What always amazes me as an author is the ability to read a Latin American author and somehow feel so invigorated to go out and write more and more. The Latin American writers have this way of being so blunt yet facetious with their words. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, in his beautiful way managed to create a whole genre, Magical Realism, long before the wave of science fiction came into the forefront. The idea of the magical existing in the every day is a wonderful feeling. Even if you don’t believe it. Simply, it’s the way people want coincidences to mean something. Or at least be amazed by what they see in the mundane. I remembered reading some of Marquez to my grandmother and she said, “This is how my relatives told stories.” It’s something that often comes back to me. Reminds me that magical things can happen. And Marquez believed in it, so much that he even made up parts of a newspaper job, to help make it fit the narrative.
Magical realism, is when something out of the ordinary, can exist in the world we see in our everyday. If a circus was walking down the street, in the middle of a busy afternoon, in a hot sweaty jungle, that’s called magical realism. Today, that would be a gay pride parade in New York City. The term was invented in 1925 by German art critic Franz Roh, in 1925. But wasn’t established until 1940’s in the Caribbean and Latin America. Which is where Marquez holds the rank of Godfather over the genre of Magic Realism. But even at the beginning of the Netflix series, Narcos, words appear over the landscape shot, “there’s a reason why magical realism was created in Latin America.” Meaning the violence that plagues Latin America, from criminal despots like the Cartel to slave trade.
Many descendants and heirs to magical realism are Franz Kafa’s “The Metamorphosis” (1915), Jorge Luis Borges “The Aleph” (1949), Arturo Uslar Peitri’s “Literature and Men of Venezuela,” (1948), Angel Flore’s “Magic Realism in Spanish American Fiction” (1955), which led to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in 1967. Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight Children” (1980), Isabel Allende’s “The House of Spirits.” But in 1982, Marque is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but was blacklisted by the Reagan administration, and his books were banned, for being friends with Fidel Castro. Until Bill Clinton, former President of the United States and eternal douche bag, released the ban made by the former Regan Administration. (Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literary-movements/magic-realism/timeline).
What makes magical realism so enticing is that it takes place in the past, not the future. Which is almost like explaining what can’t be solved with mere facts. It’s how horror often has to rely on the supernatural to tell deep dark truths that the perfectly healthy mind can’t rationalize with beakers or scientifically.
And magic realism doesn’t extend itself to explaining everything about the world in which the writers inhabit. The conviction in relying on the past to tell a story sets a writer in a foreign place of research but also machismo, hot blooded feuds, and magic carpets. No cell phones. No technology. The very sound of nature buzzing at their window. The heat rising in the window, causing a small hint of madness.
That’s the way great stories begin in magic realism. It’s often burning together with some passion or hot war between two parties. Often times Latin American fiction is political, especially Marquez’s controversial politics. The war between the liberals and the Conservatives in One Hundred Years of Solitude, often go to mass at different times, so they don’t end up starting a war in church.
What makes Latin American fiction so daunting yet hilarious is that they embrace tragedy and comedy. Sometimes it’s often more so conditional to what characters experience, that the heat compels them to see things they shouldn’t. But the condition of being human is the center of Magical Realism. Many authors such as Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, are big proponents and torch keepers of this tradition. It’s of strong note that I include Monica Ojeda, born in 1989, wrote a fantastic book called Jawbreaker, that is more akin to the copy pasta genre, but whenever I read Latin American authors, they make me just say direct words instead of snobby English terms.
For many Marquez fans this all might be trite, but for new readers, a treat. But no matter what, Marquez’s importance as a fiction writer still stands as a testament to my career and so many others.
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