Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
This week’s prompt is:
Do you see magical realism as related to fantasy? Do you enjoy reading it? Why or why not?
I don’t know enough about Magical Realism to really answer this. From what I’ve read, the major writers in the genre/literary movement would say no. That’s not what it’s about. And I’m fine with that.
But every time I’ve read it–or something like it–it feels like a very restrained fantasy novel/story dressed up as the kind of literature that you can hear the capital “l” when you speak of it.
I guess one of the big ways that I personally categorize things as “magical realism” (guided by some things I’ve read) is that the magic really isn’t acknowledged as such, or defined as anything out of the ordinary. It’s just a thing that happens and characters roll with it. The magic also tends to be on the smaller, or at least subtle, side–at least for most of the novel/story, and then it might break forth into something bigger or dramatic.
The first time I encountered Magical Realism was in The Milagro Beanfield War–and I remember almost nothing about the book or film, and given how popular it was in my household growing up, that rather bothers me (please, no one tell my father). But I do vaguely remember how when the possible magic stuff happened how unremarked upon it was (at least by most characters). While in Like Water for Chocolate it was acknowledged, but it was just seen as part of life–just a thing that happens sometimes.
In Fantasy, you might get some people treating magic that way, but there will be those who won’t, too. Maybe that’s the easiest tell.
Do I enjoy reading it? Yes. Do I seek it out? No. Should I try to? Probably. I can think of three works that fit the description that I’ve written about here. One of the best novels I’ve read for this blog is Tiffany McDaniels’ The Summer That Melted Everything (maybe some of her other books fit that, too–although her MG books are flat out Fantasy), there might be more. Just the three works I’ve mentioned in this post tell me that I should do a better job of reading them (and that I need to re-read those I’ve mentioned, particularly John Nichols’ book).
So, at the end of the day, this is something I’ve only dabbled in. You’ll want to read the other posts linked to in the Pages Unbound post (as well as that post itself)..
Read Irresponsibly, but please Comment Responsibly