Customer Reviews (2)

More than a biography
First of all, I was surprised with this robust hardcover. More than 1600 pages, making it uneasy to read it as we do with most of the books. But it is an extraordinary portrait of the Argentine cultural life in almost forty years of friendship between two great intellectuals . Reading through pages we can meet Borges, family and friends as they really are, in daily conversations about almost everything. I was admired with Bioy capacity of registering detailed discussions, and document Borges perspective on poetry, prose, writers and polititians. A wonderful book.

Deflating the master while providing much new incident and anecdote regarding him
This brief review is based on the information and analysis given in the review of David Gallagher which appeared in the Times Literary Supplement.
In this massive diary Borges is revealed to be a systematic debunker of many of the greats of world- literature. This is in total contradiction to the generally admiring way he writes about Literary figures in his own stories, and poems. And it in a sense works to undermine the 'image' most readers have of him as reader and lover of Literature.
Secondly, Bioy reveals in this work Borges' awkwardness and lack of success with women. Borges is shown in this regard as a ridiculous figure. He is also revealed to be a bit of a misogynist as he speaks of women as 'incapable of abstract thought'.
Thirdly , we are always eager to know more about the great geniuses. Borges is unquestionably one of the great literary geniuses of the twentieth century. His way of writing and perceiving the world, and of understanding literature and life changes , or may change the way we read the whole tradition of world- literature. Thus there is a tremendous amount of material here which will be gobbled up by Borges' many fans.
However Gallagher says that there are no real insights into Borges work. This has to be viewed as a major shortcoming.
Gossip can be fun, and this diary is full of literary gossip. But the work in making Borges seem an ungenerous ingrate to many writers also diminishes him.
Perhaps part of this is Bioy's own hidden rivalry with his best friend, collaborator,who nonetheless was on another level entirely when it came to literary creation.

... Read more

Book Description
Jorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of The Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Set on a mysterious island, Bioy's novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious.

Inspired by Bioy Casares's fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel has gone on to live a secret life of its own. Greatly admired by Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz, the novella helped to usher in Latin American fiction's now famous postwar boom. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year in Marienbad, it also changed the history of film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Excellent read!
If you want something to think about, how do you really feel about immortality?

A great recommendation.
I am a big fan of the short stories by Jorge Luis Borges. As such, Amazon kept suggesting I would enjoy this book by Casares. From time to time Amazon's system can really make annoying recommendations (I like Hamlet, so for a month, I had 300 plays by Shakespeare on my recommended page).

At first glance I thought this was a simple, he-likes-Spanish-language-authors-so-lets-recommend-another recommendation. But the similarity goes deeper. If you like Borges, I believe you will find that this books shares a similar ethos. There is a haunting quality to the protagonist's lonliness and longing.

So if you like Borges, I think you will be pleasantly surprised by Adolfo Bioy Casares and THE INVENTION OF MOREL.

Amazing Amazon information
Concordances, funny phrases, surprise pages but:

The illustrator is not Levine.
The illustrator is Borges de Torre.
Levine is the author of the Introduction.

One would expect that booksellers and book reviewers can read and write... However, some reviews found in the web claim, incorrectly, that Levine is either the translator or that she revised Simms's translation. Others list the author as Casares rather than as Bioy Casares. Sure ABC is laughing while rolling in his tomb: notice his parents humour in naming him Adolf so his initials would be ABC, as known to his friends. What better for a writer?

Scifi novel of ideas
Praised by many writers, this is a novel akin to films like "The Outsiders" or "The Sixth Sense" in that it centers around a fantastic explanation for the odd happenings over the course of the story. The explanation is so verbose and unnecessarily detailed for the function of plot alone that it purposefully strays into philosophy and how we perceive the world and interact with others. Insightful aphorisms dot the narration. The major fault I find with novels of this sort (and I believe many of the European writers are kin, like Kundera and Calvino) is that they fail to tie their mechanical plot symmetries to lifelike characters. Instead their characters talk in robotlike voices, vaguely imitating real people without the unique inflections of lifelike individuals. These authors have the imagination but not the mimetic skill to make fiction come to life. So reading them is like watching a puppet play, interesting for the plot convolutions but ultimately emotionally detached.

