Magic Realism
rob...@hulaw1.harvard.edu
I think it's a Latin American man, but I don't remember - I've only seen
the movie, but I had heard about the play first. Certainly the screenplay
is contains more metaphorical/poetic/sensual (in the meaning of "referring
to the senses") language than most American movies.
-Robin
Katherine M. Catmull
In article <1993May12.1...@hulaw1.harvard.edu>
rob...@hulaw1.harvard.edu writes:
>Is "Prelude to a Kiss" magic realism? And who is the author?
>I think it's a Latin American man, but I don't remember -
It's hard to say why, but Prelude to a Kiss doesn't feel like
magic realism to me. Perhaps it's because the characters are
astonished by what happens to them--it isn't part of what they
think of as "reality."
The author is Craig Lucas, not (as far as I know) a Latin American.
He also wrote the screenplay for _Longtime Companion_, a film
about AIDS. I think Prelude to a Kiss is a fable about AIDS, in
disguise.
(My husband and I are doing a scene from it for a children's cancer
benefit next week, so the play is on my mind.)
Back to US magic-realist writing: I'll second whoever's
nomination of Toni Morrison. Her _Beloved_ is certainly a
book of magic realism, and an amazing, powerful, brilliant
one. Really an extraordinary novel--go read it soon.
Kate
--
- - - - - - - -
ka...@cactus.org
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
Barbara Hlavin
>
>Back to US magic-realist writing: I'll second whoever's
>nomination of Toni Morrison. Her _Beloved_ is certainly a
>book of magic realism, and an amazing, powerful, brilliant
>one. Really an extraordinary novel--go read it soon.
So is _Song of Solomon_. I was absolutely blown away by this novel
when I read it.
There's a young local (Seattle vincinity) writer, named as I recall
Kathleen Allicante -- darn, I don't think that's quite right -- who
recently published a collection of short stories that have been
identified in reviews as MR. I agree that some of the stories fall
into this category, but others just remind me of episodes from The
Twilight Zone.
--Barbara
Barbara Hlavin
>There's a young local (Seattle vincinity) writer, named as I recall
>Kathleen Allicante -- darn, I don't think that's quite right -- who
>recently published a collection of short stories that have been
>identified in reviews as MR. I agree that some of the stories fall
>into this category, but others just remind me of episodes from The
>Twilight Zone.
That's Kathleen ALCALA, and her book is called _Mrs. Vargas and the
Dead Naturalist_.
Uh... and that's vicinity, not vincinity. Maybe I'd better give up
for the day...
--Barbara
Francis Muir
Barbara Hlavin writes:
There's a young local (Seattle vincinity) writer,
named as I recall Kathleen Allicante --
That's Kathleen ALCALA, and her book is called _Mrs. Vargas
and the Dead Naturalist_. Uh... and that's vicinity, not
vincinity. Maybe I'd better give up for the day...
Shame. I was hoping you really meant vincinity. I had visions of a
Shining Path outpost in Seattle. Vinceramos and All That. Personally
I am really tired of Souse American MR as the only MR.
Goofy (Magic Kingdom).
Lisa S Chabot
I keep thinking _Digging_Leviathan_ by James Blaylock ought to fit in this
category, but it's been awhile since I read it and perhaps it's more of
Edgar-Rice-Burroughs Realism instead.
--
"Amanda, this is no time to shoot hats."
Ted B Samsel
William Kennedy and his Albany Irish ghosts (etc) fit this.
Anyone read THE INK TRUCK? Good Stuff....
--
Ted....
Jeffrey A. Del Col
I agree
The opening scene in the graveyard in IRONWEED is as magical realist as
anything I've read. Ghosts eating dandelion roots, yes!!
Leo Perutz's AT NIGHT UNDER THE STONE BRIDGE includes a ghostly
consummation of an adulterous affair through the intervention of the
great Prague cabalist Rabbi Loew(sp?) that would appear to qualify.
Then there are those angels who talk to Venichka in Erofeev's MOSCOW TO
THE END OF THE LINE (MOSKVA-PETUSHKI).
