Magic realism
Magic realism (or
magical realism) is a
literary genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting. As used today the term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous. The term was initially used by German art critic
Franz Roh to describe painting which demonstrated an altered reality, but was later used by Venezuelan
Arturo Uslar-Pietri to describe the work of certain
Latin American writers. The Cuban writer
Alejo Carpentier (a friend of Uslar-Pietri) used the term "lo real maravilloso" (roughly "marvelous reality") in the prologue to his novel
The Kingdom of this World (1949). Carpentier's conception was of a kind of heightened reality in which elements of the miraculous could appear without seeming forced and unnatural. Carpentier's work was a key influence on the writers of the Latin American "boom" that emerged in the 1960s.
Magic realism is also a style of visual art which brings extreme
realism to the depiction of mundane subject matter.
The following elements are found in many magical realist novels and films, but not all are found in all of them and many are found in novels or films that could fall under other genres.
*Contains fantastical elements
*The fantastic elements may be intuitively "logical" but are never explained
*Characters accept rather than question the logic of the magical element
*Exhibits a richness of sensory details
*Uses symbols and imagery extensively. Often phallic imagery is used without the reader/viewer consciously noticing it.
*Emotions and the sexuality of the human as a social construct are often developed upon in great detail
*Distorts time so that it is cyclical or so that it appears absent. Another technique is to collapse time in order to create a setting in which the present repeats or resembles the past
*Inverts cause and effect, for instance a character may suffer
before a tragedy occurs
*Incorporates legend or folklore
*Presents events from multiple perspectives, such as those of belief and disbelief or the colonizers and the colonized
*Uses a mirroring of either past and present, astral and physical planes, or of characters
*Ends leaving the reader uncertain, whether to believe in the
magical interpretation or the
realist interpretation of the events in the story
Note that it is common in some
fantasy stories to include a
frame story, in which the central, fantastic story is explained as a
dream. Because the main story works equally well with or without the
frame story, and since either way the reader feels no ambiguity about choosing between the
magical and the
real interpretation, these are usually
not included in the category of
magical realism.
As a literary style, magical realism often overlaps or is confused with other genres and movements.
*
Postmodernism â€" Magical realism is often considered a subcategory of postmodern fiction due to its challenge to
hegemony and its use of techniques similar to those of other postmodernist texts, such as the distortion of time.
*
Surrealism â€" Many early magical realists such as
Alejo Carpentier and
Miguel Ãngel Asturias studied with the surrealists, and surrealism, as an international movement, influenced many aspects of Latin American art. Surrealists, however, try to discover and portray that which is above or superior to the "real" through the use of techniques such as
automatic writing,
hypnosis, and
dreaming. Magical realists, on the other hand, portray the real world itself as having marvelous aspects inherent in it.
*
Fantasy and
Science fiction â€" Fantasy and science fiction novels, using strict definitions, portray an
alternate universe with its own set of rules and characteristics, however similar this universe is to our world, or experiment with our world by suggesting how a new technology or political system might affect our society. Magical realism, however, portrays the real world minus any definite set of rules. Some critics who define the genres more broadly include magic realism as one of the fantasy genres.
*
Slipstream â€" Slipstream describes fiction that falls between "mainstream" literature and the fantasy and science fiction genres (the name itself is wordplay on the term "mainstream"). Where science fiction and fantasy novels treat their fantastical elements as being very literal, real elements of their world, slipstream usually explores these elements in a more surreal fashion, and delves more into their satirical or metaphorical importance. Compared to magical realism the fantastical elements of slipstream also tend to be more extravagant, and their existence is usually more jarring to their comparative realities than that which is found in magic realism.
The term
magic realism was first used by the German art critic
Franz Roh to refer to a painterly style also known as
Neue Sachlichkeit. It was later used to describe the unusual realism by American painters such as
Ivan Albright,
Paul Cadmus,
George Tooker and other artists during the
1940s and
1950s. It should be noted though that unlike the term's use in literature, in art it is describing paintings that do
not include anything fantastic or magical, but are rather extremely realistic and often times mundane.
The term was first revived and applied to the realm of fiction as a combination of the fantastic and the realistic in the 1960s by a Venezuelan essayist and critic
Arturo Uslar-Pietri, who applied it to a very specific South American genre, influenced by the blend of realism and fantasy in
Mário de Andrade's influential
1928 novel
MacunaÃma. However, the term itself came in vogue only after
Nobel prize winner
Miguel Ãngel Asturias used the expression to define the style of his novels. The term gained popularity with the rise of such authors as
Mikhail Bulgakov,
Ernst Jünger and
Salman Rushdie and many
Latin American writers, most notably
Jorge Luis Borges,
Isabel Allende,
Juan Rulfo,
Dias Gomes and
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, who confessed, "My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic." Mexican author
Laura Esquivel also wrote in this vein when she penned
Like Water for Chocolate. The book, which sold three million copies worldwide, was later made into a film. Upon its release in the
United States, it became the highest grossing
foreign film in U.S. history. (It has since been surpassed by the current record-holder
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.) The most widely read of the South American magical realism narratives is GarcÃa Márquez's novel
One Hundred Years of Solitude. The style was actually originated by
Nokolai Gogol in his short story 'The Nose'
Today,
magical realism is perhaps too broadly used, to characterize all realistic fictions with an eerie, otherworldly component, such as the tales of
Edgar Allan Poe, or realistic fictions where magic is simply an overt theme in the narrative, such as
The Stepford Wives or the
Harry Potter books. The latter pair of examples are probably best categorized as works of
fantasy, since they utilize magic and other supernatural concepts and ideas as primary elements of plot, theme, or setting.
*
Isabel Allende*
Mário de Andrade*
Miguel Ãngel Asturias*
Louis de Bernieres*
Jorge Luis Borges*
Mikhail Bulgakov*
Angela Carter*
Laura Esquivel*
Dias Gomes*
Gilbert Hernandez*
Jaime Hernandez*
Ernst Jünger*
Daniel Kehlmann*
Milan Kundera*
Jonathan Lethem*
Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez*
Toni Morrison*
Haruki Murakami*
Franz Roh*
Juan Rulfo*
Salman Rushdie*
Arturo Uslar-PietriIn painting, magical realism is a term often used interchangeably with
post-expressionism. In
1925, art critic Franz Roh used this term to describe painting which signaled a return to
realism after
expressionism's extravagances which sought to redesign objects to reveal the spirits of those objects. Magical realism, according to Roh, instead faithfully portrays the exterior of an object, and in doing so the spirit, or magic, of the object reveals itself.
Other important aspects of magical realist painting, according to Roh, include:
*A return to mundane subjects as opposed to fantastical ones.
*A juxtaposition of forward movement with a sense of distance, as opposed to Expressionism's tendency to foreshorten the subject.
*A use of miniature details even in expansive paintings, such as large landscapes.
Artists associated with magic realism include:
*
Paul Cadmus*
Ivan Albright*
Philip Evergood*
George TookerMagic realism has very recently become a little known but rapidly developing genre of music. Music of this genre is regarded as particularly expressive of its creator's emotions through the use of modern instruments as opposed to traditional instruments. In some cases "instruments", as they are traditionally thought of, are not used at all, with the musician fusing certain noises with others (such as the gentle rustling of leaves with the harsh noise of a kettle whistling) to create a surreal listening experience that is deeply emotive. Juxtaposition of sounds, like in the example mentioned above, is a common trait of magically realistic music.
*
Fantastic realism*
Hysterical realism*
Maximalism*
Postmodern literature*
Pseudorealism''''
