Archiving Simulacra: The Invention of Reality in Adolfo Bioy Casares' La Invencion de Morel

Abstract

Adolfo Bioy Casares’ La Invención de Morel is a magical realist novel written in epistolary form that revolves around two characters: the anonymous narrator/author, and the scientist Morel, whose invention preserves reality by virtue of its ability to create perfect copies. Bioy Casares’ concern with the difference between subjective and objective reality, and the role of representation, anticipates Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern theories about a simulated reality in Simulacra and Simulations. Through an analysis of character and Morel’s machine, as well as an integration of Baudrillard’s ideas, my research explores how La Invención de Morel calls into question our assumptions about the relationship between what we perceive to be reality and its representation. My research also examines the paradoxical aspect of magical realist literature in that it both creates mistrust in the mediums of image and language, as well as uses them to correct our assumptions about history or the world through the process of archiving. This research is useful in that it reminds us to question the means by which we communicate and perceive truths.