J. Del Col
--
Jeff Del Col * DECONSTRUCTION--- the critical method invented
A-B College * by Procrustes
Philippi, WV *
*
Dee Mike
tw...@carson.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin) writes:
>
>In article <1993May13.1...@cactus.org> ka...@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull) writes:
>>
>>Back to US magic-realist writing: I'll second whoever's
>>nomination of Toni Morrison. Her _Beloved_ is certainly a
>>book of magic realism, and an amazing, powerful, brilliant
>>one. Really an extraordinary novel--go read it soon.
>
>So is _Song of Solomon_. I was absolutely blown away by this novel
>when I read it.
>
-dee Confused and Bewildered
Fiona Webster
Jeffrey Del Col writes:
>The opening scene in the graveyard in IRONWEED is as magical realist as
>anything I've read. Ghosts eating dandelion roots, yes!!
>
>Leo Perutz's AT NIGHT UNDER THE STONE BRIDGE includes a ghostly
>consummation of an adulterous affair through the intervention of the
>great Prague cabalist Rabbi Loew(sp?) that would appear to qualify.
>
>Then there are those angels who talk to Venichka in Erofeev's MOSCOW TO
>THE END OF THE LINE (MOSKVA-PETUSHKI).
As an avid reader of horror fiction, I'm always a little suspicious when
I see fiction about ghosts, angels, devils, whatever, being given labels
like "magical realism" that purport to seat them squarely in the shelves
of "mainstream" or "literary" fiction. Not that I think these books
are necessarily horror, at all--the one of the three above that I've
read--Kennedy's _Ironweed_--does not, to me at least, count as a horror
novel. (Short version of the distinction: horror fiction is about the
emotional impact of the work on the reader--it's a genre defined by
*emotion*, not by theme or subject matter.) But _Ironweed_ *does* count
as a novel of the supernatural, in my book.
I'm especially aware of ghosts and angels and such, recently, because I'm
the proud (let's talk **beaming**) new owner of _The_Guide_to_
_Supernatural_Fiction_ (1983), by renowned scholar Everett F. Bleiler.
Bleiler makes it clear in his introduction that he only gave the book
that title in deference to the traditional use of the concept of
"supernatural"...
...a term that was perhaps fitting 150 years ago,
but today would be better termed the "contranatural,"
since it is a consistent, often studied, reversal of
a mechanistic universe.
And he goes on to devote a long essay to "The Phenomenology of
the Contranatural."
I'm not sure I like the opposition Bleiler sets up there, with
that loaded word _mechanistic_, but I did want to make the point
that much of what we may be calling "magical realism" is just
"supernatural fiction" under a new (more acceptable to the snobs? (-:)
label. If you look at the fascinating Motif Index at the end of
Bleiler's tome, for example, what you find under "ghosts" could
well encompass Kennedy's ghosts. His index pages for "ghosts"
are quite long and detailed, so there's no way I can quote them
in full, but I'll skip through the list and pick a few items here
and there, just to give you the flavor of it:
Ghosts
earthbound, perturbed, restless, being punished
financial reasons
guarding something
earthbound, looking for something
unfulfilled life
worried about things undone, lost letters
erotic, amorous
[*many* subcategories for all of these...]
taking part in activities of living
directing cooking
listening to music
ordering whiskey
picking flowers
proofreading
riding elevator
[etc.!]
vengeance seeking, justice seeking, punitive
lack of charity
violation of privacy
[and so on]
This is by no means a quotation-style sampling--there are pages and pages
of these entries, as I said.
Which reminds me of something else that came up recently: whether
there are books detailing (and indexing) all the stories in various
books and story collections. For supernatural (contranatural) fiction
between 1750 and 1960, there is indeed such a book. It's Bleiler.
If you want to know, for example, who wrote a story about a supernatural
jaguar, and get a succinct plot summary of that story, all you have to do
is look in this book.
But getting back to my point...I don't mean to be fussy or polemical,
I'm really a bit puzzled. I thought I knew more or less what magical
realism was, until people started talking about ghosts 'n' angels. Now
I'm not so sure. Can a work of fiction be magical realist in form,
but *not* contranatural? If so, how (and give an example if you've
got one)? (And again: I'm not talking about *horror* fiction here.)
--Fiona
16b...@waikato.ac.nz
<much deleted>
>
> But getting back to my point...I don't mean to be fussy or polemical,
> I'm really a bit puzzled. I thought I knew more or less what magical
> realism was, until people started talking about ghosts 'n' angels. Now
> I'm not so sure. Can a work of fiction be magical realist in form,
> but *not* contranatural? If so, how (and give an example if you've
> got one)? (And again: I'm not talking about *horror* fiction here.)
>
> --Fiona
Yes of course - don't let yourself be confused by the fad of recent writers
cheapening the genre with gratuitous ghosts and magic carpets. Return to
the origins of the genre. A precise example would be the novel:
_Hombres de Maiz_ - Miguel Angel Asturias
(tr. _Men of Maize_)
- which reads for me like a definition of Magic Realism (or to be fair
Asturias' defintion of the genre.) The main theme of the novel is the
transposition of reality into myth over time (time being several
generations in this case). For me the genre grew out of a mixing of myth
and reality - something like the mixture which existed in the real lives
of many Spanish Americans in the first half of the century.
- pleb retort
Ted B Samsel
The retorting (tuatuara) pleb (she/he/it) says:
- something like the mixture which existed in the real lives
of many Spanish Americans in the first half of the century.
~~~~
I ask, can this be applied to the ibero-american telenovela
as well... another mixture of MYTH and Reality? But then, which
one is which in the telenovela?
--
Ted....
Fiona Webster
>Yes of course - don't let yourself be confused by the fad of recent writers
>cheapening the genre with gratuitous ghosts and magic carpets. Return to
>the origins of the genre. A precise example would be the novel:
> _Hombres de Maiz_ - Miguel Angel Asturias
> (tr. _Men of Maize_)
>- which reads for me like a definition of Magic Realism (or to be fair
>Asturias' defintion of the genre.) The main theme of the novel is the
>transposition of reality into myth over time (time being several
>generations in this case). For me the genre grew out of a mixing of myth
>and reality - something like the mixture which existed in the real lives
>of many Spanish Americans in the first half of the century.
(Before I enter my response _per_se_, I have to wonder: In what culture
and time period would we say that people's "real lives" are *not* a "mixing
of myth and reality"?)
Since posing my question about super/contranatural fiction vs. magical
realism, I've been thumbing through anthologies of recent tales in the
genre of "fantasy," and have discovered that the fantasy folks claim
magical realism as *their* thing--or at least a new version of their
same ol' thing. For example, Carol Emshiller--who's published tales
in _Omni_, _Twilight_Zone_, and the little mags like _Triquarterly_--
is described as a magical realist, because (this is quoting Terri
Windling)
she challenges the very notion of fantasy, what is real
and what is not. Through her evocative, poetic prose,
Emshiller transforms an ordinary life into the grandeur of
myth. [Her stories do] what all good fantasy should do:
Enable us to perceive the real world all the more clearly.
(Side note related to my opening parenthetical: as someone who finds
the whole notion of "the real world" a little jury-rigged to begin with,
I find this description kind of bullshitty.)
Also, according to Terri Windling (editor of numerous anthologies of
fantasy), Charles de Lint is another "one of the leading writers in
what is sometimes called the 'Magic Realism' school of fantasy--
fantasy tales set in the real world, rather than in an imaginary
Nevernever Land."
Now while comments in this thread so far like, "Oh, don't bother with
all those amateurs, go to so-and-so" (usually a Latin American writer)
are indeed useful from the point of view of introducing us to new
authors, they don't go very far in addressing whether magical realism
counts as a separate category at all. Sure, I know, I raise questions
having to do with labels for fiction <yawn> all too often--but as I
said in the Lakoff thread, category theory is interesting to me--and
also, as a horror critic, I struggle all the time with the combination
of bookseller and reader ignorance that leads people to misperceive
the category of horror, and say, "There is nothing worthwhile in this
genre."
Can we approach this not from the direction of trying to get a
definition of magical realism, but rather from the direction of *why*
this category is important, now, historically? Am I right that it is,
in part, a way of "rescuing" what would be labeled as fantasy, horror,
or supernatural fiction, from the negative connotations attached to
those fields?
Sometimes I get this impression of "mainstream literature" as a kind
of academic beast who is so greedy for good fiction, it's very
creative about coming up with reasons for why such-and-such a new
fantasy/horror/spy/etc. writer does *not* belong on the genre shelves,
but rather should join the vaulted pantheon of the great greats. I walk
into bookstores and see how this beasty sucks authors such as Patrick
McGrath right off the horror shelves and into the "literature" section--
thus neatly perpetuating the illusion that "there is no well-written
horror."
Even those whose job it is to trumpet the "best that is known and
thought" in these genres, fall into this trap. When I was at the
World Horror Con in March, I mentioned a few authors whom I thought
weren't getting sufficient coverage in the prominent review journals
such as _Necrofile_ and _New_York_Review_of_Science_Fiction_. An editor
of one of those journals said to me, "Well...but mainstream fiction gets
more than enough good literary criticism: we need to reserve our pages
for *horror* fiction."
Huh?? This position is, to me, like saying, "We need to reserve our
pages for *mediocre* horror fiction."
--Fiona
Katherine M. Catmull
Despite Fiona's specific request, I am (ornery me) going to respond
to her very good question about categorization of novels (why
do we need the category "magic realism"--is it just a way
for literary snobs to feel OK about reading the perhaps unfairly
ghettoized genres of horror and supernatural fiction? this is my
summary of Fiona's more eloquent question--please correct me if
I've misrepresented you, F.) with another definition of magic
realism.
I think the defining element of magic realism is the fact that the
magic (or whatever supernatural element) informs the daily, highly
"realistic" lives of the characters completely--it is _part_ of
their reality.
Thus while there may be ghosts, they are as accepted and understood
as, say, kitchens. Thus no "Yikes, it's a ghost!" sort of thing.
Does this make sense? I don't read enough supernatural fiction
to say whether what I describe above is characterstic of that
genre these days or not. If so, then I say it's magic realism
& all the snobs get to eat it up with delight.
Fiona Webster
>I think the defining element of magic realism is the fact that the
>magic (or whatever supernatural element) informs the daily, highly
>"realistic" lives of the characters completely--it is _part_ of
>their reality.
>
>Thus while there may be ghosts, they are as accepted and understood
>as, say, kitchens. Thus no "Yikes, it's a ghost!" sort of thing.
The idea of the contranatural element informing the "real world" of
the characters is exactly what I was quoting from the description of
Charles de Lint (which appeared in Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow's
_Year's_Best_Fantasy_1_, an anthology looking back on the year 1987).
Which was (apologies for being repetitious) that he is "one of the
leading writers in what is sometimes called the 'Magic Realism' school
of fantasy--fantasy tales set in the real world, rather than in an
imaginary Nevernever Land." So just the setting of the events within
the "real world" doesn't get us anywhere in showing that magical realism
(MR) deserves to be a separate entity from fantastic or contranatural
fiction.
But I don't want to trivialize Kate's definition, because she seems
to be getting at something else as well, which is that MR is fiction
in which not only are the contranatural (supernatural/magical/fantastic)
elements part and parcel of the characters' "real world" (I keep that
in quotes because I think "the real world" is *always* "the putative real
world"), but these elements are greeted with a certain type of emotional
response. As in, not "Yikes, it's a ghost!" (surprise, awe, horror),
but rather "Ho hum, it's a ghost" (range of emotions from utterly flat,
to mildly irritated, to deeply loving, whatever.) MR, in other words,
is presumed to allow a whole "real world" range of emotions in response to
the magical element--which, to be really picky here, should of course
include horror. (I don't know about you, but I'm quite capable of
experiencing horror when confronting my kitchen. (-:)
Now, since horror fiction _per_se_ (note that I'm setting it apart from
fantasy and contranatural fiction, even though a contranatural tale
may also be a horror tale, of course) depends on the presence of a spe-
cific emotional response, then of course, not all magical realism is
horror.
I sometimes, jokingly, call this the butterflies-vs.-yellow-jackets
distinction, borrowing a riff from the famous butterfly scene in Gabriel
Garcia Marquez' _One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude_. This is how it would
break down:
Butterflies are emerging in clouds from your body.
