On the Edge of the Real: Is it Magical Realism?

I’ve been interested in the term magic/magical realism for a long time, in spite of so many classics of the genre currently languishing unread on my shelves, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ A Hundred Years of Solitude to Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. There is something about the idea of the genre that really appeals to me, in spite of having actually read little of it so far. A juxtaposition between the “magical” and the “real” is an idea that I’ve kind of been obsessed with using in my own fictional attempts, utilizing the tensions between our waking experiences and our imaginations to examine the mythical backgrounds of our contemporary existence. At least, that’s the impression of this literary style that I’ve gotten so far.

So, in order to delve deeper into the genre and maybe learn a little about what it’s all about, I finally read a work of literary criticism on the subject that’s been on my “to read” shelf for too long, Magic(al) Realism by Maggie Ann Bowers. It turned out to be an interesting and informative introduction to the literary genre of Magic, or Magical, Realism, and all its complexities and vibrancy, at least circa 2004. I wish I’d had the chance to take more literary criticism courses during my academic career, but I was definitely reminded of my college days while reading through this thin, but dense, treatise. Genre always is difficult to define precisely, but I felt that Bowers tackled this dynamic topic in a deep yet accessible way, leaving me with a lot of things to consider.

All in all, Magic(al) Realism served to deepen my interest in this style and its permutations as Bowers delves into its origins, background, and evolution. As can be seen in the title, the genre is fuzzy and open to much debate. With the coining of the term “magic realism” to describe a new wave of anti-impressionist painting in Weimar Germany, a time of tension and uncertainty and no small amount of impending doom, I can certainly see parallels to today.

As Bowers discusses various luminaries and innovators of the field, spanning decades and following the development of the term from 1920s Europe to 1950s Latin America and across the world, we see the complex and contradicting layers of meaning in magical realism, and some of the uses writers, artists, and filmmakers have put it towards. Bowers describes various competing types arising around this seed over the decades, each with slightly different inflections and definitions. Are we talking about magic, magical, or marvelous realism? These easily blurred boundaries between literary genres always fascinate me as well, and her examination of where these genres bleed into each other and where they diverge was especially interesting.

While wrestling with the contradictions inherent in the genre in different ways, a common element that runs through many of these definitions is a tendency to challenge and transgress boundaries, including anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and gender, and this strikes me as a very important aspect to stress. The element of magical occurrences being treated in as matter-of-fact a manner as the more mundane events in the narrative serves, I think, as a great way to highlight the irrationalities of everyday life in general.

However, while there are mentions of science fiction, the fantastic, and children’s fantasy, the book could perhaps have used a little more material on its relation to more “popular” genres, such as urban fantasy. I feel that such looked down upon literature has, in recent years, become as infused with political and thought provoking themes as any “serious” fiction. As it was written more than fifteen years ago now, concluding with a chapter on the future of magical realism was especially interesting, with a concluding discussion of whether magic/magical realism was a passing literary fad or if the contradictory and escapist elements of the genre would render it less able to challenge injustice. Considering how the arguments and themes presented in Magic(al) Realism related to several recently published books that I read last year, books that, as I will describe, continue in these literary traditions of including magical happenings in a realist, matter of fact tone, I think the future of the genre is continuing to evolve. In any case, this will definitely inform my own attempts to use this style as well.

Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink, in their work with the podcast Welcome to Night Vale is the first writing I thought of while considering contemporary magical realism. Some of the weirdest stuff I’ve ever listened to, I find myself returning to the world, the “friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.” Running since 2013, I still haven’t caught up with the most recent episodes, but I’m still finding myself returning to it, reading through the script collections of the episodes that are continuing to be published. Mostly recently having read The Buying of Lot 37, collecting the episodes from the third year of the podcast, along with a lot of fascinating inside information and background notes from the writers, actors, and other people working together to create the world of Night Vale. In fact, I feel that they have been the best strategy in bringing a podcast into a print form I’ve seen. As much of the podcast thrives on the atmosphere maintained through its voice acting, eerie sound effects, and even the “Weather,” a piece of thematic music chosen to complement the episode,** it definitely helps that they pack it with so much extra information.

