Anyone familiar with Magic Realism?

[sarahrebecca58]

Magic realism

Thought I'd put this here. Anyone familiar with magic realism? Has anyone written any novels hear that have these features?

What got you into Magic Realism?

[Bones]

I'm familiar with magical realism. The novel I'm currently writing, Flight of Fantasy, was based off a question that dealt with magic realism. I've always been curious about what if magic wasn't hidden. What if it was just something that was used everyday like everything else we know and how would people go about using it?

I guess from there, I just kept asking more questions and instead of saying no, I kept saying yes and it branched off.

[lunaartemisasama]

Yes, because my dad is Colombian and is a must to read Garcia Marquez lol. But I don't think I have written something in that area.

But I will tell you what I know from "100 years of Solitude" so I think that the main thing about magical realism is that they treat supernatural things as something normal. For example there's a part where it rains for four YEARS,or the part where the writer makes you feel that it's something posible that if the members of the Buendia family have a child product of an incestuous relationship, he/she will have a pig tail, why? because it happened before lol.

Anyway I liked that book, so I think the main thing is to exaggerate things so that it seems common, even the uncommon.

[sarahrebecca58]

Ah sort of like the giant fly trap island in Life Of Pi. I can dig it.

[lunaartemisasama]

I don't know about the first one, but Life of Pi is a good example.

[sarahrebecca58]

I once read a TV Tropes article that said all Musicals were an example of magic realism. Maybe in like, the movie version. But Phantom Of The Opera is not really an example of Magic Realism.

I really can't stand TV Tropes sometimes. So many stuff is wildly off base at times.

[lunaartemisasama]

I think the only common thing they have... is that they make you feel that is normal that everybody is singing and dancing? XD.

[sarahrebecca58]

I guess they're similar in that way.

Oh wait ... The Phantom Of The ... hey cute pig tail!

Would Magic Realism necessarily be mutually exclusive from science fiction? I'm reminded of an author I'm familiar with, that combines a dystopian setting with elements of Murakami type Magic Realism.

Not that dystopia is always science fiction, although dystopia has kind of become a catch all horrible society word these days.

I've been labelled Magic Realism in some of my work, although I'm not entirely sure why. (Generally my more autobiographical works.)

[lunaartemisasama]

At least from what I understand magical realism is more about actions?, if you have to alter the world to make things happen I don't feel that that's magic realism anymore...I don't know if it makes sense XD.

I mean if the setting is not the world as we know it I think it's more science fiction, or fantasy, it depends...because then there's no realism anymore.

Of course I am talking from the kind of magical realism I was taught, from literature (Murakami is still in my I should read but I am too lazy list lol).

[Demy]

I don't take TVTropes too seriously. Their "See the Index" topics are a good read though. Some more than others.

Also the last Magic Realism story I've experienced was when reading the Joy Luck Club though I don't remember too much of that book.

[sarahrebecca58]

I can definitely check it out. I think with one story I wrote, It was a reason by the story was rejected from a Wattpad science fiction mag: it was to much like magic realism.

At that point I was writing about technology and how it effects the subconcious mind, and how people can dream fantastical things into existance that are not otherwise possible.

But the technology isn't considerably beyond what we have now.

[Rhombik]

Hmm, I don't think magical realism is when magic is treated as normal. I think it's when fantasy elements and mundane elements are simultaneously heightened.

For example, Harry Potter and Twilight both treat magic as normal but they're fantasy novels. JK Rowling doesn't spend a long time talking about puberty, Dean's football obsession or banks. They're all mentioned briefly but not really touched upon.

Magic realism often has a fixation on the body and bodily functions, taboos and upending the status quo. Basically, if you're reading a book and somebody hasn't described a bodily function in graphic detail, it's probably not magical realism. I'm being overly simplistic but if you read Carter, Marquez or Rushdie, there's a lot of poo, pee, blood and snot. And incest.

I checked the wiki page and I wouldn't trust it. It lists Murakami and Bulgakov as magical realists and they're not. Neither of them play up the mundane enough. I'd say Murakami is a surrealist and Bulgakov is straight out satire.

If you want to do some extra reading, jstor has a lot of stuff.

http://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=magical+realism&filter=

And if you want to go super hardcore, Rabelais and his World by Mikhail Bakhtin which describes some of the main tenets of magical realism such as grotesque realism and the carnivalesque.

@sarahrebecca58 It's a shame your story got rejected. I think a lot of people get put off the idea of magical realism because it's supposed to be super high brow but I think some of the best stuff that's ever been written is magical realism.

Edit: I just read my post back and it's possible I went too far down the rabbit hole. It was a bit like I was a sleeper agent and somebody said the code word and I just woke up but instead of killing people, I just started reciting four years of academia... I'll leave the research up but I'm totally not offended if nobody's actually interested in reading this stuff.

[sarahrebecca58]

Hey no sweat (get it) I thought it was funny. I mention bodily functions a bit. Mainly blood though. I might take a look though.

[Rhombik]

I like a good pun.

The real question is... how much incest do you have? That's a sure fire way to get yourself onto the Magic Realist list.

[sarahrebecca58]

Yea no kidding, and jail time in some places. Except maybe in the South.

[Rhombik]

Writing about incest can get you jailtime?? I didn't know that.

Not that there's any in my projects.

[sarahrebecca58]

Oh no, engaging in incest. Big difference.

[J.Z.Castillo]

I just realized the story I have been writing for the past 3 years is magic realism haha, I never knew it has a name! This is pretty cool!