Customer Reviews

Magic(al) Realism (The New Critical Idiom)

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I normally shy away from anything having to do with literary theory, but, intending to read several of the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, when I saw this brief work in a bookstore I bought and read it on a flyer. It turned out to be surprisingly good and useful.

Bowers presents and discusses three distinct variants -- magic realism, magical realism, and marvellous realism -- and she does so without undue pedantry. She also distinguishes magic(al) realism from surrealism, the fantastic, and science fiction. By way of illustration and application of its theoretrical principles, the book contains relatively extended and constructive discussions of works of, inter alia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende (principally "The House of Spirits"), Salman Rushdie (mainly "Midnight's Children"), Toni Morrison (chiefly "Beloved"), Gunther Grass ("The Tin Drum"), and Maxine Hong Kingston.

To my mind, there still is some nonsense -- although much of it undoubtedly is that of other literary theorists/critics whom Bowers is obliged to cover in this survey work. Thankfully, the book is relatively light on (although not entirely free of) the dense and syntactically tortured academic jargon that pervades so much literary theory and criticism. (An example, which Bowers unfortunately and unhelpfully quotes: "Magic realist works * * * bear witness to their liberation from a teleological and homogeneous historical discourse and to an acceptance of postcolonial heterogeneity with regard to historiography and to myth." Why does anyone who wishes to be read write like that? More baffling, why does anyone publish such stuff?)

I can recommend MAGIC(AL) REALISM to any lay reader interested in the literary construct(s) at issue or as background for someone about to embark on a serious reading/study of authors such as Garcia Marquez, Allende, Rushdie, and Grass.

Perhaps because someone knew of my fascination with Kafka he gave me a copy of Maggie Ann Bowers' "MAGIC(AL) REALISM: the New Critical Idiom". It was an enlightening experience. The text examines the nearly worldwide occurrence of "magic realism" or "magical realism" (both terms continue to compete) in literature and art across the globe. From the Latin America of Gabriel García Márquez to the India of Salman Rushdie to the Germany of Günter Grass (where the term was first used) to the Britain of Harry Potter and to contemporary films like Woody Allen's "Scoop", magic(al) realism - that is, the mingling or rather fusion of the real and the surreal - seems so to permeate modern literature and art that Bowers' book appears if anything long overdue. In her analysis she takes us across decades, continents and art forms in a book that is a `must' for any student of modern world culture and of the magic that seems to bind us all, whether artists/authors or readers, together.

This was a real find because it helped me understand the background to magic(al) realism and provided good food for thought about where it is going next.

I like the way the author shows the links between the painters, writers and film makers in particular.

There are some fun surprises, such as finding that Paddington Bear has his magic(al) realist side!

This book gives a good overview about the origins, theory and practices of magical realism, and also posits this category among the principal literary and cultural practices of postmodernism. The only thing I did not like was the ending, in which the author over criticises the term more than suggesting further possibilities, practises and applications of magical realism, although the final chapter is named "The future of Magic(al) Realism".

Another thing is that most of its content and reflexions can be found in Zamora's and Farris' books, but it is a good starting point for those who are not literary critics or specialists in this subject.