Magical Realism-What is it?

[Raven Falcon.]

I know not of many genres, Magical Realism being one of them.

Why magical?

Or, why is magical put next to realism? Is it supposed to be some manner of juxtaposition?

Why not just categorize everything that has been categorized under magical realism under the genre of FANTASY, for fantasy is less an oxymoron and confusing term?

I am truly confounded and hence, your help desperately I need.

For explanatory precision, here are five guiding questions:

1) Why is magical realism distinguished from surrealism, when both genres contain elements of unreality?

2) As far I am able reason, every notion of unreality, magic especially, falls under the roof of fantasy; so how different is magical realism from fantasy to justify the differentiation between them?

3) The term 'realism' implies that the genre of magical realism is very much rooted in reality. To justify this, however, we must establish or search for some sort of relationship link between the two genres; it is obvious that comparing a seminal work of magical realism and of extreme realism would be best. Example: Are there similar elements between One Hundred Years of Solitude and War and Peace? (Homogeneous elements lead to heterogeneous elements)

4) What makes magical realism interesting compared to fantasy books like Lord of the Ring and Harry Potter?

5) Every literary genre has its corresponding in visual arts. Are there example paintings that portray magical realism? If you know of any, do post it here, please.


IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION: As of the current, I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude; it is my first magical realism book; after reading the first 10 or so pages, it strikes me as a fantasy book written for children.

Magical realism and children do not yield a result that is not paradoxical to the genre. ( Because the 'term magical realism' sounds deep)

Hereby I end my verbalized wonder with a simple thank you to all who come here, bringing the candle of your thoughts.

THANK YOU

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Here, read this. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_realism)

As for your questions (all of the answers should be mentally prefaced by me saying, "From what I've read, it seems..."):

1. The surreal elements of are more subtle than full blown surrealism or absurdism. Usually the reader must decide for himself if what he read really happened, or if the narrator is just a nut. Midnight's Children is a good example.

2. "Fantasy" connotes many things, usually including at least one of the following: medeival--or some other old-timey--setting (probably the most essential characteristic), swords, magic, dragons, different races (dwarves, elves, orca, etc.), etc. Magical realism will usually be set in modern times. The biggest difference, thought, is that while one can be questionable about what actually takes place in a magical realist novel (as in what is described to the reader) that usually isn't the case with fantasy; the dragons, magic, and orcs are real and perfectly suited to that world. One doesn't stop and ask, "Hmm, I wonder if he's really riding a dragon or just having a hallucination?" That "fitness" is not usually characteristic of magical realism, i.e., while dragons and magic won't seem odd in a fantasy novel, the magical elements in a magical realist novel will.

3. Don't know, I've read neither.

4. For the comparisons of genres, see answer to numbed 2. As to if you find it more interesting, that's up to you, no? Kind of a silly question, because it's just about personal taste.

5. I don't know. I'm sure a member more familiar with visual arts like StLukes or Charles Darnay will be able to answer. Salvador Dali may fit into the magical realist genre, but he's more surreal than anything.

[Darcy88]

I thought that in surrealism everything is bizarre and unreal, but in magical realism the context is normal but within that normality are incidents or facts that are individually bizarre and unreal.

In fantasy the whole world is fantastic. In magical realism the world conforms to OUR conventions but fantastic things happen.

Edit: Never mind. Mutatis just explained it all way better and more thoroughly than I did.

[AlysonofBathe]

I think the Wikipedia article is an excellent start. Just like all things in literary theory, there really is no strict definition, only loose guidelines. I've always viewed magical realism as a bit of a hybrid, and while that juxtaposition can seem contradictory, done well it can be beautifully ambiguous.

I'd recommend Salman Rushdie; most of his books have an element of magical realism.

Cheers,
Alyson

[JBI]

If you want our thoughts, first give us your impression. I am not a homework machine.

[Darcy88]

If you want our thoughts, first give us your impression. I am not a homework machine.

Never even occurred to me that it was a homework assignment. For the love of humanity I hope those are not verbatim the actual questions the member was assigned.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

If you want our thoughts, first give us your impression. I am not a homework machine.

If he asked this question because it was a homework assignment, I will be thoroughly pissed for giving such an answer. Upon rereading the questions, they dint sound like homework question but genuine curiosity.

