editorial: opinions that matter
What the Hell is Magical Realism?
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| Spanner |
Just in case you're in a rush to catch a bus or get to the supermarket before all the reduced items have been snatched up by bargain hungry pensioners, I'll save you some time by telling you now that this article ultimately fails to explain this distinctly nebulous literary movement. So go and get your half price, out of date pork pies, then come and read this when you've got more time.
For those of you who've already purchased your past-its-best produce, let me take you on a whirlwind journey of discovery, juvenile insults and embarrassing self-abuse that constitutes my attempt to uncover the reasons behind magic realism.
My quest began as an innocuous and ill advised bout of shameless self promotion when Gina and Doug (editor and editoress of yellow) released the theme for issue two to the contributing writers. At the time, I was still trying to impress them with my literary bent.
"Magic realism? That's the only kind of realism I know, of course. Wasn't it William Blake who said 'A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees?' If it is to your lasting benefit, I shall endeavor to pen a scholarly contemplation of that which constitutes a realism of the most magic nature, for those less erudite than ourselves, hmmmm?'
Yeah. Smart move, Spanner. Ya fuckin' dumb ass.
It's a bad habit of mine; write first, research later. So off I went on mouse drawn carriage into old Cyberspace Town to find some well-read resources on this issue's theme, so I could chew them up, wash them down with cheap rum and regurgitate them to you, the punter.
The internet is like a maze, except in a dead straight line leading directly to the only dead end, with any turns along the way locked by credit card approval systems or an impassable blockade of banner advertisements. The numerous descriptions from the educated elite of magical realism were practically luminous with vernacular fluency, but unless my dictionary was broken, very few of them;
A) Agreed with each other,
B) Successfully conveyed any kind of understandable message, or
C) Made any bleeding sense at all.
I'm not naturally cynical, but it only took about half an hour of reading about what constitutes orthodox magic realism to bring me to my first conclusion; it's a load of old bollocks.
Magic realism is one of those cleverly designed topics that exist solely for beret wearing wordsmiths or out of work English Literature professors who are trying to shag their ex-students to be superior about while avoiding real life in some Java fuelled jazz bar. It's vague enough that anyone can easily harbor counterfeit opinions on the subject without fear of being caught out by someone with a slightly better articulated, if equally indistinct, views.
"Ah well you see, my good chum, I stick to the Latino American classical renderings of the early pre-modernist movement. Take a look at the magic realism section of my antique bookcase; you won't find anything printed after 1995. It's just the way I am, darling. Sorry I can't agree with you, my good chum."
"Whereas my magic realism edification experience took place far from the classroom, my fine colleague. I immersed myself in the thrill of experimentation found in the prose of neoclassical pre-post-structuralism of early 21st Century essayists who so closely echoed my own writings, so I fear we shall find no common ground, my fine colleague. Dare I venture we be so boorish as to employ the crass truism; we agree to disagree?"
Listening to the nonexistent, pretentious ponces arguing inside my mildly schizophrenic mind after such an unsuccessful surfing expedition was about as much as I could stand. I already hated magical realism, and I was further than ever from making good on my boast about providing a layman's explanation of what this whole thing means.
At this juncture, it seems proper to tell you about the time I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand with a screwdriver and broke two of the bones in my hand. Ever since, even the faintest echo of sweet talking can coax my middle finger into dislocating, so punching the tower of my PC in a magical realism induced rage was more than adequate to cause two fingers of my best typing hand to veer off at a disturbingly jaunty angle.
What a great day I was having.
Not being the kind of guy who gives up just because it's the most advisable thing to do, I dug my heels in and wrote the article regardless, using only my left hand. This is not that article.
What I wrote while in that altered state of being, drawing clear parallels between various descriptions I'd gleamed from the net, popular topics for magical realism stories, past examinations of the genre and my own disapproving, left handed views on what it actually is, made perfect sense when I read it back to myself. In truth, I was pretty surprised that the article had maintained any form of cohesive structure or even a mild semblance of nonalignment when it was written under such uninspiring circumstances.
Filing it away on my hard drive with a considerably lighter mood fluttering around the six watt bulb of my pain addled brain, I went round to see my father, who has a knack for realigning my faulty knuckles (or, more accurately, a lack of sympathy or restraint when it comes to straightening those wayward fingers). Everything was back in order, and I had nailed the enigma of magical realism.
Have you ever heard the phrase "good writing is rewriting?" Well, my method of tidying up the fascinating word usages I structure (?) is to leave an article to settle for about three days, then revisit it with a big red pen.
Imagine my surprise when the magical realism article had settled into a jumbled mass on nonsensical insults and the kind of plain talking, straight forward gibberish you might expect from a dyslexic mental patient. I sincerely wondered if the Word document had been corrupted, it was such utter cerebral white noise.
It hadn't, though. I checked the back up.
I had no working excuses. My previously concise and confident understanding of what magical realism is turned out to be a temporary mental breakdown. When I thought about the circumstances of my literary innovation, it actually didn't seem unreasonable that it had descended into obscurity, though it didn't explain away the fact that I read, and reread, the article several times after it had been written and was conspicuously please with it.
The thought occurs that maybe the nebulous, intangible nature of magical realism was uncovered in that fucked up mass of nonlinear garbage, though not the way I intended. I've since read quite a bit of work based on or around the genre, and much of it seems at times confused and tangential, while simultaneously weaving a thread of normality in and amongst the bizarre fantasy that resides at the core of the concept.
Looking again at my first draft of this feature, it did seem to contain the elements I was seeing in recognized examples of magical realism (albeit in an unpracticed and caustically acidic manner). It spoke of how the spasms of pain that shot through me when I involuntary brought my injured right hand into action on the keyboard had a direct, posthumous impact on the Latin American literary movement. My left and right hands supposedly acting out the disparate factions of the countries and authors who had developed the style, all while I was attempting to grasp its meaning.
Or something to that nature; even the bewildering recounting above is a conjectured reconstruction of the shite that actually landed on the page.
But it did lead me to wonder whether works of magical realism are, in fact, entirely dependant on the reader's state of mind. Although the most basic descriptions break it down to being "a style which combines fantasy and normality", it appears to me to be more of a nexus point between slightly different realities; neither of them ordinary and neither of them particularly magical, just close enough to interfere with the other's world and create brief pockets of altered consciousness.
I liked that feeling - that an entirely different, fantastical Spanner had written the first article, then collided with my universe to tamper with my mindset. If that's what good magical realism does, I'd love to experience more of it, particularly now that I reckon I know what it is, even if my theory can't necessarily be articulated. I can only think of one way to find out, but I'm reluctant to break another bone to find out.
Plus, the jazz bar thing is probably closer to the truth anyway.