You think it's not only consonant with your view of
reality, you think it's kinda groovy. (This is either
magical realism, fantasy, or contranatural fiction,
depending on which label you want to use.)
Butterflies are emerging in clouds from your body.
You're more than a little freaked out, because this
sort of thing doesn't normally happen in *your* reality,
but you're willing to go with the flow. (This may
happen in magical realism, but is much more common in
fantasy and contranatural fiction.)
Yellow jackets are emerging in clouds from your body.
You are most definitely freaked out, not because it
matters one way or another if this is a phenomenon
consonant with your view of reality, because you're
*horrified." (This is horror.)
I realize that I could have done the third example with butterflies
as well, but somehow yellow jackets make the point a little more
clear. In horror fiction, it really doesn't matter whether the
events taking place are viewed as an intrusion on the person's
"real world" or whether they're part of what they expect is possible--
what matters is the emotional response. This is how we can have
some types of horror fiction (Stoker's _Dracula_) involving contra-
natural events, and other types (Harris' _Silence_of_the_Lambs_)
involving events that are still within the range of "possible."
Indeed, in much of the best horror fiction, the events are not even
statistically unusual: incest, domestic violence, people dying of
starvation or exposure, etc.
This could lead into a perhaps unfortunate digression on where exactly
is the emotion of horror supposed to be *located*--because you could
have a case where yellow jackets are emerging from a character's body
and the character herself thinks everything is just fine, despite the
fact that the yellow jackets appear to be emerging from what we had
thought was her pregnant womb containing a fetus, that they're stinging
her eyelids shut, that they're growing to enormous size and in general
becoming ugly bugly monsters. In this case, even though the character
may still think everything is just peachy, the *reader* is horrified, and
so it still counts as horror. The reason why this digression is poten-
tially distracting is that of course readers can be horrified by all
sorts of things ("oh no! a whole 'nother chapter of _Clarissa_ I have
to read before tomorrow's seminar! I can't take it anymore!") that have
much more to do with the reader than they do with the book. This is
why lame jokes about "you wanna read something *really* horrifying: try
such-and-such..." are quite common.
But!! Let's not get away from the still-unanswered issue, which is
(from my point of view) NOT "*What* is Magical Realism?" (I don't think
we can find a definition that doesn't overlap with fantastic and
contranatural fiction), but rather "*Why* is Magical Realism important,
as a label? What are the lit-crit-historical underpinnings for the
emergence of this term? Is it [as I suspect] simply a way for
mainstream literature to co-opt and claim as their own, writers who
would previously have been considered 'genre' writers?"
--Fiona
Fran Rosen
In a previous article, f...@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) says:
>Kate Catmull writes:
>>I think the defining element of magic realism is the fact that the
>>magic (or whatever supernatural element) informs the daily, highly
>>"realistic" lives of the characters completely--it is _part_ of
>>their reality.
I agree with Kate. I don't see any "horror" aspect to magical
realism. The characters accept the magical events as part of
their reality and deal with it accordingly. What makes it
"realism" is that it is not treated as anything extraordinary.
>
>But!! Let's not get away from the still-unanswered issue, which is
>(from my point of view) NOT "*What* is Magical Realism?" (I don't think
>we can find a definition that doesn't overlap with fantastic and
>contranatural fiction), but rather "*Why* is Magical Realism important,
>as a label? What are the lit-crit-historical underpinnings for the
>emergence of this term? Is it [as I suspect] simply a way for
>mainstream literature to co-opt and claim as their own, writers who
>would previously have been considered 'genre' writers?"
>
> --Fiona
>
If "Ulysses" can be mainstream literature, certainly "One Hundred
Years of Solitude" can be! When I read things such as "The Fairie Queene"
and "Gulliver's Travels," it gets hard to distinguish "genre." To
write in the fantasy genre, must the author be a product of the
20th century?
Fran
--
| Fran Rosen aa751
It lies not in our power to love or hate, |
For will in us is overruled by fate. | Singles Partyline
Christopher Marlowe | (go party)
Fiona Webster
instead of watching it wander about and listening to the wisdom of
others. (This has advantages and disadvantages: when you talk, you're
not learning as much as you do when you don't talk.)
