The Moral behind Morel

The first book that we read as a class was "The invention of morel". The book has an element of psy fi to it because you face a man who got stuck on a mysterious island and who rights the book as somewhat of a journal of his life and his will. Then you have the the mysteriously appearing people who seem to have suppurb control over their emotions. Finally you have an editor who somehow got this book and works on questioning some of the points our castaway makes.

So what was kinda scary for me was the thought that like the appearing and disappearing people on the island we think we are living a life no knowledge of what is to come next, but maybe we are also just replying our lives over and over and people outside our realm see us as a video. Also the question of weather the soul was put into the projection arose when discussion the choices Morel made. He decided to make this friends and himself live forever through the projection, and after he made the projection he basically killed everyone with himself included. My first thought about it is that he was crazy and definitely unfair to his friends for making decissions about their life without their prior agreement. On the other hand if the projections did really make the people "live on" then who am i to say that it wasn't worth it. I feel like im looking into a mad scientist's mind and trying to understand all the sides to his ideas.

Another important aspect to mention when talking about the book is the authors obsession with a woman named Faustine. Her character most likely represent a famous actress of the time the book was written who the author probably admired in real life. Yet in the book the author tries to catch the attention of Faustine yet fails to do so. Then closer to the end he finds out that Faustine is just a projection and decides to add a new projection on top of the old one so that from an observers point of view it would look like they where a loving couple. What is interesting about the relationship is the author fell so passionately in love with Faustine to a point of stocking her practically every move, and although this seems like a creepy relationship it was better then the one he would have with the actual Faustine who was dead by the time of the arrival of the author on the island. So this projection of Faustine at least gave the author a chance to imagine the possibility of a relationship between the two.

Then later in class we watched Groundhog day and we discussed why Bill Murray doesn't come of as a creepy stoker while Borges' character does. I think that there are a couple of reasons for that some of which include the fact that Bill's character could actually interact with the characters in the reappearing day and could affect their actions and change them while the castaway could only manipulate the already existing image and only add a new image on top of the existing one. Plus Bill didn't come of as a stoker type who his in the bushes and watched his object of desire in secret. But then again it could just be because Bill is projected as a funny guy who the audience can relate to while the castaway is someone we know practically nothing about and we have no reason to like him.