As I revisit the podcast through these collections of episode transcripts, I begin to see that its horror trappings are mostly set dressing and Fink and Cranor appear to be drawing from the same impulses as many of the writers in the magical realist tradition. As Fink writes in Mostly Void, Partially Stars, as part of the introduction to an episode in the first year of the podcast, “the mission of night vale has always been to make the mundane terrifying and the terrifying mundane.” This feels very similar to the hallmark of magical realism as discussed by Bowers, the tendency in the genre to present the magical as becoming real while the real becomes magical. Both provide canvases allowing us to look at the world we live in everyday in a new light, consider the intrinsic absurdities and hidden joys of life. In particular, the introduction by Dessa in this collection is one of the most succinct and compelling descriptions of the appeals of Night Vale I’ve read, detailing the combination of “DIYery, wokeness, and existentialism” that makes the podcast unique.

There is a lot that is very topical in Night Vale’s use of horror and humor to evoke the bizarre yet disturbingly familiar world of the friendly desert community. While Night Vale may be isolated from the “real world,” paradoxical and strange, it is easy to see the parallels. We may not have an oppressive “vague but menacing government agency” watching over us, but we certainly have ICE, and we may not have a faceless old woman secretly (but openly) living in all of our homes, but we do have the specter of racism and white supremacy living there. Night Vale uses this tension to a great effect and the insights provided by the commentary included provides a lot of context.

I’ve really enjoyed the short stories of Karen Russell, and I think that with each of her collections, her voice becomes even stronger, so her most recent Orange World and Other Stories was my favorite of her works so far. I’ve continued to be impressed with the depth of Russell’s imagination and the care with which she crafts her stories. No matter how weird they get, from mountain dwelling ghosts to tornado ranching to a devil haunting new mothers in gentrified Portland, they always feel completely real, tied together by perfectly evoked human emotion.

She excels in creating a seamless melding of the surreal and everyday that I seem to crave, springing from some strange intersection between our own world and the world of the impossible in a way that are, I think, a great example of contemporary magical realism. In the end, the biggest thread that runs through the stories in Orange World is that they defy expectations.

Reflecting magical realism’s history of allowing marginalized voices to examine and critique the assumptions of society. I feel that jia qing wilson-yang uses that aspect of the genre to great effect in her affecting first novel, Small Beauty. A powerful, poetically written work, Small Beauty touches on themes of race, gender, and personal and family tragedies in telling the story of Mei, a Chinese-Canadian transwoman trying to come terms with several deaths in the family. wilson-yang draws deeply into folklore, reflecting an “ontological” magic realism discussed in Bowers’ book. From crowded Toronto to the isolated rural Ontario cabin where her cousin lived, Mei grapples with her identity and her immigrant family history. As she confronts these ghosts, both of the living and the dead, Mei’s anger was particularly strongly realized.

The last novel I’ll be discussing is Craig Davidson’s Saturday Night Ghost Club uses a magic realist style to evoke the mood of a time and place, another strong element of magical realist writings. A whimsical, wistful coming of age story with just an edge of the supernatural, it is both a nostalgic recollection of childhood adventure and a more serious rumination on memory and perspective, with both themes working together to create a languid, introspective mood. The seedy, faded resort town of Niagara Falls, Ontario, aka Cataract City, provides an atmospheric backdrop to the everyday fears and boundless childhood imaginations, and the years in which these boundaries begin to blur. The use of Jake, a brain surgeon, as the story’s narrator as he reflects on some weird experiences he had one summer in the 1980s was an effective way to blend these themes of the rational and the irrational.

After reading these works, I am definitely looking forward to expanding my reading list with a few more of the classics of magical realism.

**With this entry, I’m starting up my attempt to add a bit of “Weather” of my own, dropping in a piece of music that I feel suits or complements the topic being discussed. For this one, I chose “Matches to Paper Dolls,” by Dessa, from her 2010 album A Badly Broken Code.