Some Great Ideas Poorly Executed
As in H.G. Well's The Island of Dr. Moreau, a man finds himself on an island not as abandoned as it looks -a scientist has been at work on this island as well. A thought provoking work falling somewhere between science fiction and magic realism, The Invention of Morel tackles our image based culture and our obsessions with figures who we repeatedly see, but never know.Can something of the soul be captured on film?Can we lose our souls through devotion to an image?Does the eternal now of a captured moment bestow immortality?And how real is that captured moment anyway? All good stuff this; however, this book at times also greatly disappoints.Despite its brevity, it is prone to dragging and on occasion is too obvious to master the suspense which Bioy Casares has attempted to create. Bioy Casares' technique (original in 1940 and highly praised by Borges in the volume's prologue) has been made disappointingly obvious to a new generation of readers raised on such programs as the Twilight Zone and who are more than familiar with meta-worlds and technologically created simulacrum.The novel greatly improves when these devices are dispensed.The criminal madness and paranoia of the novel's narrator also creates the unfortunate effect of either discounting his observations and insights or, if accepted, implicating the reader as a fellow paranoid fugitive trapped in a world of empty images.Yes, we may be trapped in such a world, but we are hardly as histrionic about it. ... Read more

Book Description
Lucio, a normal man in a normal (nosy) city neighborhood with normal problems with his wife (not the easiest person to get along with) and family and job (he lost it) finds he has a much bigger problem: his wife is a dog. At first, it doesn't seem like such a problem, because the German shepherd inhabiting his wife's body is actually a good deal more agreeable than his wife herself, now occupying the body of the same German shepherd in a mental hospital run by scientists who, it appears, have designs on the whole neighborhood. But then Lucio has a sense, however confused, of what's right, which is an even bigger problem yet.
Asleep in the Sun is the great work of the Argentine master Adolfo Bioy Casares's later years. Like his legendary Invention of Morel, it is an intoxicating mixture of fantasy, sly humor, and menace. Whether read as a fable of modern politics, a meditation on the elusive parameters of the self, or a most unusual love story, Bioy's book is an almost scarily perfect comic turn, as well as a pure delight. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

asleep
Really excellent - captures the Argentine personality. The book jacket blurb is misleading - this book is really about identity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cien anos de soledad (en espanol).
This is the most fascinating book one has ever read before. This book tells us about the only thing, which is interesting for a human being - solitute. Tne iternal solitute. The auther explains that all man's efforts to imporove his own nature a re in vain, if you do not comprehend the nature of his own solitude. This book brough me the enourmous sadness. This should be so. Also, I'd like to note, that we, in USA, do not encourage, young man, who long to read such beautiful books, likes Marquez's "100 anos de soledad". Our government should encourage young talents (gifted)and provide us with "100 .." free. That's all. Thanx. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Boswell's friend
"Palabra de Bioy" is a small masterpiece of Latinoamerican non-fiction. Lopez's book, like Boswell's "Life of Johnson", is exact in method narrative, profound in theme, an full of delights at all levels. The settings and themes of the boock are various: the limits of artistic creation; the poetry and the "tango"; Jorge Luis Borges; the ferocity of the politic in Argentina; and many others very interesting chapters.
This book includes not only information, but also the essence of Adolfo Bioy Casares, the great Argentinian writer. Excellent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In the great Latin American Tradition
Bioy Casares moves effortlessly from reality to fantasy. This collection of short stories are often grotesque, sometimes surreal, but always entertaining. Particularly read "Margarita" and "The Travel Diary" ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Letras Libres, published by Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V. on August 1, 1999. The length of the article is 1218 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: La invención de Bioy.(Adolfo Bioy Casares, autor; obra literaria)(TT: Bioy's invention.)(TA: Adolfo Bioy Casares, author; literary work)(Columna)
Author: Alejandro Rossi
Publication: Letras Libres (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 1999
Publisher: Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V.
Volume: 1Issue: 8Page: 40

Article Type: Columna

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