LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
Rita Rouvalis
Marilyn Looney <mlo...@execpc.com> wrote:
>> I found it to be a lot like most Latin American fiction I've
>> ever read. Mostly weird. Not that it comes close to the utter strangeness
>
>Now that's what I was wondering. This is my first book of Latin American
>fiction, and I was curious whether it was typical. I wonder why that would
>be. Is it part of the culture to tell fantastic, otherworldly stories?
It's called magical realism. Yes, it is typical of a lot of
Latin American fiction (and some poetry). However, it is not exclusive
to Latin America, as there are American and German magical realists.
--
Rita Rouvalis
ri...@cc.ysu.edu
"Every poem breaks a silence that had to be overcome" - Adrienne Rich
Karin Lee Kross
who is Czech. THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING is an excellent example.
--
--
Karin L. Kross *** kari...@owlnet.rice.edu
* * *
"`...But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
xs...@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Kross) wrote:
It depends on how you define Magical realism. I would say it is realism
with a
touched of modernist anti-romanticism.
What he writes about is the life of people living in a particular
historical time under grip of an ideology known as communism, which is
imposed on them.
Edward L Abrams Mantisman
: It depends on how you define Magical realism. I would say it is realism
: with a
: touched of modernist anti-romanticism.
: What he writes about is the life of people living in a particular
: historical time under grip of an ideology known as communism, which is
: imposed on them.
Yes, but he writes in the style of magical realism: that is, events occur
in his books which we would regard as impossible, 'magical', but the
events are told in a matter-of-fact way, and the characters of the book
do not take the events to be as out of the ordinary as we would. I think
that is the thrust of calling something 'magical realism'.
eddie
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Stephen P. Guthrie
Karin Lee Kross <kari...@owlnet.rice.edu> wrote:
>A great non-Latin American writer of magical realism is Milan Kundera,
>who is Czech. THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING is an excellent example.
>--
It certainly is a great book, my favorite of Kundera, but I'm mystified as
to how you could classify it as magic realism. Lots of philosophical musings
but I don't remember any magic.
Hugh LaMaster -- RCS
I don't recall much if any magical realism in Kundera, but
it wouldn't surprise me. It certainly has been common in
Slavic literature [as well as the German literature already
mentioned] including a number of *Russians* in the
60's-80's nobody has mentioned who were probably drawn to it
precisely because it was considered "decadent". I have never
read anything like a history of magical realism [not that I
have really looked -- it isn't my favorite genre] but it has
popped up in a number of unexpected places. For example,
Heinrich Boll dabbles in it slightly in The Clown, and it
weakens the book IMHO. "A little" magical realism is not very
beneficial - once you indulge, you might as well go whole hog.
Is there a history of magical realism out there somewhere?
[Early examples, major writers in various languages, etc.]
--
Hugh LaMaster, M/S 233-9, UUCP: ames!lamaster
NASA Ames Research Center Internet: lama...@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 Or: lama...@george.arc.nasa.gov
Phone: 415/604-1056 #include <std_disclaimer.h>
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, lama...@viking.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster -- RCS) says:
>
>Is there a history of magical realism out there somewhere?
>[Early examples, major writers in various languages, etc.]
>
The Brazilian author Mario de Andrade's book MACUNAIMA is an early
example, but I don't know how influential his work was outside Brazil.
Several Latin American authors, Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez among them,
point to THE CARDBOARD HOUSE by Martin (I think) Adan as one of the seminal
works of MR. Asturias' novels, especially MEN OF CORN and MULATA would
be essential for an understanding of what MR was before it became a
fashionable conceit suitable for screenplays and cookbooks.
Why anyone thinks that Kundera, the neo-philosophe, is a magical
realist is a mystery to me.
J. Del Col (who, after a detour through THE FOSSILS OF
THE BURGESS SHALE, is still reading Calasso's
THE RUIN OF KASCH--a very dense, rich book)
--
Jeff Del Col * "Sleeplessness is like metaphysics.
A-B College * Be there."
Philippi, WV *
* ----Charles Simic----
Carlos Honorio Trevi~o Lozano
realism, altough that book you talk about approaches somehow. The thing
with magical realism is that not only should magical things happen in a
common-daily way, but people should regard them with a magical way of
tought.
In Garcia Marquez for example it is as important (let's say in Cien An~os de
Soledad) the way Remedios floats through the sky and dissapears as it is the
way Soledad thinks the marriage between cousins will produce sons with tails
like pigs. It is also important the strong simbolism in the magical events,
for example the butterflies of Mauricio Babilonia as an augury (I can't
remember the exact word in English) of death - of the town -.
In Kundera there are some fantastic events but we should make a difference
between something merely fantastic and something magical because magic
implies a purpose and human (or divine will) in achieving this purpose, this
purpose or will may be unknown but in any case it is different from a
fantastic event that is unexplained (even in a magical tought fashion).
Moreover i don't really remember important magical events in the books of
Kundera, they're more philosophical indeed.
I find a lot more close to magical realism the books of Italo Calvino than
those of Milan Kudera, however european writers find usually difficult to
make characters to think in a magical way. Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing the
Cherry", or "The passion" seems to me even closer to magical realism.
Carlos T. L.
--
Carlos Honorio Trevi~o Lozano
Setting the attraction of my good parts aside,
I have no other charms.
Falstaff-II.ii.103-4 (The merry wives of Windsor-W.Shakespeare)