What is Magical Realism

[JoanDrake]

I am struggling through One Hundred Years of Solitude, and finding it not at all what I thought. I thought Magical Realism was like, say, Blade of the Immortal, a sort of Historical novel with Fantasy elements.

Anyone have any insights that go beyond the Wiki article?

 

[Ehkzu]

I'm guessing a better analog would be in these movies:

Sliding Doors, which does two what-if scenarios based on whether Gwynneth Paltow's character makes a subway train or not

Run Lola Run, another what-if that pursues a junction down both alternatives

Ponette--probably the closest. It's an insanely great, totally unpretentious French movie about a 4 1/2 year old girl whose mommy just died. At the end her mommy appears and consoles her to going on without her. The movie was so realistic otherwise that I think you're supposed to treat it symbolically rather than as if it had actually for real happened.

And now that I think of it, the form of magic realism we Yanks would enjoy most, in general, I'd guess, is David Sedaris' short stories (he wrote the Santaland Diaries and has appeared accoustically on National Public Radio often). In them he often starts out realistically and then goes off the rails, but often so subtly that you don't always notice when the memoir ends and the magic begins. It's all so humorous that it's a blast to read the guy.

Otherwise I think magic realism is just a way of giving "realistic" writers a figleaf to dip their toes in fantasy without appearing to have gone off the reservation into--horrors--genre fictionland.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ian Whates]

I'm guessing a better analog would be in these movies:

Sliding Doors, which does two what-if scenarios based on whether Gwynneth Paltow's character makes a subway train or not

Run Lola Run, another what-if that pursues a junction down both alternatives

Ponette--probably the closest. It's an insanely great, totally unpretentious French movie about a 4 1/2 year old girl whose mommy just died. At the end her mommy appears and consoles her to going on without her. The movie was so realistic otherwise that I think you're supposed to treat it symbolically rather than as if it had actually for real happened.

And now that I think of it, the form of magic realism we Yanks would enjoy most, in general, I'd guess, is David Sedaris' short stories (he wrote the Santaland Diaries and has appeared accoustically on National Public Radio often). In them he often starts out realistically and then goes off the rails, but often so subtly that you don't always notice when the memoir ends and the magic begins.

Hmm... All of this sounds remarkably like what we in the UK categorise as 'slipstream' (a term coined originally by US author Bruce Sterling, oddly enough).

 

[j d worthington]

What you describe in your post is more "historical fantasy". As for "magic [or magical] realism", that's a different thing entirely. You might find these helpful:

magical realism: Definition and Much More from Answers.com

especially the literary dictionary description. Borges is also well noted as someone working in this tradition, as well.

However, much of the confusion may result from the very breadth of material to which the term has also been applied:

Magic Realism

The following goes into more detail on the origins and development of the movement:

http://www.seattleschools.org/schools/hamilton/iac/magic/magic_primer.pdf

Magic realism usually applies a rather light touch, restoring the mystical and numinous to everyday life, bringing about (or attempting to bring about) a renewal of vision which allows us to see the mythic dimensions in the world around us through the perceptions of its characters.

 

[Pyan]

Read Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, Joan...that's about the closest to the concept that I've read, and gives you a pretty good comparison ...

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I haven't read any books which explored magical realism, but the Spanish film "El Orfanato" is a very good example and one which I particularly enjoyed.

 

[j d worthington]

I haven't read any books which explored magical realism, but the Spanish film "El Orfanato" is a very good example and one which I particularly enjoyed.

Nice choice, SW. A very good film indeed....

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Magic realism usually applies a rather light touch, restoring the mystical and numinous to everyday life, bringing about (or attempting to bring about) a renewal of vision which allows us to see the mythic dimensions in the world around us through the perceptions of its characters.

So basically it's applying Novalis's proclamation: “The world must be romanticized. In this way its original meaning will be rediscovered. Romanticization is nothing but a qualitative realization of potential. The lower self is identified, in this operation, with a better self. As we are ourselves are such a qualitative series of empowerings. This operation is as yet quite unknown. Insofar as I give a higher meaning to what is commonplace, and a mysterious appearance to what is ordinary, the dignity of the unknown to what is known, a semblance of infinity to what is finite, I romanticize it.”

 

[hitmouse]

So basically it's applying Novalis's proclamation: “The world must be romanticized. In this way its original meaning will be rediscovered. Romanticization is nothing but a qualitative realization of potential. The lower self is identified, in this operation, with a better self. As we are ourselves are such a qualitative series of empowerings. This operation is as yet quite unknown. Insofar as I give a higher meaning to what is commonplace, and a mysterious appearance to what is ordinary, the dignity of the unknown to what is known, a semblance of infinity to what is finite, I romanticize it.”

I dont think magic realism can be pinned down that easily.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I dont think magic realism can be pinned down that easily.

It probably can, though.

