Looking for Magical Realism books
Andrei Zmievski
I have already are _Hardboiled Wonderland_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.
-Andrei
Evelyn C. Leeper
Andrei Zmievski <and...@ispi.net> wrote:
> Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books.. Some of the ones
> I have already are _Hardboiled Wonderland_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.
See http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper/magreal.htm for a long list and
discussion.
--
Evelyn C. Leeper, http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
Just because the person who criticizes you is an idiot does not make him
wrong. -- Roger Rosenblatt
JavaJosh
"Evelyn C. Leeper" <ele...@jaguar.stc.lucent.com> wrote in message
news:9eee4v$a...@nntpb.cb.lucent.com...
Reverend Sean O'Hara
>
> Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books.. Some of the ones
> I have already are _Hardboiled Wonderland_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.
>
Marquez books. The two that I've tried have been merely okay --
I can barely remember anything about them now. If you're looking
for more of the weirdness that makes "100 Years of Solitude" so
memorable, I don't think Garcia Marquez's other novels can even
compete.
Toni Morrison's novel "Sula" has the same feel as "100 Years of
Solitude." I don't know if her other books are quite the same, but
she's worth a try.
From what I've heard, "House of the Spirits" by Allende(?) isn't
that good.
Umberto Eco's novels are truly wonderful, especially "Foucaults
Pendulum" -- and if you like that, you might want to try "The
Illuminatus! Trilogy" by Robert Anton Wilson, although it does
suffer from a lack of realism at times.
But above all else, I recommend the novels and stories of Angela
Carter. In my mind, she's the best short story writer of the
20th Century, and her novels are pretty good. You can't go wrong
with "Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories." (Although
I recommend skipping the stories in the "Fireworks" section.)
--
Reverend Sean O'Hara
You too can be an ordained minister: http://www.ulc.org/ulc
Staff Writer for EXPULSION: http://www.expulsion.org
"Just last week, Rummy sent me an e-mail over the Internet -
something that didn't exist just five years ago." - Sen. Armey
Eric Walker
>
> Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books.. Some of the ones
> I have already are _Hardboiled Wonderland_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.
With the understanding, reinforced by Evelyn Leeper's site, that
no two people will mean the same thing by the term, here are a
few possible candidates, alphabetical by author. I do *not*
assert that each is a book of magic realism--only that each might
be, depending on one's exact definitions.
Peter Beagle - A Fine and Private Place
Douglas Bell - Mojo and the Pickle Jar
Stephen Billias - The Quest for the 36
Terry Bisson - Talking Man
James Blaylock - much of his work, including:
The Last Coin
Paper Grail
Night Relics
Winter Tides
All the Bells on Earth
The Rainy Season
Ray Bradbury - too many to list, but
Dandelion Wine might stand for all
A.S. Byatt - The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye
James Branch Cabell - several, notably:
The Cream of the Jest
Italo Calvino - several, including:
The Watcher & other stories
Numbers in the Dark
Jonathan Carroll - practically everything;
too many to list, but for example:
After Silence
Suzy McKee Charnas - Dorothea Dreams
G.K Chesterton - The Man Who Was Thursday
John Crowley - several, including:
Little, Big
Rick DeMarinis - Cinder
Charles Finney - The Circus of Dr. Lao
Lisa Goldstein - Dark Cities Underground
Richard Grant - Tex and Molly in the Afterlife
(and maybe others, not yet read here)
Russell Hoban - The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
(and probably most of his work)
G.A. Kathryns - The Borders of Life
R.A. Lafferty - he is hard to classify as *anything*;
I suspect that either al his work is "magic realism"
or none of it is.
Megan Lindholm - Wizard of the Pigeons
Arthur Machen - several possibles, including:
The Hill of Dreams
The Three Imposters
Steven Millhauser - almost defines the term, with:
In the Penny Arcade
The Barnum Museum
Little Kingdoms
The Knife Thrower and other stories
Flann O'Brien - The Third Policeman
Mervyn Peake - Mr. Pye
Tim Powers - maybe, maybe not, with:
Last Call
Expiration Date
Earthquake Weather
Herbert Read - The Green Child
Matt Ruff - The Fool on the Hill
Thorne Smith - possibly others, but:
Rain in the Doorway
The Lost Lamb
Sean Stewart - maybe:
Resurrection Man
Galveston
Sylvia Townsend Warner - Lolly Willowes
T.H. White - maybe:
Mistress Masham's Repose
The Elephant and the Kangaroo
Charles Williams - most everything, such as:
Many Dimensions
War in Heaven
Gene Wolfe - a few possibles:
Peace
The Devil in a Forest
Free Live Free
There Are Doors
Virginia Woolf - Orlando
Again: I do not claim each is magical realism; indeed, I am
be curious about how others would place these books in or
out of that category.
