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/lit/ - Literature

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17520462 No.17520462 [Reply] [Original]

Why is magic realism such a force in Latin America?

What is it about that area of the world?

>> No.17520473

>>17520462
Borges is not a magical realist. He predates that aesthetic.

>> No.17520474

People here still think magic, ghosts and a lot of other supernatural shit is real.

>> No.17520480

>>17520474
magic, ghosts and a lot of other supernatural shit is real, though.

>> No.17520497

>>17520473
He is a precursor though

>> No.17520507

You could argue Shakespeare writes magical realism.

>> No.17520508

>>17520462
You overestimate its popularity.Some writers just like the fantastic.

>> No.17520516

>>17520507
Technically, you could, but the term is modern and has a different connotation. It's like saying he writes chick flicks or HBO-style dramas.

>> No.17520543

there's borderline surreal shit in the way pretty much the whole social organization of these shitholes is built upon and acted upon, every single day you can get a little fucking glimpse of chaotic bullshit pressing through your stupid life so it's best to see everything as a goddamn narrative in which every little stupìd unbelievable fucking lunacy is plausible and ultimately "real", e.g. "magical".

t. latinamerican

>> No.17520645

we are crazy and used to fantasy in the everyday

>> No.17520667

>>17520462
Because when I was a child we had to give shelter to the neighbors whennthey started hearing a weeping ghost in the bathroom and seeing it behind the drying clothes at night

>> No.17520678

>>17520497
Never said he wasn't.

>> No.17520697

latin americans are the player characters in the simulation

>> No.17520917
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17520917

THE ACTUAL TERM IS: «HISPANOAMERICA», NOT: «LATINOAMERICA»; IF BRAZIL IS TO BE INCLUDED THE ACTUAL TERM IS: «IBEROAMERICA».

>> No.17520953

>>17520917
It's Hispanic America. "Hispanoamerica" doesn't exist as a term in English.

>> No.17521130
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17521130

>>17520917

>> No.17521288

>>17520462
Because Latin America is a mysterious place working in mysterious ways.

>> No.17521324

>>17520480
Ignore the non-believer.

>> No.17521334

>>17520462
Guess this is as good a place to ask: any more writers like Borges? More weird fiction but not horror like Lovecraft or Blackwood

>> No.17521357

>>17520917
What is your opinion on the Portuguese language?

>> No.17521364

>>17520917
it’s actually latin america because it includes french speaking countries also. You’re so retarded

>> No.17521371 [DELETED] 

>>17521334
Short stories by Cortázar, Arreola, Barthelme, Kiš, Kafka, Buzzati and novels by Calvino.

>> No.17521459

>>17520543
Good post

>> No.17521469

>>17520917
Stop purposely derailing threads and actually contribute to the topic for once.

>> No.17521479

>>17521357


I LIKE IT; I AM LEARNING IT.

>> No.17521489

>>17520462
Espanics are incapable of creating art, they can only imitate.

>> No.17521504

>>17521489


REALITY PROVES YOUR STATEMENT TO BE BOTH: (I) ERRONEOUS, AND (II) IDIOTIC.

>> No.17521507

>>17521489
>it's only art if it's original
European art history debunks your view entirely.

>> No.17521544

>>17521489
Mediterranean cultures and their descendants are the only ones capable of producing art. Anglo and germanic countries can only destroy and corrupt it (ie Reformation, third reich, etc).

>> No.17521637

>>17521504
Your statement proves his statement correct

>> No.17521653

>>17521637
Not at all.

>> No.17521654

>>17520462
junger lived in germany

>> No.17521656

>>17520917
iberoamerica is latinamerica *plus* the iberian peninsula, they are not the same thing.

>> No.17521661

Japan loves it too

>> No.17521663

>>17521334
If in a winter's night a traveler, by Calvino.

>> No.17521670

>>17521661
I think pretty much every culture loves fantastic stories. We just have different ways to call such elements and variants.

>> No.17521734

>>17520462
If you want the academic explanation, as >>17520543 stated, the state of affairs here is so absurd in itself that the only way to racionalize it is to make it fully irrational.
then, as it became a staple of latinamerican lit, it just continued to be popular.

but, as a side note, >>17520917 , although very autistic, has a point, because magical realism is far less popular in Brazil than the hispanoamerican countries.

>> No.17521787

life is shit in latin america, we're better off daydreaming

>> No.17521798

>>17521787
My life is great. Where the hell do you live? Argentina?

>> No.17521813

>>17520462
No such thing as "magical realism", don't fall for marketing slogans.

