aira dwells on Rugendas's disastrous second journey to South America, when the artist had hoped to penetrate the immense plains of Argentina.

Impressions

Along those same lines, what did you make of our hero's eventual decision to "add" himself into Morel's invention? Is this love, obsession, loneliness? Declining mental state?

Ah, Faustine

What did you make of our narrator's preoccupation with Faustine?

Extra-extra

What did you make of the editor's notes throughout the tale? What did it add for you?

"The Invention of Morel"

The prologue in my copy of "Morel" described this as an attempt at an adventure story -- I thought it fit in other categories, too. What kind of story did you think it was? Also, what were your overall impressions? Did you like it?