(Also, I have omitted several books--Chesterton's _The
Club of Queer Trades_ is representative--that read like
"magic realism" but which, in the end, contain no real
magic after all.)
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, webmaster
Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://owlcroft.com/sfandf
WGi6979687
Two of my favorites are Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (a generation
with odd abilities mirrors the fortunes of post-independence India) and Blood
Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (which is a harder read--more literary--and might
not be generally considered magical realism, but is.)
-Bil
Benjamin Adams
news:d6f4c193.01052...@posting.google.com...
Well, there's Bruce Sterling's _Zeitgeist_, in kind of a twisted way...
-Ben Adams
Svein Olav Nyberg
Anything by Jorge L. Borges. Borges is one of the few authors I am
outright thrilled to read.
If there are any Scandinavian readers out there, Ingar Knudtsen has
written a few books that are best placed in the tradition of magical
realism. He has not been translated, so his works are accessible in
Norwegian only.
--
Svein Olav Nyberg
http://www.nonserviam.com
200 million Americans can't be wrong: It is "definately"
Randy Money
>
> Andrei Zmievski wrote:
> >
> > Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books.. Some of the ones
> > I have already are _Hardboiled Wonderland_ and _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.
> >
> But above all else, I recommend the novels and stories of Angela
> Carter. In my mind, she's the best short story writer of the
> 20th Century, and her novels are pretty good. You can't go wrong
> with "Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories." (Although
> I recommend skipping the stories in the "Fireworks" section.)
>
> --
> Reverend Sean O'Hara
I'd second the recommendation of Carter's short stories -- one of these
days I'll get to the novels.
Try Alice Hoffman's _Practical Magic_ as a good example of magic realism
from the U.S., and throw in John Cheever's "The Swimmer" as a story in
the magic realism mode before anyone called a form of lit. "magic
realism."
Someone else mention Jorge Luis Borges, and I expect one would need to
read his work for a grasp on magic realism's origins.
Randy Money
David M. Cook
Just about anything by Tim Powers, though there is perhaps more wild magic
than realism in most of his books. _Last Call_ and his latest, _Declare_,
might be good places to start.
Dave Cook
Grant Kelly
Pretty much everything by Salman Rushdie, particularly Midnight's Children
& The Satanic Verses. Grimus is also worth a read if you can find it, altho'
it's nothing like anything else he produced.
Rubicon Beach, Days Between Stations by Steven Erickson.
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.
I also consider Little, Big to be magical realism and think that if it had
been marketed as such it would be considered one of the best books
ever written (even better than 100 Years of Solitude IMHO).
Grant
CleV
<gke...@kodiak.NOSPAM.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"Andrei Zmievski" <and...@ispi.net> wrote in message
>news:d6f4c193.01052...@posting.google.com...
>> Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books.. Some of the
>>ones I have already are _Hardboiled Wonderland_ and _One Hundred Years of
>>Solitude_.
>Pretty much everything by Salman Rushdie, particularly Midnight's Children
>& The Satanic Verses. Grimus is also worth a read if you can find it, altho'
>it's nothing like anything else he produced.
>Rubicon Beach, Days Between Stations by Steven Erickson.
>Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.
>I also consider Little, Big to be magical realism and think that if it had
>been marketed as such it would be considered one of the best books
>ever written (even better than 100 Years of Solitude IMHO).
Glad you brought Little, Big up, because I've always felt it was the
inverse of Magical Realism ("Real Magic"?). Magical Realism brings
magic into the real world, Real Magic brings the real world into magic
... hmmm, after ten years you'd think I would have honed that concept
a bit more ...
Ellen Datlow
--
Ellen Datlow
Fiction Editor
SCIFI.COM
http://www.scifi.com/scifiction
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Peter Yearsley
"The Woman Who Slept with Demons" and "Master of the Temple". The last
one certainly uses OTO and GD techniques.
david carlton
> Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books..
I'm a big fan of the trilogy by Louis de Bernieres whose first volume
is _The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts_.
david carlton | <http://math.stanford.edu/~carlton/>
car...@math.stanford.edu | Go books: <http://math.stanford.edu/~carlton/go/>
This TOPS OFF my partygoing experience! Someone I DON'T LIKE
is talking to me about a HEART-WARMING European film..
Neil Barnes
<ro1ofs3...@jackfruit.Stanford.EDU>:
>In article <d6f4c193.01052...@posting.google.com>,
>and...@ispi.net (Andrei Zmievski) writes:
>
>> Just looking for suggestions on good magical realism books..
>
>I'm a big fan of the trilogy by Louis de Bernieres whose first volume
>is _The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts_.
>
I would second that: follow TWoDENP with Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord, and
then the Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman.
Be warned - they can switch from light-hearted whimsy to unpleasant
blackness in half a page.
--
I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost...
barnacle
http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk