SOURCE: "Spatiality in the Novel: Theoretical and Formal Considerations in La invención de Morel," in La Chispa '83: Selected Proceedings, edited by Gilbert Paolini, Tulane University, 1983, pp. 255-62.

[Snook is an educator. In the following essay, originally presented at the fourth annual Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures at Tulane University in February 1983, she explains the uses of spatiality in The Invention of Morel, demonstrating the novella's metafictional quality.]

La invención de Morel, written by Bioy Casares in 1940, demonstrates a modern awareness of the functions of spatial properties in the apprehension and depiction of form and a preoccupation with the application of spatial techniques to the novel. This complex interest in spatiality is manifested on three levels in the text: on the linguistic level, through the expressive function of the narrator's discourse which reveals a notable spatial consciousness; on the thematic level, through the narrator's theoretical commentaries and judgmental assertions on the nature of art and narrative; and finally, on the structural level, through the pictorial arrangement of the material. This article will consider all three levels of spatial awareness, beginning with the spatial orientation evidenced by the narrator in his patterns of expression.

La invención de Morel is written in the form of a diary by an anonymous fugitive from justice, a writer by profession, who seeks to escape the Venezuelan authorities by hiding on a mysterious Pacific Island. Due to his preoccupation with confinement and freedom, the narrator reacts keenly to space and is very cognizant of such spatial concepts as distance, depth, polarity, perspective or angle of vision and enclosure. This concern is revealed in the initial entries of the narrator's diary, which delineate the imaginary boundaries drawn between his living space and that of the strange, anachronic island inhabitants he observes from afar. Furthermore, the description of the interior of the museo, the building which houses the island inhabitants, contains specific dimensional details that highlight the opposition between freedom and confinement. While the use of measurements that fix limits enhances the image of reduced and restricted space, the use of massive or monumental proportions and repetitive numerical references conveys the illusion of infinity by suggesting a transcendency beyond normal spatial boundaries or countless duplication of objects. The illusion of infinity is also suggested by the multipling object, such as the mirror, which blurs spatial limits by reproducing seemingly endless reflections of the original:

Las ventanas, con sus vidrios azules, alcanzarían al piso alto de mi casa natal. Cuatro cálices de alabastro, en que podrían esconderse cuatro medias docenas de hombres, irradian luz eléctrica.

Entré en una cámara poliédrica—parecida a unos refugios contra bombardeos, que vi en el cinematógrafo—con las paredes recubiertas por chapas de dos tipos—unas de un material como el corcho, otras de mármol—simétricamente distribuídas. Di un paso: por arcadas de piedra, en ocho direcciones, vi repetirse, como en espejos, ocho veces la misma cámara. [La invención de Morel]

The contrastive pattern of dimensional demarcation evident in the descriptive details that recreate the interior of the museo reveals from the outset the narrator's spatial orientation to his world and his narrative act. At the same time, his fascination with optical effects that suggest infinity reveals his inner desire to find an avenue of escape from the spatial restrictions that can limit the possibilities of man's existence.

The narrator's strong spatial orientation to his world, resulting in part from his role as observer, is also emphasized through other means, notably the frequent use of adverbs of location (i.e., cerca, hacia) and the use of the verbs which trace the directional movement of the characters (i.e., subir, bajar, acercarse) or depict some restricted, circumscribed movement in space. Other frequently used verbs, ver and mirar, call attention to the narrator's characteristic activities as witness and perceiver:

Me rodearon los mismos pasos, de cerca y de lejos.

..…

Exagero: miro con alguna fascinación—hace tanto que no veo gente—a estos abominables intrusos; pero sería imposible mirarlos a todas horas….

The narrator's spatial awareness is further exhibited in his tendency to describe or fix his location in relationship to that of other characters or objects, thus establishing different planes in space equivalent to foreground and background as well as the different architectonic categories of inner and outer space. Markers of ordination, such as the prepositions desde and detrás, underscore the narrator's peripheral presence and his role as observer.

His relative position in space also assumes a psychological symbolic importance, for the narrator equates superiority with a high degree of physical elevation. Thus it is significant to note the text's repeated references to the islander's advantageous location on the hill top and the narrator's precarious position in the coastal marshes. The narrator's initial encounter with Faustine, one of the island inhabitants, is also deemed a disaster because she views him from a higher plane in space:

Lo arruiné todo: ella miraba el atardecer y bruscamente surgi detrás de unas piedras. Bruscamente e hirsuto, y visto desde abajo, debi de aparecer con mis atributos de espanto acrecentados.

When the narrator plans his next encounter with Faustine, he decides to appear from the rocks above her so as to create a more favorable impression:

Entonces, para postergar el momento de hablarle, descubrí una antigua ley psicológica. Me convenía hablar desde un lugar alto, que permitiera mirar desde arriba. Esta mayor elevación material contrarrestaría, en parte, mis inferioridades.

The narrator also seeks to capture the illusory effects produced by relative position in space. The elongation or distortion in size of the island inhabitants, for example, may be attributed in part to the fact that the narrator views them from below, and they consequently appear to tower above him: "Los intrusos están en lo alto de la colina y para quien los espía desde aquí son como gigantes fugaces."

Thus far, we have seen how the narrator's role as fugitive and outside observer has affected his reaction to space and his awareness of the functions of certain spatial properties in the apprehension of form. This level of spatial awareness was rendered primarily on the linguistic level through the use of certain patterns of expression. However, the narrator's role as writer also affects his spatial concepts and explains his artistic interest in the functions of spatial properties in the creation and perception of pictorial and narrative forms. This level of spatial awareness is conveyed through the narrator's descriptive discourse which includes theoretical commentaries and judgemental assertions that address implicitly the issue of virtual spatiality or the relationship between painting, sculpture, and literature.

The best example of the narrator's awareness of the spatial characteristic of art and narrative can be found in a key episode of the novel in which he creates a portrait out of flowers. He depicts a scene in which he is kneeling before a woman who represents Faustine.

Later, the narrator discovers that Faustine and the other mysterious island inhabitants are three-dimensional images created by the scientist Morel in an attempt to achieve immortality for himself and his friends. Unfortunately, the photographic process which produces the life-like holographic images destroys living tissue, thereby causing the death of all those photographed. The narrator, consequently, is in love with the image of a woman who has died long before his arrival on the island.

Although a writer, the narrator attempts to communicate the story of his love to the oblivious Faustine primarily through visual means, combining pictorial elements with poetic narrative. Thus he conveys his meaning through techniques borrowed from the plastic arts: color, shape, posture, and, above all, dimension. The narrator depicts Faustine's spiritual superiority and importance through size, creating her figure three times larger than his own: "Estoy de perfil, arrodillado. Soy diminuto (un tercio del tamaño de la mujer) y verde, hecho de hojas."

This technique evokes the medieval sculpture system of symbolic scale according to which Christ was depicted as larger than other figures in order to convey his spiritual transcendency.

The use of the number three in the scale of dimensional proportions attributed to Faustine's image further underscores the narrator's conceptual indebtedness to sculpture as it creates an analogical link with the sculptured gods in the dining room of the museo, which are, according to the narrator, "tres veces más grandes que un hombre."

The narrator encounters difficulty from the beginning in completing his floral project as it is impossible for him to capture the visual illusion of depth or write the lengthy inscription originally chosen because of the limitations imposed by his floral medium:

Imaginativamente no cuesta más una mujer sentada, con las manos enlazadas sobre una rodilla, que una mujer de pie; hecha de flores, la primera es casi imposible.

..…

He modificado la inscripción. La primera me salió demasiado larga para hacerla con flores.

The narrator's comments on the garden scene allude to the artist's need to consider the inherent spatial and temporal properties of his medium before determining the direction of his work. The development of a story, which implies progressive movement in time, cannot be completely conveyed through visual means; hence the narrator's need of the inscription. On the other hand, the verbal image of narrative, perceived in time as a succession of words, lacks the mimetic potential of the visual image which is perceived in its entirely in one moment of time. For this reason, the narrator favors the pictorial approach for his purpose. Despite its limited success, the narrator's pictorial experiment does explore the problems of representation in art and the difficulties that arise when spatial techniques are utilized with narrative intent.

Subsequent observations, which implicitly compare the narrator's literary and visual portrayals of Faustine to the image created by Morel, suggest that the narrator, either as writer or artist, cannot successfully reproduce with the two dimensional written or pictorial scene the three dimensional reality captured by Morel's sculpturesque images: "Un hombre solitario no puede hacer máquinas ni fijar visiones, salvo en la forma trunca de escribirlas o dibujarlas, para otros, más afortunados."

The narrator's consciousness of spatial functions in the perception of art forms is also evident in his comments on the effects of aesthetic distance which he conceives as the product of the relational planes between perceiver and object of perception. The degree to which the viewer stands apart from or is immersed in the work of art influences his perspective and comprehension of that object, as the narrator's remarks on his garden scene clearly indicate: "Desde el trabajo no podía preverse la obra concluída; sería un desordenado conjunto de flores o una mujer, indistintamente."

The narrator's observations, which implicitly consider the artist's and writer's similar concern with problems of perspective, distance, and dimensionality in character portrayal, present, on the theoretical level, the question of virtual spatiality, that is, the relationship of written scene to painting and characterization to sculpture. However, the novel's interest in virtual spatiality is also reflected on the compositional or formal level and is manifested most notably in the use of the frame narrative or structure of recession. The manuscript written by the scientist Morel, in which he explains his invention, is enclosed within the diary of the narrator. The narrator acts as editor commenting on Morel's style and content. The narrator's diary, in turn, is enclosed within the critical edition of the fictitious editor who duplicates the narrator's role as critic by commenting on the content of the narrator's story.

