Token magical realism is a cheap trick - what say you?

Why don't you all head off to the SF boards and start slagging off Isaac Asimov or Arthur C Clarke? Just to see what reaction you get.

After actually reading the Guardian article from the OP, I'm gonna guess that sometimes an author makes the comment that when we use the same lens through which to view different characters, they virtually become the same character. So, meta-fictionally speaking, authors at play in worlds of their own making are up against the limits of self-knowledge. Worth considering?

Um...doesn't Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis count as magic realism? If so, it's the only one I read and, even though it threw me for a loop at first, I ended up really enjoying it.

To me, it typically has most to do with the quality of the realism: The more verite a book's dialogue, emotions, interactions, thoughts, and observations are, the more magical realism -- and less fantasy, or horror, or etc. -- the book is.

Referencing television: If Hannah Montana had a wand, it wouldn't make Hannah Montana a program of magical realism, because the show is so unbelievable. If David Brent had a wand, however, it would make The Office a program of magical realism, and that's because the show's dialogue, emotions, etc. are so realistic.

Referencing film: Give Billy Madison a wand? No. Give Danny Rose one? Yes.

Referencing books: Encyclopedia Brown? No. Holden Caulfield? Yes.

That's how I see it.

_Richard

Michael said:

Um...doesn't Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis count as magic realism? If so, it's the only one I read and, even though it through me for a loop at first, I ended up really enjoying it.

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I believe it is more commonly considered absurdist, surrealist, or existentialist fiction, though I have heard it referred to as precursor magical realism.

I don't see it as magical realism. It's simply too unrealistic to be considered that, in my opinion. It's too out there.

_Richard

maestrowork said:

For a character to transfigure without any set up or rhyme or reason would be considered bad.

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It'd be The Metamorphosis, typically considered a masterpiece.

_Richard

The "Token" article was decent until he went off on the tangent about breaking the fourth wall. What does breaking the fourth wall have to do with inserting magical phenomena in realistic fiction? Magic in realism doesn't imply or demand that the artifice of a work of fiction is laid bare, or that the audience be winked at. I use magical realism in my writing, and I never break the fourth wall, so whoever wrote the article totally lost me there.

_Richard

I've always thought magic realism is an oxymoron and I just plain dislike the genre. I found Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits to be a real yawner. I did like Kafka's Metamorphosis but I wouldn't call it magic realism, just an allegorical tale.

F.

freelancemomma said:

I've always thought magic realism is an oxymoron and I just plain dislike the genre. I found Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits to be a real yawner. I did like Kafka's Metamorphosis but I wouldn't call it magic realism, just an allegorical tale.

F.

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Off topic, but related:

Have you ever seen any magical realist cinema, like Guillermo Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone or Pan's Labyrinth? If so, what do you make of them? I think they're very engrossing and not boring in the least. I also think they put the lie to the "oxymoron" of magical realism as they manage to explore the paranormal without upsetting the detailed realism of their characters, dialogue, plots, and settings -- which isn't an easy thing to do, I don't think. Suspending disbelief, keeping things "verite," when characters perpetually bleed from their heads and when demons eat fairies is quite an achievement to me. Sustaining plausibility while exploring the supernaturally absurd is what I strive for in my writing.

_Richard

blacbird said:

Everybody associates García Marquez with the term "magic realism", and rightly so. He's a genius and master at his writing craft.

If you want another truly fine example of an amalgam of fantasy/realism read the wonderful Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola (The Palm-Wine Drinkard, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts).

And certain older writers drifted into this territory before it really had a name. Joseph Conrad, on occasion, as in his famous short story "The Lagoon". And William Faulkner from time to time as well. Or the greatly under-appreciated pre-Beat experimentalist Kenneth Patchen, especially in The Journal of Albion Moonlight.

But, like any style of writing, practiced poorly and with self-aggrandizing intent, attempts at "magic realism" can be truly awful.

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Glad you said this, I immediately thought of Marquez, Atwood, DeLint, and others who are wonderful with this genre. People have been using myth as metaphor since the beginning of time, and it takes time to hone this craft, like any other.

On the other side, I do have a pet peeve when I'm reading a good story and the writer sort of runs out of gas 200 pages in and suddenly your hero has taken a left turn on a quest to hell for a magical doughnut that will save the kingdoms and restore the land to its proper ruler. But that's really a peeve with sloppy writing and plotting, and that's in every genre.

backslashbaby said:

Yes! I try to buy the screenplays when I can find them to study how things were done. (I need things on paper )

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Pan's
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/PansLabyrinthEnglishScreenplay.pdf

Misc.
http://www.simplyscripts.com/full_movie.html

_Richard

We can argue the merits of magical realism back and forth, but I must admit I am baffled by the idea that it "breaks the fourth wall" or "pulls you out of the story". Maybe I'm just reading the wrong (well, right) books, but the magical aspects of these stories are just sort of... there. Certainly not a slap to the face. Kafka On the Shore, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Windup Bird Chronicle, Everything Is Illuminated, Winter's Tale, The Shadow of the Wind. I don't love them all, but I didn't see that problem with any of them.

Is magical realism a cheap trick?
Hmmm, it can be. The thing is magical realism, when I think of it, is largely derived from Gabriel Garcia Marquez' work, as I think he coined it. You can tell the novels which derive their "magic" from his work and I largely hate those novels, seeing the cheap trick throughout.

However other strands of literature get lumped into this "genre."

I would say absurdist literature, surrealism, and the fantastic are not cheap tricks but different ways of telling stories. We can take these tales back to the ancient Welch in the Mabinogeon, the Persian tales of 1,001 Nights, or the Odyssey by Homer. The fantastic is the oldest form of literature and perhaps the most natural form of storytelling. It also opens the tale up to the parable and the satire. So no, I don't consider it a cheap trick if its honest. I consider it as truthful as any realist novel. Sometimes one can tell truths through indirect lines of communication that cannot be revealed through bluntly saying things straight, or rather sometimes the political environment as in 1930s USSR makes it impossible to say things straight out, so that a beautiful novel like The Master And Margarita can be written revealing Stalinist terror through absurd allegory.

The truth is realism is the new form (very new) and because its new the one most in need of justifying its existence.

Michael said:

Um...doesn't Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis count as magic realism? If so, it's the only one I read and, even though it threw me for a loop at first, I ended up really enjoying it.

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Kafka is a genre to himself.

I could praise Kafka to the skies and back.

I don't know... she could write an article titled "Token Anything Is Very Token."

I love my realism magic... but the highest art is to make it magic without magic. Take Salvadore Dali and Edward Hopper. Both invoke unusual and not dissimilar emotions. But for me Hopper is a much better artist, because he achieved an unusual effect using very mundane imagery.

This is also why I love Thomas Mann so much: his descriptions of people's feelings, symbolic returns in their lives, small things they do with their hands or glasses or lips are so realistic that they stop being real. Mann for president.