A World of Magical Realism

According to American Heritage Dictionary, Magical Realism is "a chiefly literary style or genre originating in Latin America that combines fantastic or dreamlike elements with reality." That is quite a general definition of the term, so let us dive much deeper into the history and theory of Magical Realism.

Although the origins of Magical Realism are commonly associated with Latin America, the term was first coined by Franz Roh in first an essay and then in his book Nach-Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus (Post Expressionism: Magical Realism), which was published in 1925 (Berger). By using the word "magic," instead of "mystic" or "Spirit", Roh wanted "to indicate that the mystery does not descend to the represented world, but rather hides and palpitates behind it" (Faris 16).

The artwork of Post-Expressionism is "a mode of representation that takes on an aura of the fantastic because commonplace objects are presented with unexpectedly exaggerated and detailed forthrightness" (Arnason 259). As art evolved from the objectless, abstract, and pure emotional and spiritual subjectivity of Impressionism and Expressionism to the Realism of Post-Expressionism, which began to use real objects again, there remained a sense of the spiritual within those real objects. This is why the Realism of Post-Expressionism was much different than the Realism before the Impressionist and Expressionist period.

In 1927, Roh's essay on Magical Realism was published in Spanish by Ortega y Gasset in his journal Revista de Occidente (Faris 15). Latin American authors began to use the concept of Magical Realism in their fictional stories. One of the first Latin American's to begin writing about Magical Realism was Alejo Carpentier in his essay "lo real maravilloso Americano," first published in 1949 (Faris 75). Carpentier changed the term "Magical Realism" to "Real Maravilloso," because he developed a different viewpoint than Roh's original idea. Speaking about Roh, Carpentier said "what he called Magical Realism was simply painting where real forms are combined in a way that does not conform to daily reality" (Faris 102). Carpentier then describes his view, "the Marvelous Real that I defend and that is our own Marvelous Real is encountered in its raw state, latent and omnipresent, in all that is Latin America. Here the strange is commonplace, and always was commonplace" (Faris 104). He believed the "Real Maravilloso" grew right out of the colonized Latin American society. He said "the fantastic inheres in the natural and human realities of time and place, where in probable juxtapositions and marvelous mixtures exist by virtue of Latin America's varied history, geography, demography, and politics" (Faris 75).

Such a view has led many to assume that Magical Realism is exclusively written by Latin American authors. The fantasy author Steven Brust, believes that Magical Realism "is just Fantasy written by a Latin American author" (Evans). First, I would like to mention that Magical Realism is not Fantasy. Second, people who make such a claim are ignoring the German art movement, affiliated with Roh, and the European art and literary influences, like Franz Kafka (Bowers 18). Nevertheless, with authors like Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Latin American boom sent a shock wave that spread Magical Realism throughout the world, inspiring writers internationally. Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, and Alice Hoffman are just some of them.

A fantasy author like Brust should know the differences between Magical Realism and pure Fantasy, but there was no "Magical Realist Manifesto" written, so it can be easy to misunderstand this genre that has gone through many stages and has given many headaches to historians. General differences are "Fantasy relies on world-building and specific tropes; Magical Realism is set in the here and now and is far more politically driven" (Tapia). A more focused explanation of the differences between Fantasy and Magical Realism is how magic is portrayed within the two genres. In fantasy, magic is "a rational science bound by rules and algorithms. There are humans, and there are fairies; there is our world and there is theirs; some items, places, persons, and rituals are magical, and some are not" (Evans). On the other hand, the magic of Magical Realism is "random, chaotic, surreal, of no lasting consequence to any but those who experience it, and all these supernatural events are told in the same casual, matter of fact tone used to describe lunches and money problems" (Evans). Amaryll Chanady, who is a Magical Realist critic, further explains:

"In contrast to the fantastic, the supernatural in Magical Realism does not disconcert the reader, and this is the fundamental difference between the two modes. The same phenomena that are portrayed as problematical by the author of a fantastic narrative are presented in a matter-of-fact manner by the Magical Realist" (Bowers 26).