[Charles Darnay]

Just like all things in literary theory, there really is no strict definition, only loose guidelines.

Just so.

Works like Rushdie's "Huron and the Sea of Stories" is a literal blend of reality and fantasy, where works by Allende for example are heightened reality, where the "magic realism" comes through the writing more than the content.

Then you have writers like Italo Calvino, who utilize both extremes of "magic realism." In fact, I think if you want an understanding of "magic realism" read Invisible Cities....or just read Invisible Cities anyway, because it is one of the best books ever written.

[Charles Darnay]

If he asked this question because it was a homework assignment, I will be thoroughly pissed for giving such an answer. Upon rereading the questions, they dint sound like homework question but genuine curiosity.

Isn't it said that this is what it's come to?

But given this poster's history, I side with you on genuine curiosity.

[Raven Falcon.]

Isn't it said that this is what it's come to?

But given this poster's history, I side with you on genuine curiosity.

It is a genuine curiosity; it has nothing to do with homework. I happened to pick up One Hundred Years of Solitude two days ago at a bookstore because it was cheap.

I did check Wikipedia, but I need an analogy.

Thank you again.

[JCamilo]

Magic Realism is an irony. Unlike Surrealism which was a proposal of perception change or reality, the idea of Magic Realism (hardly a genre or a movement like Surrealism) is a language game with the realism of XIX century. The "Magical" is not always magical, sometimes just paradoxal ideas presented on the history. You may define it as fantasy (as it is by itself a undefinied genre, after all horror is fantasy) if you want, Calvino used fantastic.

1 - Because they are not the same thing. Borges, one of the "founders" of magical realism never linked himself with surrealism and never considered psychological explanations inside someone mind as source of strangeness in the world. For him the universe was strange enough, more than it, reality (which he denied) was strange. More than this, magical realism was never a modernist movement (or sort of it)

2 - Like I said, fantasy is a problematic sense. Guys like Borges and Marquez do not give a damn about genres, but insist that the line between fantasy and reality in literature is thin, so they care little.

3 - Yes, Magical realism is written in realistc script. Marquez claimed that all he wrote was real, for example. The difference is that one (tolstoy) aimde the represent reality, Marquez to suggest reality.

4 - Because, the questions proposed are more rich than just creating hyper fantasy which abuse of my patience with mundane magic. For example, Magic in Harry Potter is said to be rare, but it is present all the time. Compare it with a Man who never forgets anything. In Lord of the Rings the fictional reacreation of past mythologies is obviously very different from a world where everyone got blind.

5 - Does it?

[JBI]

magic in fantasy is taken to be actually a possibility. Magic in magical realism instead functions as metaphor. The distinction is, however, shaky at best.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

magic in fantasy is taken to be actually a possibility. Magic in magical realism instead functions as metaphor.

I think that's pretty much what I said.

The distinction is, however, shaky at best.

I'm not sure it is. I've rarely read fantasy, a genre almost whose main purpose is almost always to purely entertain, and when a dragon shows up or a wizard casts a spell do I ponder the "deeper message" that may be trying to be sent.


It is a genuine curiosity; it has nothing to do with homework. I happened to pick up One Hundred Years of Solitude two days ago at a bookstore because it was cheap.

I did check Wikipedia, but I need an analogy.

Thank you again.

You're going to have to be clearer on what you want to know. What kind of analogy? You've received several answers as to what magical realism is, and good ones to boot. What more is there to explain?

[JCamilo]

The definition of fantasy is not settled. 1001 Nights, Alice in Wonderlands, Grimm's and all faery tales, Guilliver Travels, etc all can be called Fantasy. (The very idea that fantasy was something silly for kids and fun only was a XIX quest for realism and maturity, which Magic Realism denied; but then, the horror genre is a spawn of fantasy, the gothic genre, science fiction genre, even detective stories have roots on some fantasy tales).

I do not agree with JBI definition. Borges is mainly an explorer of possibilities and Fantasy works massively with metaphors, allegories, etc. Not that magic is a prime element on Magic Realism, but the idea is not like fantasy suggests about another magical world, but rather than the real world as the authors of realism presented is also magic and a fantasy (Conrad suggests it for example, and he is one of the forefathers of magic realism).

