Magical Realism

Katy began her post on Monday by saying, "A cherished writer friend recently planted a flag in the literary sod and vowed to build a brand on Magical Realism in fiction." I'm also friends with the writer, and when she said she wants to write "Magical Realism," I thought, What a great way to define what she writes. Wish I could be so spot on describing what I write. And then, after reading some of the really good comments to Katy's post, I began to think, Hmm, maybe our friend wasn't the first to coin the phrase.

So when I began typing "Magical Realism to Google it, I was very surprised when my search engine finished the phrase for me, then opened up to a Wikipedia page, and many other pages on the topic. Shoot, there are whole books on Magical Realism, and I'm just now hearing the term. Honestly, I'm blown away by all I don't know.

According to Wikipedia, Magical Realism is defined as: "an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality." But I suppose you already knew that. Wikipedia lost me, like a dropped stitch, in the ensuing paragraph then picked me up again when it said, "Today there are many varieties of writers whose work is categorized as 'magical realist' to such an extent that critics and readers alike are confused as to what the term really means and how wide its borders are."

~

That would be me.

~

While exploring the subject, I read an interesting article on Magical Realism by Bruce Holland Rogers titled, "What is Magical Realism, Really?". That doesn't mean I could make a coherent presentation about Magical Realism, but it gave me a little more information I could somewhat grasp. Mr. Rogers said, "If a magazine editor these days asks for contributions that are magical realism, what she's really saying is that she wants contemporary fantasy written to a high literary standard -- fantasy that readers who 'don't read escapist literature' will happily read. It's a marketing label and an attempt to carve out a part of the prestige readership for speculative works."

~

In the Comments section of Katy's post, Megan Sayer said, "The church needs to champion this, not be afraid of it." I couldn't agree more. And Niki Turner in her comment, which made me realize there was more to the subject than I first understood, said, "I always wonder why we, as Christians, have such difficulty merging the supernatural with the natural. That realm, with all its 'magical' qualities, should be more real to us than reality."

~

It should, but it's not. And we could probably go back centuries to find when the church first began to disavow the miraculous in its midst. But if biblical truth contains the miraculous, the numinous, the fantastic and sublime, why shouldn't a Christian's work contain the same kind of truth? Why do we not only shy away from such things, but consider them taboo? There are plenty of artists and authors who aren't necessarily on the Creator's side who have no qualms about spotlighting a world we can't see with human eyes. If we believe all we read between the pages of the Bible, we should, as Megan says, be championing the supernatural in our work and in our lives.

~

In the little bit of research I did on the topic, One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was the most often cited novel that fits the category. What other books have you read, or would recommend on Magical Realism? And am I the only one who didn't know it's a recognized genre?

Get Out Your Purple Notebook

A cherished writer friend recently planted a flag in the literary sod and vowed to build a brand based on Magical Realism in fiction. I cheered. Someone gets it, I thought.

Rightly or wrongly, it seemed that this writer understood that the tradition of Magical Realism uniquely - and ironically - suits itself to Christian Fiction.

Why ironically? Because when we think of Magical Realist Fiction, we generally think first of novels written in places where the Western European, "Christian" culture has colonized and marginalized the native culture, and those novels often subvert the imposed worldview and re-claim, re-dignify the lost or nearly-lost native worldview.

Oh my. Don't I sound like a school-marm on the lecture circuit? And this after Bonnie's brilliant post last Friday that had us all laughing all weekend.

But remember her step number three?

Invent a perpetual motion machine. Give it a catchy name. Then, hide it in a closet for at least one year. After the appropriate amount of time has past, take the machine out of the closet, tinker with it until it moves at double the speed. (This step ensures you are able to do the impossible – at least twice.)

Good Magical Realist fiction does the impossible, with grace. So bear with me, and consider that perhaps the colonizing culture was more rationalist than Christian. I know, the church was always deeply a part of Western colonization, but would I get in much trouble if I suggested that at least on occasion the church had first and long before been colonized itself by the Enlightenment mindset (too enlightened to believe the impossible), than by its native Biblical perspective?

Certainly by now The Age of Reason has outgrown its need to get the church on its side, and, it seems to me, left a sadder world as its legacy in its last days.

I'm less inclined than some to feel persecuted or marginalized as an American Christian (I realize things are different in other places), but at the very least, as one who believes that Van Gogh's stars tell the Gospel truth, that the world is charged with the grandeur of God, that he dances and whispers sweet somethings in our ears, that rocks cry out and donkeys speak and a virgin brings forth a son and water turns to wine and the lion will lie down with the lamb... at the very least I often feel lonely.

You too?

Then take a look at this short list of the attributes of good magical realist fiction:

• It blends the mundane with the fantastic so seamlessly as to challenge perceptions of what is real and what is not.
• It elevates the mundane to the sublime.
• The story’s message is subversive to the dominant worldview.

Got any angels in your closet? Do you see something sublime in a lunch of bread and fish? Has this list brought something wondrous to mind?

Then please write it down in your purple notebook.

But first share it here, please, in the comments. We love to read what you have to say.

PS: For inspiration, try the Magical Realist classic, "One Hundred Years of Solitude," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Or try two newer novels, "The History of Love" by Nichole Krauss, and "Peace Like a River" by Leif Enger.

PSS: "I am after painting reality impressed on the mind so hard that it returns as a dream, but I am not after painting dreams as such, or fantasy." - George Tooker

PSST: "My most important problem was destroying the lines of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez