Magical Realism

I've heard the Italian author Italo Calvino described as a magic realist but his stories are all anti-fascist allegories (he was a partisan fighting against the Fascists in WWII) and don't seem very feminine.

Also the film "Night Of The Hunter" is often called a magic realist film but it appeals equally to both genders.

It could be that a lot of feminist authors have used magic realism for example Angela Carter.

not heard of it til now sounds cool though, ii dont think terry pratchet discworld books are chick-lit though havnt read much, i should read it apparantly its like my otherworld stories.

Kelly Link could be described as magical realism, and Alice Hoffman (sometimes)

magical realism was first associated with Latin American writers such as Borges (*whom I've never read) and Garbriel Garcia Marquez 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.'Puig 'Kiss of the Spider Woman'

It's reality but not as we know it.

It's reality but not as we know it.

Startrekker across the universe.

Magical realism... Hmmmmm never heard of it or read anything that is magical realism. My uneducated guess is that it's poetry and prose that is about life, society, economy, media and government; basically fundamental components of life, but with a more sentimental, emotional fantasy kind of tone. Maybe even emotional allegory or fantasy extended metaphors that are symbolic of a real life issue: so like that Italian anti-fascist writer that was mentioned a few comments up. I may be slightly off or completely wrong but that's how I would define the term from the above posts and the wording of the genre.

When I think of authors in the magical realism bracket I immediately think of Angela Carter, Marge Piercey etc, although I'm sure authors like Fowles (The Magus) Hesse (Steppenwolfe) Calvino (If on a Winter's Night) and Rushdie (Midnight's Children in particular) can all be classed as Magical Realists. If it's just a way of describing writers who use elements of fantasy in otherwise 'normal' writing there must be masses of them so it's certainly not just chick lit. Haven't read any Pratchett but I thought that would be just fantasy - would muggle world in the Harry Potter books be enough for the realism bit in the term to make it count? (I haven't read these either, but am enjoying the films more and more).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

I don't think Pratchett counts. Has to be more real than that. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a very wonderful book and a good example of the genre (and much more readable than Rushdie, although I did manage to slog my way through Midnight's Children and enjoyed some of it).

I think it won't be that long before it ceases to be a definable genre. So much mainstream fiction incorporates unreal elements now. I suspect it mattered at the time as a reaction to the rest of lit fiction around then. So probably becoming something for English students to know and less relevant for the rest of us.

Rob (not female)

people will start writing to be magical realism :/

It seems to me that the idea that magical realism is a genre for women is just an example of lazy thinking, perhaps related to the entirely spurious New Age notion that reason is masculine and intuition is feminine. This kind of slack nonsense is of no use to anyone; what so Marquez or Okri or Rushdie are women? Or all of their readers are women? Should us boys go away and write financial thrillers and hard science fiction?
I delight in magical realism: the frontier between the conscious mind and the subconscious is, as every writer knows, a peculiarly fertile terrain; the edge between this world and the realm that Lovecraft called the Dreamlands is where writers live; perhaps to some extent or another all fiction is magical realism.

*scrapes dust from log-in to reveal ABC password*

Hello all - just popped in because I spied Kropotkin's name and suddenly felt ridiculously nostalgic for a political debate, only to find I agree with him entirely! What a disappointment.

Of course magical realism isn't a gender issue - it's just a matter of taste. Kurt Vonnegut is probably the only author I can think of that I've enjoyed using it.

~
www.fabulousmother.co.uk

Some posters in this thread have made the assumption that "Magic Realism" has to have fantasy elements in it but, as I understand it, anything which draws upon the tradition and symbolism of fantasy could be considered "magic realist". For example a non-magical story which borrowed its plot structure from the Fairytale of "Little red riding hood" could be considered Magic Realist.

This is why the film "Night Of The Hunter" is called "Magic Realist" even though there is no magic in the story. "Night Of The Hunter" borrows archetypes and imagery from "Fairy Tales" for example "The Wicked Stepfather" and "The Wise Old Woman" and the children abandoned like Hansel And Gretel or Babes In The Wood. It also contains fairy tale like visual depictions of nature.

I'd say that, more than Terry Prachett or Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket's Series Of Unfortunate Events, comes closer to Magic Realism because of the absence of magic.

yeh maybe :) I read one unfortunate events book ages ago and would call it magical or fantasy even though it wasnt actual magic, read some harry potter, kids books except first one was great I thought and I just read a book kaspar prince of cats,(said for 7+) yet it was about the titanic, only took me day to read and I thought it was really good anyway. So I think it doesnt have to have magic in it to be magical.