A good example of this is in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," in which a farm couple discover an angel, who is an elderly man with "huge buzzard wings, dirty and half plucked" (Young 485). What makes this story Magical Realism and not Fantasy is the normalization and lack of awe about the supernatural event that has taken place, the author writes "they skipped over the inconvenience of the wings and quite intelligently concluded that he was a lonely castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm" (Young 485). Another example is when the neighbors find the elderly angel in a chicken coop and began "having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the opening in the wire as if he weren't a supernatural creature but a circus animal" (Young 485). This should clear up the misunderstanding of Magical Realism being the same as Fantasy.

Another genre that is often misunderstood as being the same as Magical Realism is Surrealism. Although Magical Realism was influenced by Surrealism and both have their similarities, like exploring the non-pragmatic aspects of life and unifying contradicting paradoxes, they are two different genres (Bowers 23). Both Carpentier and Roh were both fans of the French Surrealists. Roh felt the two genres were different due to Surrealism's focus on the "cerebral and psychological reality" whereas Magical Realism deals with the "actual existence of things in this world" (Bowers 12). Carpentier said, "if Surrealism pursued the marvelous, one would have to say that it very rarely looked for it in reality" (Faris 103). He did not think that the fantastic should be "discovered by subverting or transcending reality with abstract forms and manufactured combinations of images" (Faris 76). This is not much of a surprise knowing Carpentier felt that the fantastic element of Magical Realism came from the reality of Latin American society.

Surrealism holds irrationality and the unconscious mind as superior to objective reality - promoting a sense of nihilistic meaninglessness. On the other hand, Magical Realism's fantastical elements arise out of the world as we know it - displaying a higher meaning that is grounded in ordinary Realism. The Magical Realist expert, Wendy B. Faris, explains this:

"In contrast to the magical images constructed by Surrealism out of ordinary objects, which aim to appear virtually unmotivated and thus programmatically resist interpretation, Magical Realist images, while projecting a similar initial aura of surprising craziness, tend to reveal their motivations - psychological, social, emotional, political - after some scrutiny" (Faris 171).

Here it is made clear that Magical Realism and Surrealism are two different genres.

Just like the merging of the fantasy and reality within Magical Realism, various interpretations have blended together to make it what it is today. Faris has set out to define exactly what this post-modern fiction is, she briefly states "Magical Realism combines realism and the fantastic in such a way that magical elements grow organically out of the reality portrayed" (Faris 163). When she says "grow organically out of the reality" she is speaking about presenting the magic elements in a casual, matter-of-fact way that normalizes the magic.

The amount of writers who write Magical Realism is growing as well as the fans who love to read it. A World of Magical Realism is a celebration of this unique and entertaining genre.

Works Cited

Arnason, H. H., and Elizabeth C. Mansfield. History of Modern Art. Sixth Edition. 2010. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Print.
Berger, Bjorn J. Magical Realism: Artists Connected To Magic Realism.
Bowers, Maggie. Magic(al) Realism. New York: Routledge. 2004. Print.
Evans, Jon. "Magical realism: not fantasy. Sorry." tor.com. 2008. Web. 8 March 2011.
Faris, Wendy B., and Lois Parkinson Zamora. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. North Carolina: Duke University Press. 1995. Print.
Tapia, Allena. "Manifest Magic: Exploring Magic Realism." wow-womenonwriting.com. 2009. Web. 1 April 2011.
Young, David, and Keith Hollaman. Magical Realist Fiction: An Anthology. New York: Longman Inc. 1984. Print

One of my all time favorite contemporary Magical Realist authors is Aimee Bender. She has written two collections of short stories and two novels. Her first short story collection is The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, which was my introduction to her work, an absolute classic. The first paragraph of the first story, "The Rememberer," had me hooked:

"My lover is experiencing reverse evolution. I tell no one. I don't know how it happened, only that one day he was my lover and the next he was some kind of ape. It's been a month and now he's a sea turtle."

You could say it was love at first read.

