The invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares [45]
ALBERTO MORAVIA Boredom
ALBERTO MORAVIA Contempt
ALVARO MUTIS The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll
L. H. MYERS The Root and the Flower
DARCY O'BRIEN A Way of Life, Like Any Other
IONA AND PETER OPIE The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
BORIS PASTERNAK, MARINA TSVETAYEVA, AND RAINER MARIA RILKE Letters: Summer 1926
CESARE PAVESE The Moon and the Bonfires
CESARE PAVESE The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese
ANDREI PLATONOV The Fierce and Beautiful World
J. F. POWERS Morte d'Urban
J. F. POWERS The Stories of J. F. Powers
J. F. POWERS Wheat That Springeth Green
RAYMOND QUENEAU We Always Treat Women Too Well
RAYMOND QUENEAU Witch Grass
JEAN RENOIR Renoir, My Father
FR. ROLFE Hadrian the Seventh
WILLIAM ROUGHEAD Classic Crimes
DANIEL PAUL SCHREBER Memoirs of My Nervous Illness
JAMES SCHUYLER Alfred and Guinevere
LEONARDO SCIASCIA To Each His Own
LEONARDO SCIASCIA The Wine-Dark Sea
SHCHEDRIN The Golovlyov Family
GEORGES SIMENON Dirty Snow
GEORGES SIMENON Three Bedrooms in Manhattan
MAY SINCLAIR Mary Olivier: A Life
TESS SLESINGER The Unpossessed: A Novel of the Thirties
CHRISTINA STEAD Letty Fox: Her Luck
STENDHAL The Life of Henry Brulard
ITALO SVEVO As a Man Grows Older
A. J. A. SYMONS The Quest for Corvo
EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author
LIONEL TRILLING The Middle of the Journey
IVAN TURGENEV Virgin Soil
ROBERT WALSER Jakob von Gunten
ROBERT WALSER Selected Stories
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Lolly Willowes
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Mr. Fortune's Maggot and The Salutation
GLENWAY WESCOTT The Pilgrim Hawk
REBECCA WEST The Fountain Overflows
PATRICK WHITE Riders in the Chariot
EDMUND WILSON To the Finland Station
* * *
[1] Doubtful. He mentions a hill and several kinds of trees. The Ellice, or Lagoon, Islands are flat. The coconut is the only tree that grows in their coral sands. (Editor's Note.)
[2] He must have been living under coconut trees. Why, then, docs he not mention them? Is it possible he did not see them? Or is it more probable that, since they were diseased, the trees did not produce fruit? (Editor's Note.)
[3] He is mistaken. He omits the most important word: geminato (from geminatus: "coupled, duplicated, repeated, reiterated"). The phrase is: "... turn sole geminato, quod, ut e patre audivi, Tuditano et Aquilio consulibus evenerat; quo quidem anno P. Africanus sol alter extinctus est." Translation: The two suns that, as I heard from my father, were seen in the Consulate of Tuditanus and Aquilius, in the year (183 B.C.) when the sun of Publius Africanus was extinguished. (Editor's Note.)
[4] For the sake of clarity we have enclosed the material on the yellow pages in quotation marks; the marginal notes, written in pencil and in the same handwriting as the rest of the diary, are not set off by quotes. (Editor's Note.)
[5] The omission of the telegraph seems to be deliberate. Morel is the author of the
[6] Forever: as applied to the duration of our immortality: the machine, unadorned and of carefully chosen material, is more incorruptible than the Metro in Paris. (Morel's Note.)
[7] Under the epigraph
Come, Malthus, and in Ciceronian prose Show what a rutting Population grows, Until the produce of the Soil is spent, And Brats expire for lack of Aliment.
the author writes a lengthy apology, with eloquence and the traditional arguments, for Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Principle of Population. We have omitted it due to lack of space. (Editor's Note.)
[8] It does not appear at the beginning of the manuscript. Is this omission due to a loss of memory? There is no way to answer that question, and so, as in every doubtful place, we have been faithful to the original. (Editor's Note.)
[9] The theory of a superimposition of temperatures may not necessarily be false (even a small heater is unbearable on a summer day), but I believe that this is not the real reason. The author was on the island in spring; the eternal week was recorded in summer, and so, while functioning, the machines reflect the temperature of summer. (Editor's