[stlukesguild]

The definition of fantasy is not settled. 1001 Nights, Alice in Wonderlands, Grimm's and all faery tales, Guilliver Travels, etc all can be called Fantasy. (The very idea that fantasy was something silly for kids and fun only was a XIX quest for realism and maturity, which Magic Realism denied; but then, the horror genre is a spawn of fantasy, the gothic genre, science fiction genre, even detective stories have roots on some fantasy tales).

I quite agree with this. Beyond the obvious examples of "fantasy" one might also include books like The Odyssey, Gilgamesh, The Bible, The Aeneid, the Comedia, Orlando Furioso, The Shanameh, etc... I would also point out that it was not merely Magic Realism that rejected the notion that the fantastic or magical or unreal were something to be reserved for children (that Alice in Wonderland or the Arabian Nights were children's books) but I would also note that the rejection of realism and the employment of the fantastic were also elements of Surrealism, Expressionism (Hesse, Kafka, Bulgakov...) etc...

If there is/was any "tyranny of the novel" (as JBI suggested) it might lie here in this emphasis upon realism... including the predominance of the literal and the avoidance of the figurative.

[Raven Falcon.]

Can somebody write a paragraph that would fit a magical realism prose?

[JCamilo]

Magical realism paragraph: Garcia Marquez discovered how to write after reading Kafka Metamorphosis translated by Borges.


[COLOR="DarkRed"]

I quite agree with this. Beyond the obvious examples of "fantasy" one might also include books like The Odyssey, Gilgamesh, The Bible, The Aeneid, the Comedia, Orlando Furioso, The Shanameh, etc... I would also point out that it was not merely Magic Realism that rejected the notion that the fantastic or magical or unreal were something to be reserved for children (that Alice in Wonderland or the Arabian Nights were children's books) but I would also note that the rejection of realism and the employment of the fantastic were also elements of Surrealism, Expressionism (Hesse, Kafka, Bulgakov...) etc...

If there is/was any "tyranny of the novel" (as JBI suggested) it might lie here in this emphasis upon realism... including the predominance of the literal and the avoidance of the figurative.

Yes, even Quixote appeal to realism, which is something quite prosaic. Since Magical Realism is not really a movement (Borges, who was already an anti-literary movement kind of guy, always found funny the idea that he made up something with people he didnt know) indentified this feeling of reality/fiction on his writtings coming from Kafka, Conrad, Stevenson.

The denial of reality was already fashionable in the end of XIX century, even a very realistic Tchekhov was getting ride of the manacles of french realism, with some short of literary expressionism. (The entire painting reaction to the invention of photography is another good example). What those guys basically did was taking the Dickens (and other) fantastic urban narratives and place the fantastic that was usually "distant", "rural", "african" "south seas" "arabian", "exotic" and place on their cities. So we have Kafka doing it, Meyrink Golem doing it, Borges doing it, Joyce doing it, Breton, etc. This way they could be reliable, affect the public of novels or journals and yet, use their metaphors and linguistic game to play with literature.

[Des Essientes]

That Magical Realism is not a movement is amply demonstrated by the fact that its seminal work, One Hundred Years of Solitude was published in 1967, eight years after another masterpiece in the same genre called The Tin Drum was published. Both of these novels are Magical Realism because although the stories are set the real worlds of Columbia and Kashubia they nonetheless contain weird magical elements without being fantastical often enough too make the novels seem less than realistic. A boy, whose a voice that can shatter any glass, who wills himself not to grow, and a tropical virginal Helen that ascends into heaven, make the stark realities of Facism in Central Europe and colonialism in Colombia fun without ever making them seem less than real.
As for comparing One Hundred Years of Solitude with War and Peace, one must point out right away that Tolstoy has absolutely no magical occurences in War and Peace, and there is even a part of the novel wherein the young brother of Natasa, having run off to fight the French despite his very young age, indulges in some day dreaming that casts a magical veil over the landscape in his mind. (If I remember correctly Tolstoy has him thinking of how the scene before him leads down into treasure filled caverns populated with magical dwarves or something like that.) Tolstoy, being a Social Realist and not a Magical one, immediately has the reality of war end this boys' musing. In the next paragraph he is killed. There is no magic in War and Peace, nor is there alot of humor and One Hundred Years of Solitude has humor in abundance.
Perhaps Magical Realism sprung up in literature in the latter part of the 20th century because, by then, the truths about mechanized war, colonialism and mass insanity had become just too bleak to write about without adding in a bit of magic.

