/lit/ - Literature

I don't even understand what the difference between magical realism and fantasy is supposed to be.

>>16740644
magical realism is mostly realistic except for one element, and that one element has no explanation.

>>16740627


«MAGICAL REALISM» IS NOT LAME, BUT, RATHER, YOU ARE STUPID.

>>16740627
The nightmare of the last chapter of 100 Years of Solitude or some monstrous borges story isnt the same thing as whatever /co/ trash you are peddling

>>16740627
I guess it could be your autism.
Just relax and read something else.

>>16740665
I've read Murakami and it's just as lame. Every piece of magical realism fiction I've consumed has been extremely lame.

>>16740653
So like, in Guns of the Dawn where everything is normal except for the wizards who can shoot flame? Does that count?

>>16740644
With magical realism you start for the magical and stay for the realism. With fantasy you start for the magical and drop it around the 20th book of the series to read something good.

>>16740680
Murakami is a step away from YA.

Try Pedro Paramo or Marquez

>>16740658
Hahahah

>>16740680
>I've read Murakami
Which one from him?
>Every piece of magical realism fiction I've consumed has been extremely lame.
Borges, Schulz, Asturias and Buzzati?

>>16740691
I don't know what Guns of Dawn is. Think The Nose by Gogol, The Porcelain Doll by Tolstoy, The Wardrobe by Thomas Mann, The Visit to the Museum by Nabokov.

>>16740725
I'm just not convinced this isn't a marketing term rather than a useful category. Like when they made up Graphic Novels because comics are for kids.

>>16740722
I thought Kingdom of this World was more of a fever dream then anything actually happening. Is that where the slave revolt on Haiti's leader turns into a mosquito and flys away? Its been a bit

>>16740722
>novels
Kafka on the Shore, 100 years of Solitude.
>movies
Killing of a Sacred deer, Benjamin Button.
>manga
Emanon.

its a weak tradition, even the "classics" of magic realism are unimpressive

>>16740722
Borges is not "magic realism" and FYI he did not respect Marquez

>>16740744
Yes, but that is Carpentier. Buzzati wrote The desert of the tartars and the magical realism is sort of different in it.

>>16740749
From Murakami I only know The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and I loved 90% of it. I believe your criticism goes to ending of the romance, right?
What did you dislike in 100 years of solitude? I agree the beginning is strange, but I loved so many things in it; Remedios' end, Amaranta's suffering, Mauricio Babilonia and his yellow butterflies etc.

>>16740787
What is Borges? A Modernist?

>>16740822
>100 Years of Solitude
dropped it halfway, character names are confusing, nothing happens and the gypsy prostitute scene left a bad taste in my mouth
>Kafka on the shore
Nothing rally happens and the library scene left a bad taste in my mouth.

>>16740836
yes and overlapping with genre fiction like horror, detective, fantasy, adventure

>"Magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish."

>>16740644
Think Tuck Everlasting or Green Mile

>>16740944
Those are both clearly fantasy

>>16740934
t. american that writes genre fiction

>>16740934
Filtered.
This remind of King saying people dislike him because he writers horror books.

>>16740627
Power fantasy.

>>16740934
It's funny Wolfe has two short stories set in an infinite traffic jam and Cortazar has Southgate Highway.

>>16740627
I don't really get it.
One Hundred Years of Solitude is supposed to be one of the defining works of the genre. I read it and liked it a lot, but the "magical realist" elements didn't really stand out. Stuff like the gypsy magic carpet and flowers raining from the sky when José Arcadio died made sense from a thematic point of view, but it never felt like they added anything to the story that wasn't already present. The gypsies' fantastic inventions, the family's grief over their father's death, etc. There could have been no fantastical elements whatsoever, and it still would have been a great book. It's like Marquez decided to occasionally turn things up to 11 for no reason.

My problem with magical realism is that it's unrealistic that people would treat the enchanted the same way they would treat the disenchanted. Fantastic things, by their nature, are fantastic and inspire awe and wonder in the observer.

>>16740680
>comparing murakami with GGM and Borges
lmao

>>16740787
>Borges is not "magic realism"
Yes he is
>he did not respect Marquez
Who cares?
Borges and Marquez are both totally opposite ways of exploring magical realism

>>16741655
totally missing the point lol

>>16740658
Holy based

>>16740627
>emanon
>(f)emanon
woah... so deep...