Non-realist fiction, of which magical realism is but an offshoot, starts as a late 18c reaction against the entrenchment of the realist mode of narrating, bolstered by the scientific optimism of the era.

Everyone who was against scientism, the narrow view that science can explain everything, from Blake's warings against "single view" to Wordsworth, to Coleridge's fancy-vs-imagination distinction, to Keats' "Negative Capability", to MacDonald's allegories for adults, to Baudelaire's praise of drugs to alter consciousness, to the French Symbolists, to Arthur Machen asking us to find the Holy Grail in the most ordinary places, defended the idea that there's more to life than science alone can show, that the way of looking at things exclusively through the scientific outlook will only impoverish them. Another way of looking, a poetic one, is necessary to make the ordinary startling again.

Magical realism, superficial differences aside (as different from Lovecraft's fantasy as Lovecraft was from MacDonald's way of doing fantasy) is just a later evolution in this continuum of this romantic refusal to accept the literalist, "objective" gaze of science as the totality of reality.

But I'm open to counterpoints.

 

[Yozh]

I appreciate the philosophical analysis, @Sargeant_Fox . I had been thinking about this last month when the 75 challenge genre was "magical realism." For myself, I came up with more of a descriptive or taxonomical definition.

"Magical Realism" is a label applied to stories which take place in the real world in a real time; in contrast to fantasy, the author is not presenting an imagined world or an alternate reality. See, for example, Toni Morrison's Beloved set in late 19th century Ohio and based in part on true events, or Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate set in a small Mexican town at the turn of the last century, or Jorge Amado's Dona Flor and her two Husbands set in 1940s Salvador, Brazil.

It usually personal stories of ordinary people or families, and the reality of their lives includes supernatural phenomena in a mundane manner. The protagonists are not royalty or high wizards; they are not inducted into any secret society protecting the world from evil. There is no elaborate magical system to be explained to the reader. Rather, common beliefs such as ghosts, curses, folk magic are part of the lived reality of the story world. In this way, the "magic" of magical realism is small magic, affecting the lives and relationships of the characters, but not changing the world.

Novels described as "magical realism" have a lot in common with less formal storytelling traditions like campfire ghost stories, "urban legends" and certain kinds of folk tales.

 

[Astro Pen]

I’m no expert on this but my two cents

Appearing to be an oxymoron, “Magical realism” is a form of psychological defence against a world of harsh realities.

In it simplest form one can think of a lucky charm. It is unlikely that it actually has any physical effect, yet the wearer attributes good events to its wearing.
As I mentioned elsewhere I think Tarkovsky’s Stalker is a great example of perception of the world based (almost) solely on mystical beliefs.

Magical realism is a way of perceiving the world that interprets and enhances the everyday. The simplest things, like a bird landing on your hand, or a shaft of sunlight pushing through a thunderstorm, can trigger some primal and mystical connection to our pre technological roots.
Those of a more pagan bent tend to see the world and nature through more ancient glasses. Engaged with ‘signs’ and nature as a present and aware force.
If you have those feelings as, say, a city dweller, they can as easily latch on to contemporary magical moments like the reflection of skyscrapers in a windscreen or a murmuration of starlings over Kings Cross.

Magical realism, to me at least, can be something as simple as a changing perception of the people around us. Mike Leigh’s “Life is Sweet.” For example achieves warmth in suburban mundanity. There is love you see, and that is where the magic comes in.

 

[Swank]

I tend to agree @Sargeant_Fox and disagree with @Yozh, because saying that a genre is defined by a particular era the action takes place in is like asking for exceptions. (Or type of weapon, or type of combat, etc.)

My Cliff's Notes version of magical realism is that the author uses unremarked impossible happenings - impossible even in the world of the story - to create a dramatic situation that allows the characters to react in a way that reality would normally not afford them.


Magical realism is almost the opposite of SFF, where the point is explaining the exotic content, rather than letting it happen as if it is merely an arbitrary event.

 

[Yozh]

@Swank, I did not mean that any particular era defines magical realism, just that the setting is *a* realistic time and place, rather than some imaginary world.

 

[Swank]

@Swank, I did not mean that any particular era defines magical realism, just that the setting is *a* realistic time and place, rather than some imaginary world.

Is a realistic future imaginary?

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Magical realism is almost the opposite of SFF, where the point is explaining the exotic content, rather than letting it happen as if it is merely an arbitrary event.

It is indeed. I think it was the last combination left; everything else had been tried:

Ordinary setting with ordinary content (realism)
Ordinary setting with extraordinary content (most fantasy)
Extraordinary setting with extraordinary content (Dunsany, Mirless, Tolkien, Lewis)
Extraordinary setting with ordinary content (hmm, can't actually envision what that would be! But it must exist)

Therefore taking a blasé attitude to the extraordinary irrupting into the ordinary was the natural evolution.

