Blog 2: The Invention of Morel

Well, that was unexpected. It finally occurred to me at page 44 that I could have been terribly wrong with both of my theories. On pages 44 the narrator refers to new people as “new ghosts,” which made me believe there is the possibility that he is the only living one. However, even with this new thought I still never expected how this was about to unfold. I can honestly say I was glued to the last half of this novel.
The narrator’s “love” for Faustine is the first thing worth discussing. First of all, I would hardly consider it love, but instead an intense lust. What could he love her for? He has never spoken to her, only observed and admired. Although he is willing to risk his life (in his mind) for her, this is not for love. It could be an obsession formed out of the insanity that this island is creating. On page 45 he states, “As I looked at her I reflected that I was risking everything... for that ample body, those long, slender legs, that ridiculous sensuality.” For someone who spoke so poetically about love in the first half, he was creeping me out in the second half of this novel with his fixation on Faustine. For example, the narrator was to the point of thinking about either abducting her or risking his safety for her. Neither of those portrays true romance in my eyes.
I was also very interested in the narrator’s theories for what is happening to himself. At this point in the book I start to see more sanity in him than I was imagining this entire time. The novel set it up to look as though he was going crazy, and I fell right into the trap. The narrator had five theories for what could happen to him. I did think it was humorous that during the first half of the novel I myself set up three theories for what was happening to him. His first theory was that he was imagining the people, second was that he was invisible, third was that the beings were from another planet, fourth was that he was in an insane asylum, and fifth was that the intruders were a group of dead friends and he is the traveler. By the fifth theory I was laughing in my head and making jokes that this entire novel was going to end with him simply having the sixth sense and being able to see dead people. I suppose that joke came back to bite me too.
The point where the narrator understood that he must be dead and that the other beings are not viewing him, made me believe that he wasn’t the one with the problem. He understood the reality of the situation too well to be the insane one. I almost went along with his hypothesis that he was in hell, however he had previously stated how hot the weather was with two suns and hell is actually freezing. At this point I thought again that perhaps he was in purgatory. Then came his statement on page 58: “Now it seems that the real situation is not the one I described on the foregoing pages; the situation I am living is not what I think it is.” I don’t think the outcome of this novel would be what anyone would have guessed. In fact, I am not sure how much I liked it.
I like the overall idea of having a pleasant eternity. Morel invented a machine which will reproduce, record, and project a point in your life, in order to ensure a pleasant eternity. Therefore, Morel set up this week with friends so that they would be at their happiest for eternity. This entire time the narrator had been watching a recording. It is said that these images have souls. As everything oddly fell together I began thinking first about which day I would want to relive for my own pleasant eternity and secondly about how I would have rather had the novel end. At the point where the narrator said, “When minds of greater refinement that Morel’s begin to work on the invention, man will selected a lonely, pleasant place, will go there with the persons he loves most, and will endure in an intimate paradise,” I was thinking that I much rather would have read that book!
Overall, the turn of events in the last half of this novel definitely took me for a ride. It seemed as though the book switched from the narrator being the crazy one, to perhaps being the only sane one. At the same time, living on an island where you are viewing a projection of life instead of actually life, is bound to make anyone go a little crazy.
The end of the novel had a Romeo and Juliet feel for me, but it was hard for me to find it romantic. Instead I found it mostly eerie. I was surprised that he finally got what he wanted: eternity with Faustine. The novel ends with him adding himself into the recorded week. As he is experiencing the transition, the death, he states, “My soul has not yet passed to the image; if it had, I would have died, I (perhaps) would no longer see Faustine, and would be with her in a vision that no one can ever destroy.” I guess it is true what they say, love is blind!