Kate Catmull writes:
>I think the defining element of magic realism is the fact that the
>magic (or whatever supernatural element) informs the daily, highly
>"realistic" lives of the characters completely--it is _part_ of
>their reality.
(Note: just because something is _part_ of your reality, doesn't
prevent it from being horrifying...)
Fran Rosen writes:
>I agree with Kate. I don't see any "horror" aspect to magical
>realism. The characters accept the magical events as part of
>their reality and deal with it accordingly. What makes it
>"realism" is that it is not treated as anything extraordinary.
I don't understand what exactly about what Kate said, that Fran is "agree-
ing" with--a wording that implies somehow that Kate and I were in disagree-
ment. (I'm sorry--that may sound needlessly confrontational.) Maybe the
problem is that I mentioned horror. <sigh> The only reason I did that,
as opposed to staying with the genres that overlap more completely (if
not entirely) with magical realism--that is, supernatural and fantasy
fiction--is that horror *is* a subset of these genres--depending on
whether the requisite emotional component is there. (Horror is also
a subset of science fiction, let's not forget!) While it is true that
there is not necessarily (or even commonly) "a 'horror' aspect to
magical realism," as Fran puts it, there is certainly a case to be made
for some confusion over how (if?) magical realism is to be distinguished
from supra(contra)natural and fantastic fiction. But if my comments on
horror _per_se_ are distracting people too much, just never mind about
that...*please*. (I've often observed that the mere thought of horror
fiction--with its worst-case-scenario visions of garish black-n-red
glossy covers, paint-by-the-numbers prose, and formulaic plots--seems to
have the power to cloud people's minds, and pull them off course in
what could be a reasoned discussion...)
As I said:
>>But!! Let's not get away from the still-unanswered issue, which is
>>(from my point of view) NOT "*What* is Magical Realism?" (I don't think
>>we can find a definition that doesn't overlap with fantastic and
>>contranatural fiction), but rather "*Why* is Magical Realism important,
>>as a label? What are the lit-crit-historical underpinnings for the
>>emergence of this term? Is it [as I suspect] simply a way for
>>mainstream literature to co-opt and claim as their own, writers who
>>would previously have been considered 'genre' writers?"
Fran replied:
>If "Ulysses" can be mainstream literature, certainly "One Hundred
>Years of Solitude" can be! When I read things such as "The Fairie Queene"
>and "Gulliver's Travels," it gets hard to distinguish "genre." To
>write in the fantasy genre, must the author be a product of the
>20th century?
You're right, Fran, at least in what I think you're saying: the whole
concept of "genre" is a fairly new, 20th-century thing. It's that
very concept that I'm struggling with here, because when some authors
are shelved with the genre fiction in bookstores, and others are shelved
with the mainstream literature, a dichotomy is created that has an
impact on everything from how those authors are critically received,
how well their books sell, what sort of future publishing contracts
they will be offered, and so on. In some cases, I think authors are
eager to be on the genre shelves: their desired audience finds them
more easily there. In other cases, they actively resist what they
view as an artistic judgment, and say things like "the genre shelves
are the ghetto shelves."
The question becomes increasingly elusive...in an ideal world, would
all the fiction be shelved together? Or would it be better if it
were even further subdivided into a "magical realism" section, a
"sword 'n' sorcery" section, a "multigenerational family-saga" section,
a "supernatural-and-horrific" section, a "horrific-but-not-supernatural"
section, and so on... You may think I'm kidding that booksellers ponder
these issues, but I well recall a store that had one section called
"thrillers" and one section called "horror." When I asked the owner
how he made the distinction, he stared at me as though I were terminally
ignorant, and said, "Well, of course *horror* novels always have some
element of the supernatural, whereas *thrillers* are things that could
really happen!"
Hmmm...that was news to me. What is meant by "could really happen"?
