The Disection of Morel

In the beginning of the Invention of Morel, I felt about as lost on my own Island of thought as the fugitive must have felt when he first arrived at his destination. Though after the pages started turning it was a task to stop reading. Upon reaching page 47 I had some unanswered question. Why does Adolfo keep referencing the phonograph? Why is it always playing at times when the visitor are there? Could the title of the book be simply referring to Morel in the sense of a human being? Or is it a literal invention?
Most of all though it doesn’t make sense that the fugitive can see and hear and sense Faustine and Morel, but why cant they return the favor? They have never even entertained the idea of conversing or interacting with the Fugitive. It's leading me to believe that Faustine and Morel are living on some different version of the island in a time and place where they can’t acknowledge him. The affect of the visitors is having a much more profound effect on the Fugitive , while he seems to have no affect on the whatsoever. For example on page 50 it reads, “I found some food, and began to wolf it down. Suddenly I stopped, for I had lost my appetite. No my pain is almost gone. I am more serene. I think, although I know it seems absurd, that perhaps they did not see me in the museum.” Now when I personally am hungry, so hungry that my eating convention reverts back to “wolf”, that’s not many things that can take my mind off my meal. The fugitive is obsessing so much over the presence of the visitors that it will completely turn off his appetite.


Its perfect foreshadowing of whats going to come to light later in the novel. Invention in the title is not refereing to the renasciance meaning of the term, but rather to a literal invention the Morel has made.