>> No.17521827

>>17520462
>Why is magic realism such a force in Latin America?
Because it became very marketable after Márquez. After that happened everything suddenly began to be labeled as magical realism too without really being so. This doesn't completely explain why magical realism was so prevalent in Latin America but is an essential part of understanding why.
To add to >>17521734, another academic explanation is that Magical Realism is a reaction against European literary genres like realism and naturalism and attempts to understand Latin America in its own terms and logic.
>>17520497
Borges is as much a precursor to magical realism as much as he is a precursor to Latin American authors in general.
>>17521489
Latin America is a creating force since the end of the 19th century. Before that you'd probably be correct, with a few exceptions.

>> No.17521842

>>17521827
>Borges is as much a precursor to magical realism as much as he is a precursor to Latin American authors in general.
So not at all?

>> No.17521861

>>17521798
>Argentina?
yes
please get me the hell out of here

>> No.17521863

>>17520462
Magic = a perception contiguous to another which we are not accustomed to. This is why children are so easily susceptible to believing in fictions and fairytales.

>> No.17521870

>>17521656


?

1. THE IBERIAN PENINSULA IS IN EUROPA, NOT IN AMERICA; YOUR COMMENT IS NONSENSICAL.

2. THE TERM: «LATINOAMERICA», IS SPURIOUS; READ THE COMMENT TO WHICH YOU REPLIED, AND ITS ATTACHED IMAGE IF YOU KNOW SPANISH LANGUAGE.

>> No.17521873

>>17521842
You can't deny Borges' importance inside and outside Latin America. But what I mean is that he is an important influence to authors who write magical realist fiction, but not particularly to magical realism as a genre itself.

>> No.17521923

I despise "magical realism". From its very origin the critics who use the term are invariably obnoxious midwits, and no writer of worth wants to be associated with the term. These days it is just used as a catch-all for any Latin American literature with vaguely fantastic, magical, or surrealist traits. It is imprecise and causes Latin Americans and the rest of the world to oversimplify the breadth of Latin American literature.

>> No.17521961

>>17521873
Well, Borges is not "a precursor to Latin American authors in general." His mentor was the Mexican writer Alfonso Reyes and his hero was the Argentine writer Macedonio Fernández, both of whom came before him. And these guys weren't even precursors themselves, Borges liked José Hernández's Martín Fierro, which is a work from the 1800s. There are also many other Latin American writers who predate Borges. Borges was a precursor of certain aesthetics and styles but he wasn't a precursor in general.

>> No.17522013

>>17521961
I obviously didn't mean that Borges would somehow be an important influence to authors that came before him or that he appeared ex nihilo. I get what you're trying to say but don't be obtuse lad.

>> No.17522022

>>17520474
>People here still think magic, ghosts and a lot of other supernatural shit is real.
they are real

>> No.17522025

>>17522013
Maybe I misread your.

>> No.17522027

>>17521479
Based comegens

>> No.17522047

>>17520462
Holy shit Borges was a fukin' BALLER.

>> No.17522173

>>17521334
Juan José Arreola, Akutagawa, Kawabata (Palm of the hand stories), Alejo Carpentier (The kingdom of this world), Kafka and Juan Rulfo.

>> No.17522187

>>17520917
Kys

>> No.17522534

>>17521334
Mario Bellatín, Salvador Elizondo, Macedonio Fernández, Cortázar, Bioy Casares, César Aira and Silvina Ocampo

>> No.17522544

>>17520497
Faulkner is as well but nothing magical realist about his work

>> No.17522552

>>17520462
Life is absurd here. Most of the time not in a bad way, but still.

>> No.17523566

>>17520917
Retard

>> No.17523575

>>17522022
>>17520480
Brazilians please go

>> No.17523862
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17523862

>>17521870
1. ok, points to you, but it's a messy definition and I'm not totally wrong. there are a few international organizations with "iberoamericana" in their name that include Portugal and Spain, and I was thinking of them. I never saw it actually being used to refer exclusively to American countries, though. I don't know and I don't care about the politics of this words in the Spanish-speaking world, but, in Portuguese, people will look at you funny or simply not understand what you mean if you ever say "iberoamérica" in Portuguese.

2. I'm Brazilian. my bad, I got carried away with hispanOamérica and iberOamérica.

>> No.17524268

>>17521798

Where do you live, anon?

>> No.17524278 [DELETED] 
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17524278

>>17520480
>spics really are this dumb

>> No.17524312

>>17520917
based

>> No.17524321

>>17520480
This, but only if you live in the countryside or in old houses.

>> No.17524330

>>17520462
It's just escapism

>> No.17524653

>>17521961
>Alfonso Reyes
I knew they were friends but that's the first time I've seen him mentioned as ever mentoring Borges. I thought the bigger influence during his European days was Cansino Assens and his literary gatherings.
>Martin Fierro
I mean, it's a book first published not long before Borges was born (1870s).
There was also Ruben Darío and Lugones (whom he met through his father).