Read the whole story here.

Following The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Bender published An Invisible Sign of My Own (novel), Willful Creatures (short stories), and her most recent novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

In Lemon Cake, the setting is mostly realistic. We have a young girl, Rose, who lives with her family in Los Angeles, goes to school, pesters her anti-social brother, and has a crush on his best friend George. There are working parents, one who works too much and watches a lot of television, the other who takes up carpentry and has an affair, all the mundane and juicy stuff that takes place in the real world. However, Rose can taste the moods of people who make her food. Her brother Joseph, her father, and her grandfather also have their own supernatural qualities. These supernatural elements are mixed seamlessly within the story of reality - showing a higher reality. For instance, Rose's special skill allows the reader to see the underlying reality of the characters; the sub-consciousness needs and moods that drive the characters to do certain things (like have an affair).

One of the most important characteristics of Magical Realism is presenting the fantastic in a matter-of-fact way so that "the commonplace becomes unusual or the unusual becomes normal" ("Big Fish"). The normalization of the magic is induced by the lack of surprise in the characters witnessing the magic. For instance, when George tests Rose and concludes she has "special skills," he does not freak out and call the FBI or the Secret Service to come take her away so that scientist can conduct experiments on her (chances of this happening in a pure Fantasy novel are great). Without a sense of fear or alertness, he simply says, "maybe you'll grow in to it" (Bender 71). He treats her same as always, which makes her like him even more.

The elements of fantasy grounded in the world of abundant realism, along with the matter-of-fact way the fantastic elements are presented, make this wonderful novel a true work of Magical Realism.

Acording to her Aimee Bender's official website, she is a creative writing teacher at USC, Los Angeles. She has won two Pushcart prizes, been a TipTree and Shirley Jackson award nominee, and her stories have been published in GQ, Tin House, The Paris Review, and Harper's to name a few. I highly recommend everyone to read her books. Start with The Girl in the Flammable Skirt.

Works Cited

Bender, Aimee. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. New York: Double Day. 2010. Print.
"Big Fish." Mr. Magical Realism: The Magic Realist Writers International Network. www.pantarbe.com. 2004-2009. Web. 2 June 2011

One of the editors of Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community is Professor Wendy B. Faris. She is an expert on the subject.

Here are her five primary characteristics of Magical Realism:

1. The text contains an irreducible element of magic, something we cannot explain according to the laws of the universe as we know them (167).

2. Descriptions detail a strong presence of the phenomenal world - this is the realism of magical realism, distinguishing it from much fantasy and allegory (169).

3. The reader may hesitate (at one point or another) between two contradictory understandings of events - and hence experiences some unsettling doubts (171).

4. We experience the closeness or near merging of two realms, two worlds (172).

5. These fictions question received ideas about time, space, and identity. (173).

Works Cited

Faris, Wendy B., and Lois Parkinson Zamora. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. North Carolina: Duke University Press. 1995. Print.

I consider Rob Gonsalves the best magical realist artist, which is why I've added his artwork to the introduction and some of the articles on this page. He does a great job of blending the fantastic and realistic worlds together in a seamless natural way. If you look at his paintings in the posts above, the characters appear to see the magic within the environment as normal. In "Making Waves," in which a mother is resting on a couch surrounded by waves of the ocean while her son is playing with seashells on the living room floor, I love how the vast ocean is all within the small room (look at the back-right corner) and the shadows of the birds appear on the wall.

Gonsalves was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and two of his major influences are the illusionist M.C. Escher and the Surrealist Rene Magritte (" Rob Gonsalves: Biography"). You can view more of his work here.

Works Cited

" Rob Gonsalves: Biography." Exclusive Collections. ecgallery.com. 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2011

Below is a short clip of Gonsalves speaking about his work at the New York Art Expo.

As of today, 11/24/2011 (Thanksgiving), I'm taking an indefinite break from working on this page. Hope to continue in the not-so-far-off future. I'll leave you with this photo for now; a nice representation of Magical Realism. Thank you for visiting!