[the facade]

If you want an example in the visual arts, I suggest you watch Andrzej Wajda's (a polish director) "Ashes and Diamonds". Reading the definitions here, this movie comes to mind and is a fine example of it. Furthermore, it is a damn good movie by its own right.

[castleteachings]

read gabriel Marquez's 'of love and other demons'. You'll soon understand. I have written about the book here: http://castleteachings.blogspot.com/

[ennison]

This was an interesting thread that I don't think I ever read before. I was very impressed by The Tin Drum when I read it as a teenager. And it's only now that it has occurred to me that it could be classified as magical realist. Duh. I've enjoyed everything that I have read by Grass. What would the Gormenghast trilogy by Peake be? It's not the usual kind of fantasy. There are as it goes on more references to "real-world" settings.

[JCamilo]

I would be carefull with using Magic Realism in literature for authors outside Latin America every chance we get. There are obviously authors that are under Marquez, Cortazar, Borges, etc influence so they write with this style, but since the Latim-American Boom is from 60's Peake is not one of them. I didnt read those books, but the setting (in a fictional world, etc), seems to already rule out the trilogy. The usual settings for magic realism is the real, reckognizable world (see the distinction JBI gave, works here, since fantastic in Magic Realism is often deals with ideas. Also, much of magic realism was build on the multicultural diversity of latin america, since Alejo Carpentier first books.

[ennison]

That is true but the technical terms tend to be created after the fact. John Hawkes did not sit down saying "I'm going to write a post-modern novel". Lewis Caroll did not sit down saying "This is going to be a surreal tour de force." Meta-fiction would have been an unknown concept to Lawrence Sterne. Yet when one examines certain works they can be seen clearly to fit into or be precursors for a later group of texts that belong in a certain school/ genre etc . Even if the authors were unknown to each other. While Magical Realism might be more naturally thought of as Latin American there are texts from outside that geographical area that will display many of the same features so it is handy to think of them under the same heading.

[JCamilo]

Carpentier actually used another term (realismo maravilhoso, marvelous realism) but Magic Realism kind worked and writers were lumped on it as a way to make them more easy to be spotted by the european public when the Boom happened, it was a label more used for comercial use. Borges (a precussor of many of the authors linked with magic realism, but a generation older) was a spearhead of Latim American Boom, so he became a "magic realism" reference despite not being part of the given generation or having similar concerns. Many of those similar features are rather Borges influence than Cortazar or Marquez or what would be magic realism. They put together even Jorge Amado, but Brazilians are not part of the Boom or magic realism "groups" at all.

You can have of course similar writers, Rushide for example, because in the end India has the multicultural background too (with the clash of european influence) and all. But, sometimes I see people using this just for metaphysical urban fantasy, which has similarities, but europe and usa have a path on their own to reach there.

[sandy14]

Magical realism relates to literary fiction where some kind of magical event or miracle occurs which moves the story forward, or bring it to a close. It could be argued that some are an act of fate, god, divine justice or magic - quite often the author leaves it open for the reader to decide. Sometimes the "magic" happens at one key moment of the text - so it may occur in the chapter rather than the whole book.

Surrealism is another level of absurdity (in it's literary meaning). Surrealism means dream like - and the dream or magic may not necessarily make sense or attempt to make sense at any point. Fantasy also tends to have more magic in it - the story usually involves a different world, or totally different rules.

It's a question of degree. Life of Pi is an example of magical realism - the story follows its normal course until the boy and the tiger end up on the lifeboat. Then stuff starts to get a bit unreal - and then the unreality ends. Midnight's Children also features magical realism too, the "magic" is limited to a particular event - and unravels in the rest of the story as the magic and the real world collide.

As the reader, we are left wondering whether it was a dream, the truth or a pack of lies.

I'm not a big fan as it became a big cliché. In the late 80's/early90's it felt like everyone was writing magical realism and it started to feel overused. It was as if authors couldn't be bothered to think of decent conclusions to their novels, and so we were told that "magic did it".