Gets kinda philosophical, don't it? Oddly enough, he had one of
Thomas Harris' serial-killer novels shelved as "horror," and another
of them as "thriller." I restrained myself from pointing this out
to the fellow. Instead, I just surreptitiously moved things around
so both of the Harris novels were together...in "horror." The two
parts of Hannibal Lecter's tale so far just seemed kinda lonely without
each other for company. :-)
My point being...(uh, I wish someone else could help me out with what
my point is...) of *course* I agree with Fran that _One_Hundred_Years_
_of_Solitude_ "can be" (to use her words) mainstream literature. What
is more the issue here is, why can't *everything* be mainstream
literature? Is mainstream literature a *category*, or is it a mark of
some sort of critical approval? Or is it a bookseller/publisher con-
venience? Should we, as readers, and as those who desire good writers
to get the acclaim they deserve, worry about this phenomenon?
Also: I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me at what juncture
in the history of literary criticism or literary labeling or whatever,
the Latin fantasists, in particular, jumped the shelves, as it were,
into "magical realism"--and thus "mainstream" lit? I'm not asking this
to be stubborn. I'm asking it because I genuinely don't know the
answer.
--Fiona
16b...@waikato.ac.nz
A tuatuara Ted? What's on earth is that - perhaps the offspring of a
tuatara and a tua tua. Must make for an interesting mating ritual since
one is a lizard and the other a shellfish.
- pleb retort
16b...@waikato.ac.nz
> Can we approach this not from the direction of trying to get a
> definition of magical realism, but rather from the direction of *why*
> this category is important, now, historically? Am I right that it is,
> in part, a way of "rescuing" what would be labeled as fantasy, horror,
> or supernatural fiction, from the negative connotations attached to
> those fields?
Sure we can Fiona - How about thinking of magic realism as a new way of
looking at history itself and how it's recorded.
- pleb retort
Fiona Webster
> Can we approach this not from the direction of trying to get a
> definition of magical realism, but rather from the direction of *why*
> this category is important, now, historically?
pleb retort writes:
>Sure we can Fiona - How about thinking of magic realism as a new way of
>looking at history itself and how it's recorded.
<tilting her head just slightly to one side, and raising her eyebrows>
Gee, sounds meta! Or at least a loop-de-loop. Please go on--I'm
intrigued.
--Fiona
Meg Worley
name once again. This time, however, I'm ready for him. This
is what Francisco Goldman, in *The Long Night of White Chickens*,
has to say about *him* (Miguel, not Brett):
Moya's recitation had been from the opening paragraph of Our _Chapin_
Nobel Laureate's most famous novel, may that bilious old turtle
everlastingly fart in bitter peace in his ambivalent exile's grave
in Paris.
I've only gotten through 280 pages of it so far -- after a semester
spent with Kant, I keep rereading every paragraph in search of
metaphysical import -- but so far it is very good and *very* true
to Guatemala.
A la juerga,
meg
--
mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu: Oldest Living Emory Junior Tells All
16b...@waikato.ac.nz
(Meg Worley) writes:
>
> Brett, bless his little kiwi heart, toots Miguel Angel Asturias'
> name once again. This time, however, I'm ready for him. This
> is what Francisco Goldman, in *The Long Night of White Chickens*,
> has to say about *him* (Miguel, not Brett):
>
> Moya's recitation had been from the opening paragraph of Our _Chapin_
> Nobel Laureate's most famous novel, may that bilious old turtle
> everlastingly fart in bitter peace in his ambivalent exile's grave
> in Paris.
>
> I've only gotten through 280 pages of it so far -- after a semester
> spent with Kant, I keep rereading every paragraph in search of
> metaphysical import -- but so far it is very good and *very* true
> to Guatemala.
>
Sorry Meg if you wish to discuss Asturias with me then I believe it
essential that you actually read his (Miguel Angel Asturias') books
rather than someone elses opinion of them.
- pleb retort
16b...@waikato.ac.nz
> Sorry Meg if you wish to discuss Asturias with me then I believe it
> essential that you actually read his (Miguel Angel Asturias') books
> rather than someone elses opinion of them.
>
ie. Go directly to the Mexican jail of your choice, do not pass go,
do not collect $200.
- pleb retort
Meg Worley
> Sorry Meg if you wish to discuss Asturias with me then I believe it
> essential that you actually read his (Miguel Angel Asturias') books
> rather than someone elses opinion of them.
Just to defend my name, let it here be known that Brett knows
as well as I do that I *have* read Asturias. In Guatemala, which
he has not.
Get out of jail free,