One Person’s Idea of What Constitutes as Magical Realism
What’s the difference between the magic and the real? What’s it mean to be magic and/or magical? What’s it mean to be real? What is magic? What is real? Again, is there any difference at all? There’s a whole genre that combines the two so seamlessly that readers can’t tell the difference between the two anymore than they would be able to tell the difference between the two colors blue-green and green-blue or a Mandarin orange and a Clementine – there are very, very subtle differences. Admittedly, it can be more than a little confusing to readers if they either don’t know what they’re looking for or they don’t have much experience with the genre. The authors, however, more than make up for the confusion-factor with their wit, craft, colorful, rich characters, and masterful storytelling. The loaded storylines and true-to-life characters – be they lifelike in appearance, personality, or attitude – are great for pulling readers into the worlds that they create and whet the audiences’ appetites for more.
Perhaps the places best known for these luxurious stories are the far Southern tip of North America, Central America, and most of South America – thus this genre, most commonly called Magical Realism, has a sort of sub-genre or parent-genre of Latin American. Of course the entire genre has roots from all over the world and from all times; the clique didn’t really take off until the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Central and South America (Notes). Throughout time, the masterful stories slowly made their wise all around the world and in many different languages, and by the mid-to-late 20th century, the books, genre, and real life struggles of the actual people of the countries became wildly popular (Notes). Likewise, most – if not all – of these authors have a great deal of personal experience from the struggles of their prospective countries, and their writing greatly reflects and publicizes the wrong-doings and political/economic strife (Notes).
Some of the most well-known, groundbreaking, and influential authors include – but are not limited to – Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Isabel Allende; their works – all equally splendiferous and epic – involve and draw attention to many different issues that humankind either has faced, will face, or will continue to face as time moves on (Notes). Some of the larger topics that their novels deal with include political strife, economic strife, gender inequalities, human nature with man’s various downfalls and achievements, sexuality, and taboo issues/themes/undercurrents such as rape, incest, and torture (Notes). (Also, please take note: that not every novel deals with all of these things at once; some novels have only a few, some have all, some of none of these aforementioned but others not said here (Notes).)
Borges uses Magical Realism to make his readers question the line between reality and dream; he has the ability to take that line and make it so small and thin that readers need a high-powered microscope to find it. Take his short story about the mythical Tlon… or at least those who read it will tell themselves the world is mythical (Borges 3-18). Because of his masterful technique, the fantastic and outlandish becomes the normal and every day. The reader must tell themselves that the lost volumes of Tlon are, indeed, just something Borges created and have not been discovered (Borges 4-6). Likewise, Borges makes the things readers encounter on a daily basis seem monstrous, strange, and something to be feared. Borges takes the mirror – a common household item in most if not all homes – into something that readers want to shy away from with a funny feeling in their stomachs by using just one or two sentences (Borges 3).
Marquez, on the other hand, takes a different route. Unlike Borges, who deals with the various facets of the human mind/nature, Marquez has undertones of politics and a broader focus on the sexuality and taboo, while his main theme is the effects that solitude has on different people and the many different forms that solitude takes. This novel is a little more difficult for some readers because Marquez gives most of his male characters some form of the same name (Marquez, 0). Once the reader gets deeper into the novel, it can be very difficult for them to keep people and events together – the who did what and what did who; thankfully, before the first page of the first chapter is a sort of family tree to help keep everyone separate (Marquez 0). What makes Marquez’s novel fall into Magical Realism, some would say, is the way that he isolates the town of Macondo (Marquez 1-417). Even though people from the outside of Macondo come in, the town still seems strangely isolated. It almost seems that the more outsiders come in, the farther down the town and people fall into a vertex of incest and isolation. The family and town began that way – that strange, secluded incest – and it ended that way as well (Marquez 20, 415). It is almost certainly that fact that makes readers uncomfortable – what does life come down to, then, if all efforts are for naught?
It isn’t until readers read Allende, however, that they get a full glimpse at the political. While authors such as Marquez retreat deeper into the magical element rather than expose the faults of politicians, Allende does just the opposite. She uses the magical to draw readers into her tale and then gives them a “healthy” dose of reality. Take Alba. So what if her hair is greenish (Allende 262)? None of that really matters to readers, because green hair or no, Alba still gets tortured later in her life in the novel (Allende 406-411). It wasn’t some petty torture, either: it was the real thing; the kind that happens during war, and readers simply forget that Alba does, in fact, have hair that greenish.
If readers want some help navigating the vast waters that is Magical Realism, it’s suggested that they take a look at Scheherazade’s Children, an essay by Wendy B. Faris that details some of her personal ideas on what Magical Realism is. It’s a good essay because it lays out in numbered points what Faris thinks falls into the category of Magical Realism and vice versa, as well as being clear and easy to understand, for example:
(1) Metafictional dimensions are common in contemporary magical realism: the texts provide commentaries on themselves, often complete with occasional mises-en-abyme – those miniature emblematic textual self-portraits. Thus the magical power of fiction itself, the capacities of mind that makes it possible, and the elements out of which it is made – signs, images, metaphors, narrators, narratees – may be foregrounded. (Faris, 175)
Likewise, it’s nice because Faris also gives readers books that fit both into Latin American Magical Realism and Magical Realism from around the world. This way, readers have two types of texts: ones that they haven’t encountered before and wouldn’t know how it fits into the genre, and ones they have read and can say, “Oh, that’s it; I get it.”
Therefore, simply put, one facet of Magical Realism is a tool used by authors to confuse the mind, bring to light problems that happen in the world, and offer a form of escape from those problems. Magical Realism is in the everyday little things as well as the everyday huge things – from the family to the country. It’s everywhere and nowhere, and it’s really small details that readers might miss – like the color of someone’s hair or someone’s personality, or even a type of book that’s mentioned in a story.
Works Cited/Consulted
Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York, New York: Bantam Books/ published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1993.
Borges, Luis. Labyrinths. New York, New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2007.
Faris, Wendy B. "Scheherazade's Children." Zamora, Lois Parkinson. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Duke University Press Durham & London, 1995. 163-190.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York, New York: Harper & Row Publishers Inc., 2006.
Notes, Magical Realism Class. "Class Notes on Magical Realism." 2010, The Class of Spring. n.d.
Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York, New York: Bantam Books/ published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1993.
Borges, Luis. Labyrinths. New York, New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2007.
Faris, Wendy B. "Scheherazade's Children." Zamora, Lois Parkinson. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Duke University Press Durham & London, 1995. 163-190.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York, New York: Harper & Row Publishers Inc., 2006.
Notes, Magical Realism Class. "Class Notes on Magical Realism." 2010, The Class of Spring. n.d.
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