Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerwen
Anyway, the "magical realism" label was one of the great triumphs of marketing: "Fantasy? How can people read that junk? Now let me get back to this wonderful novel about psychic powers and supernatural beings."
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I took an interesting course on magic[al] realism in short fiction (ironic that it included, on top of the short fiction, at least six full length novels...) and first day wrote down the difference between definitions of magical realism and fantasy.
Fantasy has the elements of the fantastic with no hesitation about admitting that these things are strange or unnatural.
Magical realism is characterized by the 'realism' part of it: though there are elements of the fantastic, they are firmly located inside the realms of normalcy. Magical realism disregards religious scriptures or stories where the 'magical' occurrence has a religious or spiritual
blame; otherwise every story with Catholic iconography would get shunted into the category. Other genres have a reason things happen; in magic[al] realism, the 'magic[al]' aspect of it all is something you might see when you walk down the street.
Hazy terms even when defined, so examples:
Stories characterized by complete nonchalance about what
I might call supernatural occurrences might be Maria Luisa Bombal's
New Islands (though I argued that Yolanda served as a metaphor for something else, my professor insisted that she simply
was that something else, and that was perfectly fine in the story; please note I will strive not to give away any plot points of anything I reference); Julio Cortazar's
Axolotl (as if that could possibly be a normal part of every day life, yet there is no question that it's a total logical happening); Carlos Fuentes's
Aura (a brilliant use of second person narrative; until I read it, I didn't know there was an author out there who could pull it off; Aura and/or Consuelo are a natural, if dabbling with the supernatural, part of life which Montero simply accepts). Breaking into bigger works, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's
One Hundred Years of Solitude is gently strewn with exaggerated bits: nobody lives that long, for example, and when is a book more than a book? Fables and fairy tales usually fit into magical realism: Hey Little Red, is it normal for a wolf to dress up as grandma and talk? Well... I mean...
I believed he was really her...
Terry Pratchett creates worlds outside of ours to house his stories: he's making no attempts at convincing his readers that "This could really happen." Anne McCaffrey has her Pern. Even J.K. Rowling is solidly fantasy because even though the books take place on 20th Century Earth, she made a very solid distinction between the magic world and the non-magic world, with laws and law-keepers in place to keep it that way; when her Muggles learn about magic, they deny like it's their job.
In the hazy middle ground are C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. I can't fully comment on
The Chronicles of Narnia because I can't remember if I ever finished them. But I can comment on
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: I want to call it fantasy because there is a door that separates the two worlds, though events from both worlds do shape events in the others; I'll leave this up to others.
The Lord of the Rings. Part of me is begging to say fantasy. C'mon, Middle Earth? Trolls, Elves, Dwarves... Hobbits? Magic Rings and dragons.
Except for the key argument that Middle Earth is Earth as it was back in the day; this argument is supported by the statement in, I believe, the Intro of
The Fellowship in the simple comment that Hobbits slip away unnoticed these days in crowds because they have a natural ability to be unseen (magical realism) and humans are inept. Though you get characters like Eomer crying out on the fields of Rohan that "Wow, we live in a crazy world, where legends old folks told me show up with wings on their feet," you also get him accepting that orcs are a natural part of Rohirric life. The belief and disbelief in specifics of what another culture would call the supernatural follows logical human trends: you tend to have more faith in what's been ingrained in you since birth. Tolkien's use of psychological norms and his references to our Earth argue Magical Realism. Consciousness of religion in the revision argues (don't shoot me) not-allegory-but-applicability: a conscious motive on the part of Tolkien to give a reason.
I rather suppose that Tolkien's Middle Earth stories were magic[al] realism the first time through, and consciously not in the revision.
And my argument for why magic[al] realism is taken more seriously in literary circles than strict fantasy (a devil's advocate argument to be sure) is that 'it's much harder' to write a story in which you ask readers to suspend their disbelief when they can look around them and say "Um... I don't think so." Fantasy worlds can be viewed as a crutch: "How do you know that's impossible? You don't live here. Only I, the brilliant author, know the laws of physics and logic in this world." When you write something that can be disregarded as made up s**t and you set it in a world where people can check their facts, your writing requires certain other techniques or concentrations to keep your reader firmly under your control. Magic[al] realism, by existence, requires a more layered approach to story telling. Since literatis beg for layers [like parfaits; or onions], they can dig their sharp dirty little claws into magic[al] realism, confident in that one of their first little club rules is being followed.
As always, I'd like to insert a final point that only elitist snobs actually care about labels and pseudo-intellectual hype (and literary theory) when they go in search of good books. My next argument? Graphic novels have a place in the canon. Until next time, folks...