>> No.17524810

Going by the explanation of Magical Realism being a reaction to the absurdity of daily life in Latin america, how come it isn't (more) popular in Russia and especially in the rest of eastern Europe
The only one I can think of who kind of fits is Bulgakov
Seems eastern euro cope was always written in the form of sci-fi or just straight up depressing realism?

>> No.17524821

>>17520543
Let me guess, conurbano?

>> No.17524829

>>17521130
KEK

>> No.17524960

>>17521870
Do you ever wonder why your parents are ashamed of you?

>> No.17525969

>>17520462
gabriel garcia marquez is literally a psyop to keep americans from reading based cortazar

>> No.17526035

>>17524278
>he doesn't know

>> No.17526051

>>17524330
It's not. If it were escapism you'd have just fantasy but in books like One Hundred Years of Solitude you have a real massacre in the middle of the book. It's simply looking at reality through a different lens.

>> No.17526056

>>17525969
Basado y rojopastillado.

>> No.17526060

they're poor and have access to drugs

>> No.17526128

>>17520516
It is not at all like saying that bumbling fucking retard

>> No.17526141

>>17520462
In Brazil, it's mostly derived from religious cults started by African slaves who were transported there. These cults are inspired after African pagan religions and as you might know, Africans are probably even more superstitious regarding spirits and the afterworld.
Candomble is the biggest one of these afri-brazilian religions. I personally been to one of their meetings and it felt fairly surreal, like I was in one of those National Geographic docs about African savage tribes.

>> No.17526181

>>17521357
It is a beautiful language with high quality lit. Every Spanish speaker should learn it as the ratio reward/effort is absolutely amazing if you alredy speak Spanish.
Sadly most Spaniards are too retarded and don't give a fuck about Portugal.

>> No.17526221

>>17524653
Borges visited Reyes at the Mexican embassy in Buenos Aires quite regularly and Reyes wanted to publish Borges' poetry in an Argentine magazine he was part of (Borges kindly declined the offer because the magazine was a bit conservative and Borges at that young age was avant-garde). But Reyes saw great potential in Borges and I believe Borges wrote something along the lines of "He was the first to see something in my work, not in what it was in front of him but in what it could be." Later in life, Borges started a campaign to nominate his old master and friend for the Nobel Prize but few joined. Also, Borges called Reyes something like "the best prose stylist in the Spanish language" and you can see that influence in Borges' clean, concise and evocative writing style which was different from the florid and vapidly pretentious Spanish writing that was popular at the time.

>> No.17526240

>>17526056
sou americano mas minha esposa e uma brasilera basada e vermelhapastillada

>> No.17526260

>>17526181
As a Portuguese who lives in Spain, I also don't give a damn about learning Spanish. Time is better spent learning French or even Latin.

>> No.17526275

>>17526260
You already know Spanish.

>> No.17526561

>>17525969
>>17526056
Where to begin with him?

>> No.17526901

>>17526141
is it? I'm having a hard time thinking of an autor who writes magical realism with candomblé elements... the textbook example of brazilian magical realism, Murilo Rubião, has none of it...
but, idk, if there is such thing, I'd be interested to know.

>> No.17526967

>>17520543
the stars at noon by denis johnson

>> No.17526999

>>17526561
Dare you to read Hopscotch

>> No.17527118

Their culture is based on blurring reality with words and deception for own benefit. Thus magical realism just mirrors latin american culture.

>> No.17527129

>>17525969
This.
Basaso y morellipilleado

>> No.17527139

>>17521923
Based

>>17520543
>junta animist pataphysical surrealismo

>> No.17527148

>>17526260
Well you are fucking up from a purely lit standpoint, but that's your loss.
I said learning Portuguese is worth, simply stated that people in Spain know absolutely nothing about Portugal, which is a fact, not an opinion on the quality of the language or culture (which is less relevant than the Spanish by every single metric used, but that's another discussion).

>> No.17527149

>>17527118
>Their culture is based on blurring reality with words and deception for own benefit.
Not at all.
>Thus magical realism just mirrors latin american culture.
Maybe, but not for the reason you gave.

>> No.17527296

>>17527149
The corruption and the violence is an indication of something. Even Argentina is constantly in crisis over monetary policy and over printing money. People dont trust each other, institutions, or their own currencies. And it is because they know themselves.

>> No.17527339

>>17527296
Corruption and violence are not exclusive to Latin America.

>> No.17527430

>>17527339
Same influences can have different effects on different cultures. Though maybe the rise of literacy will produce African magical realism, who knows?

>> No.17527509

>>17520543
pretty much this.

>> No.17527526

>>17520917
Doom ¿eres tú?

>> No.17528502

>>17526561
blow up and other short stories

>> No.17528617

>>17525969
How the fuck do you read Cortázar as an American who doesn't speak Spanish natively? There is no way.