Magical Realism - Putting magic in everyday situations

[Borincano]

Have any of you read any books by Gabriel García Marquéz or Isabela Allende? They are the leaders of a literary movement called "magical realism," which is sometimes mistaken for science fiction. What are your opinions on it; do you like the style, know any more magical realism authors?

[Uhuru na Umoja]

One Hundred Years of Solitude is the best novel I've read recently. I haven't read any Allende (although I plan to do so), but I love Marquez's writting.

[Borincano]

Uhuru na Umoja, I got "One Hundred Years of Solitude," for Christmas by my request and I'm still reading it, lol! Mostly because I have so much school work and books to read in between and then work and my laziness, lol. I'm half way through and already so much has taken place. I love his imagery and manipulation of the most vulgar things into something magically and hilariously beautiful. (The incest that takes place is unbearable, lol) It's far more than what I expected it to be and I can't wait to finish it. I think it will be the only book I'll read again, because I want to soak in everything I might have missed, because there are pretty weird occurances that get confusing. One noteble one is this:

Pilar Ternera, the local slut and mother of many Buendía children, tells her son, (Unknown knowledge to him) Aureliano José not to go out at this night during the political turmoil between the Conservatives and the Liberals, it says so in her tarot cards. He resfuses and goes to the theater to see a play.

"Only when he handed in his ticket at the door did Auerliano José realize that Captain Aquiles Ricardo and two soldier armed with rifles were searching the audience.

"Be careful, captain," Aureliano José warned him. "The man hasn't been born yet who can lay hands on me." The captain tried to search him forcibly and Auerliano José, who was unarmed, began to run....Blind with rage, the captain then snatched away the rifle, stepped into the center of the street, and took aim....but the bullet that entered his back and shattered his chest had been directed by a wrong interpretation of the cards. Captain Aquiles Ricardo, who was really the one destined to die that night, did ineed die, four hours before Aureliano José. As soon as the shot was heard he was brought down by two simultaneous bullets....

At twelve o'cloock, when Auerliano José had bled to death and Carmelita Montiel [His love interest] found that the cards showing her future were blank....

If the Captain did indeed die four hours before Auerliano José, how is that he killed Auerliano José and then out of nowhere he is shot himself...but when he "did indeed die," four hours before? LOL! I love that book. :)

I read Isabela Allende's "The house of the Spirits," a year before so I was ready for the repitition of names through generations and the bouncing back from the past to the present. Hopefully, my next surrealism/magical realism read will be Reinaldo Arenas' "The Color of Summer: Or the New Garden of Earthly Delights."

(Edited by Borincano at 12:59 am on Mar. 5, 2003)

[Uhuru na Umoja]

You MUST finish One Hundred Years of Solitude. It's a great book all around, but I think the ending is the best part. While reading it I doubted whether Marquez could sum everything up properly, but he does a brilliant job. Enjoy your reading...

[Borincano]

I never finished One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was reading it too much on and off, do to other preoccupations, mainly school. I decided that over the summer, when I'm in Puerto Rico again, I will read it under the beautiful palm trees of the calm, quiet summer. It is not a book that you can skim through and get it, that's why I must read it again.

I'm currently reading Reinaldo Arenas' "The Color of Summer: Or the New Garden of Earthly Delights." It's not what I expected it to be. It's kind of funny, but extremely homoerotic and sex oriented. Reading his Foreward (Which is on page 252, lol) and the Afterward, I get his meaning behind the story and it makes perfect sense and is terrific. However, the story itself is way too disgusting, even for me. Well, I'm on page 64, and it's an over 400 page book, so let's see if it improves, lol.

Have any of you read any other magical realist writers? I wouldn't include Reinaldo Arenas' style as magical realism, since it doesn't offer that kind of connection with reality, besides the obvious political satire, in it.

[Pete]

Could you explain this style? I may or may not have read a book in this genre, and if I have I would like to join this conversation ;)

Pete

[peaccenicked]

Pete. I think one way to see magical realism is that the plot is structured around outlandish coincidences. These on the whole tend be secondary to the main thread of
the story.
'Captain Corello's Mandolin' is of this ilk.

[Pete]

So it isn't like when Prime Minister King talked to his dog on whether to pass conscription legislation, and then discussed with his dead mother how to get re-elected?

[Borincano]

Quote: from CrazyPete on 9:22 am on May 19, 2003
Could you explain this style? I may or may not have read a book in this genre, and if I have I would like to join this conversation ;)

Magical realism has been interepreted and defined many different ways. It's the fantastic and the realistic mixed together. The fantastic is done to the extreme, like in Reinaldo Arenas' book, to the point it becomes pure fantasy. You have to have a connection with reality to the fantasy. If I remember, Isabel Allende, a famous Chilean magical realist novelist and niece of murdered Marxist President Dr. Salvador Allende, separated the science fiction from magical realism. She said that a woman just flying up to heaven is something incredible and couldn't be believable at all, but a woman flying up to heaven holding her bed sheet shows a connection with reality and makes you wonder if you could ever do the same. (For a half a second, of course, lol)

[Borincano]

Well I finished Reinaldo Arenas' "The Color of Summer: Or the New Garden of Earthly Delights" a while ago, the ending was really sad and if it wasn't for the overextreme vulgarity, it probably would've been my favorite book. I didn't finish One Hundred Years of Solitude in Puerto Rico as I said I would, but when I returned to school, I had to read it for my English class. Well, it was the first time I read a book ahead for class and finished it yesterday. It was, once again, marvelous and very sad. How did Melquíades know?

[Danton]

I'm a big fan of Marquez, One hundred years and Love in the time of Cholera are both astonishing in the way they distort time and completley transport you to his half mythical locations... It was also good to see him come out in support of Fidel and Chavez when the recent trend amognst liberals is to condem them....

I would say the works of Paulo Coehlo (which I loathe) Isabel Allende and Louis de Bernieres are in the same vein to varying degrees of success... Marquez's works transend any clumsy pigeonhole like "magical realism"..