The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

This haunting novella – sort of an ethereal counterpart to Wells’ Island of Doctor Moreau, inspired in part by the author’s fascination with Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel is the curious fable of a man lost on an island where he falls in love with the beautiful Faustine, who seems not to know he exists. It is small comfort that nobody else on the island seems to know he exists either. Is he a ghost? Are they? The answer to this riddle is gradually revealed to be something that resonates mightily with life as we know it, which is to say often not at all. How many of the people who matter most to you actually exist? I don’t have a whole lot of patience for metafictions that lend themselves to some handy symbolic reading about life, but they rarely seem as elegant and inviting as this. A good titles for Borges fans – he writes the prologue in the handsome nyrb classics edition that I read) – and for fans of folks like Paul Auster, Steven Millhauser, Haruki Murakami, and other dreamscapers.