I jest but what I find interesting about this evolution is the underlying psychology; the early fantasy writers were spiritual, if not Christian, people who revolted against materialism diminishing reality to what the eye can see and removing deeper meaning from life. From Novalis to MacDonald to Machen fantasy was used as a tool to reawaken people's visionary faculty; for Machen good literature produced "ecstasy". Even Lovecraft, who was an atheistic materialist, wanted to imbue readers with a sense of awe at the vastness of the universe. And then magical realism is like, "Oh look, levitating ladies; that's nice, but who cares?" Such reaction couldn't be more opposite to ecstatic. I'm not sure it's a great mindset to cultivate. But I'm not judging the quality of Morrison, Gabo, Rushdie, etc. whom I love reading.

 

[Swank]

I jest but what I find interesting about this evolution is the underlying psychology; the early fantasy writers were spiritual, if not Christian, people who revolted against materialism diminishing reality to what the eye can see and removing deeper meaning from life. From Novalis to MacDonald to Machen fantasy was used as a tool to reawaken people's visionary faculty; for Machen good literature produced "ecstasy". Even Lovecraft, who was an atheistic materialist, wanted to imbue readers with a sense of awe at the vastness of the universe. And then magical realism is like, "Oh look, levitating ladies; that's nice, but who cares?" Such reaction couldn't be more opposite to ecstatic. I'm not sure it's a great mindset to cultivate. But I'm not judging the quality of Morrison, Gabo, Rushdie, etc. whom I love reading.

I don't know that much about fantasy, but the intentions of writers at the identified beginning of the named genre doesn't separate the content of fantasy from its forebears - like Greek Mythology or Beowulf. To modern readers it is the same stuff.

I've always viewed mainline fantasy as an expansion of the epic tales that went from "true stories" to historically set exotica as readers passed through the Enlightenment. Middle Earth and Narnia aren't old Europe, but they bear a lot of the same construction in social construction, governance, mythos, etc. I think it would be more accurate to point out that Christianity shares a lot of the same construction and mythos, making them easy bedfellows.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I don't know that much about fantasy, but the intentions of writers at the identified beginning of the named genre doesn't separate the content of fantasy from its forebears - like Greek Mythology or Beowulf. To modern readers it is the same stuff.

I think there's a psychological difference. The inventors of ancient myths believed their myths. The Beowulf author may already have not believed it; Beowulf may not even be a myth in the sense of a story shared orally and believed by a community; the only actual source of Beowulf is the poem itself, which suggests it's an artificial myth in the way Baum's Oz are artificial fairytales. However, I'll grant that a 9th century poet was likely to believe many things we don't believe anymore. The same can be said of most "fantasy" before the 18th century. Rabelais and Cyrano de Bergerac aren't really "fantasy"; that distinction didn't make sense until the scientific outlook came along.

But writing "fantasy" in the 18c, after Bacon and Descartes and Newton and the whole Enlightenment, means the author will have a harder time believing certain things. For the 17c thinker it was already absurd to believe Greek myths, although the Bible was still literal truth. Do you know the history of Paradise Lost? John Milton at first wanted to write an epic about King Arthur; but he doubted anyone would take it seriously, so he switched to a Christian theme.

By the 19c even the Bible was under dispute; and a believer, no matter how much he believed, was conscious of being surrounded by creeping doubters, sceptics and creeping secularism. Newton's cosmology had turned the universe into a clockwork mechanism devoid of mysterious, without gods in the sky, and life therefore meaningless. So the earliest "fantasy" writers were in the awkward situation of wanting to make readers temporarily believe in invisible worlds while not being absolutely sure of them either. In a sense what mattered wasn't the content but keeping alive the faculty for wonder, which supposedly was under threat from science's literalism. Hence Novalis' program to imbue the ordinary with the mysterious. The way I see it, fantasy was mankind's self-defense mechanism against creeping dehumanization. Of course then it became an entertainment industry without these lofty goals.

 

[hitmouse]

Newton's cosmology had turned the universe into a clockwork mechanism devoid of mysterious, without gods in the sky, and life therefore meaningless.

That is an extremely sweeping and inaccurate characterisation of the effect of science on humanity. Neither Newton nor Darwin ( for example) rendered life meaningless. Lots of people continued to believe in their gods ( and still do.) Mystery and numinous continued to exist, for many people unchanged. For those who paid attention to the revolutionary scientific and philosophical ideas, things changed, there was a recalibration which must have been disconcerting and fascinating, but meaning and mystery quite definitely persisted.

 

[Swank]

I think there's a psychological difference.

A difference in intent, but not in effect. I can spend a decade making a vintage of wine, or let some apple juice ferment. Both will get you drunk.

Fantasy reads like leftover myths do to current audiences. There are a finite number of old kraken, wizard and dragon myths for people of today to read, so modern authors filled that vacuum by writing stories like them.

The way I see it, fantasy was mankind's self-defense mechanism against creeping dehumanization.

With such a limited readership, how could this be mostly true?