The organization of La invención de Morel on three discourse levels or strata, each of which produces an inverted reflection of the preceding narrative segment, underscores the text's pictorial arrangement of plot. With such a technique, the spatial aspect of each narrative segment is emphasized "as it becomes the background or recessed element of a larger narrative" [according to Joseph Kestner, in his The Spatiality of the Novel, 1978].

While demonstrating the novel's painterly interest in the simultaneous existence of an image on different planes in space, the structure of recession also reflects the work's concern with the nature of reality. The pictorial structure of the frame narrative is especially effective in portraying the novel's hypothesis of the coexistence of parallel worlds which duplicate one another. This hypothesis is apparent at the conclusion of the novel when the narrator discovers Morel's invention and decides to create his own disc which he superimposes on the original disc created by Morel. The act of enclosure whereby the narrator encompasses Morel's world of images within his own is then duplicated by the narrator's written act of enclosure when he places Morel's writings within the pages of his diary.

The awareness of spatial form, evidenced in the development of the external structure of enclosure, is also present in the internal ordering of the novel's events. Although written in the form of a diary, considerations other than those which are strictly temporal influenced the process of linkage between entries. The first two entries, for example, begin with the fictional present of the narrator and then revert back to earlier events which constitute expositional material. This expositional material is reintroduced and developed in the last chapter or entry so that the conclusion of the sujet coincides with the beginning of the story. Although this process has a psychological justification, we are more interested in the formal implications. The delayed and dispersed disclosure of expositional material breaks the novel's linear pattern of progressive development and contradicts the precept of one directional, irreversional flow of time. Instead, the cyclic nature of time, with its emphasis on the simultaneity of past, present, and future, is conveyed through the arrangement of the material.

Repeated references to recurrent patterns in nature, such as the change of seasons, the movement of the tides, and the cycle of day and night, reinforce the spatial image of the circle and contribute to the reader's synchronic comprehension of the novel's internal structure as a circular configuration. The omission of the dates for the diary entries or the absence of numbers for the chapters that constitute the narrator's story, underscore the novel's attempt to blur the sequential order of events and to emphasize the timeless world into which the narrator and Morel have been placed.

The fragmentary development of plot, which interrupts the continuity of flow, and the repetition of similar details, events, and lines of discourse, which cause the reader to lose track of chronological forward moving time, further obscure the progressive function of the chapter or entry. By thus concealing its temporal construct, such factors enhance the novel's spatial secondary illusion.

The novel's continuity of flow is also obscured or interrupted by the technique of reflexive reference which causes the reader to look back and reinterpret previous scenes rather than proceed forward. Such an interreferential technique, preemeninently spatial, is typical of the detective or mystery story on which the narrative strategy of La invención de Morel is based. As a result of this deductive approach, the reader duplicates the process of discovery in which the narrator-detective is engaged by formulating diverse hypotheses and modifying them as additional data is gathered. This reversibility in the act of comprehension is a property usually associated with the spatial arts and is a technical feature which helps produce the spatial secondary illusion of the novel.

The narrator's frequent contradictions and vacillations and the mutually exclusive hypotheses advanced by the narrator and editor also serve to retard or obscure the progressive function and cause-effect sequence of the chapters or entries. By thus denying the existence of any one privileged voice or point of view, the text becomes [according to Maribel Tamargo, in "La invención de Morel: Lectura y Lectores," Revista Iberoamericana 96-7 (1976)] a field of allusion lacking a center and a clear directional flow of events; all that transpires is produced "como el efecto de la articulación de ciertos elementos."

The tendency to efface sequential order and to link together nonconsecutive events, evidenced on the level of the episode, chapter, or scene, is also manifested in smaller structural units on the syntactical level. Most notably, the narrator demonstrates a marked propensity toward the use of parenthetical expressions, which lead to the juxtapositioning of two different time periods in the same sentence. [In a footnote, the critic adds: "This technique affords another sample of the narrator's fascination with the visual and written act of enclosure."] Ordinarily, the author utilizes these parenthetical digressions to extend into the fictional present time of the narration past emotional oscillations.

In conclusion, this brief study of La invención de Morel has focused its attention on the novel's interest in the role of spatiality in the temporal medium of literature. This interest was seen demonstrated on the linguistic level, through the expressive function of the narrator's descriptive discourse, on the thematic level through the text's critical commentaries on art and fiction, and on the formal level through the use of the structure of enclosure. Together, these textual components convey a message to the reader about the nature of narrative and the functions of spatiality in the art of writing.