>>16740658
Extremely based.

bump

>>16741861
It's actually noname backwards, but your joke can work too.

>>16741090
The funny thing about Wolfe is that he actually DOES write magical realism. He wrote quite a bit of it. His debt to Borges, in particular, is immense. There's literally a character named after a Borges character in Book Of The New Sun.

I suspect that quote is just Wolfe telling people to get off their high horse. Magical realism is a "serious, respected" genre, while fantasy and science fiction are not, when in reality there is not a great deal of difference between the three genres when you get down to brass tacks.

>>16740691
I guess, but that's more of a low magic fantasy. Imagine a normal story set in our world, only there's a magic box that eats people.

>>16740627
Magic Realism is fantasy for midwits who think they are too smart for Brandon Sanderson

>>16741655
You just defined the core of what makes a story magical realism.
>>16740836
Borges wrote "cuentos fantásticos" (fantasy short stories). I think he was a pioneer of the subgenre and it's such a vague definition that there's bound to be some overlaps with fantasy. There's a short story by Saki where a kid gets a ferret but his aunt (his legal tutor) dislikes animals and treats the kid like shit. The kid keeps the animal a secret inside a cage hidden in the chicken coop and prays to it as if it was a god. When the aunt discovers it, she's horrified but the ferret somehow escapes his cage and kills the woman by biting her in the neck. Is it fantasy? Is it magical realism? Who knows.
My favorite definition is exactly the one in the post I quoted above. The world and timeline is our own, and something magical happens in the story, one thing only, but nobody overreacts. Only the reader is really aware of the implications of such a fantastical thing occurring in real life and this contrast between what would be expected of us if some unicorn somehow popped up in the subway and how the characters actually react is what makes it interesting.
Here's an interesting essay by Borges, titled "The narrative art and magic", on his views of how "magic" may enter a story, but it's in Spanish:
>https://biblioteca.org.ar/libros/132517.pdf
>[The surprise in The Life and Death of Jason (1867) by William Morris] required first of all a strong semblance of truthfulness, if not absolute at least capable of producing that spontaneous suspension of disbelief, which determines poetic faith according to Coleridge.
He also explores Poe in there.

>>16740863
Filtered

>>16741655
>unrealistic
Not if you're schizo.

>>16740644
Magical realism is about a paradoxical intermingling between possibility and impossibility. Fantasy isn't necessarily about anything; it's a type of setting, not a type of story.

>>16741707
no, he's not retarded, Borges wrote fantastic literature

Is Porco Rosso magical realism?

i sucked a guys dick one
was it real

>>16742467
Thats in Borges Selected Non-Fictions?
Is it worth picking up?

>>16744002
yes

>>16744002
Poco Rosso is pretty lame so probably yes.

It requires a high IQ to appreciate

>>16744896
Yeah all those soccer moms reading the alchemist are sure high I.Q.

>>16744978
the alchemist is like mcdonalds magical realism,we're talking about the real thing

>>16740627
>Instead of being a good writer and using the innate magic of poetry and prose, I will be a retard and hit you over the head with how the world has magic

I don't know man. But I think things like talking street lamps are pretty cool

>>16740627
Authors fear being labeled "genre fiction" writers (or whatever was pejorative at the time) so they don't really take the non-realist particles of their works seriously enough to actually appreciate which changes it would bring to the actual situation.
Instead of embracing what's unnatural and trying to make it naturally fit into the story they just use one unnatural thing to stir up conflict because they lack the basic ability to create interesting conflict without recurring to magic, but also lack the ability to make it look like the magic actually has an influence on what's happening on a broader scope than the protagonist's mind and whichever conflict is the main result of the one magical aspect of the story.

>>16740627
Borges is pretty high tier desu

>>16744496
I don't know, probably because it's a famous one.
And yes, his non fiction is great. It's a joy to read even if you're not sufficiently well read to get all references or concepts. For example, that essay I linked, summarizes the portion of the story about King Jason and the centaurs, and this brief take makes a great story in itself.

>>16740658
Based Comején

>>16740627
So this is your new thing, huh?

>>16746206
what?

>>16741707
Borges precedes magical realism by a decade or two.