Arva, Eugene L. “Writing the Vanishing Real: Hyperreality and Magical Realism”. Journal of Narrative Theory 38.1 (2008): 60-85. Web. Eugene L. Arva demonstrates the power of the effect of magical realism in literature by comparing it to Jean Baudrillard’s term, hyperreality. (To provide some background information, hyperreality, according to the wikipedia page “Hyperreality,” refers to ‘an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures.’). Arva suggests that the effects of magical realism reach beyond hyperreality because it creates a “felt reality” (60) that is more effective than “realistic representation (descriptive mimesis)” (61) that one may find in realist works. He explains how magical realism works in this way, using Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle and Jacques Ellul’s criticism of images’ impact on our perception of reality in contemporary society to come to the conclusion that “the ‘murder of the Real’ (Baudrillard’s phrase) does not occur in a world of imagination, illusion, and magic, but in a world devoid of them” (66). In a society where images are subconsciously understood to be reality as captured in a specific moment in time, magical realism surpasses the ability of images by providing a felt reality that is unable to be created through visual media. This is created in part by the “oxymoronic constitution” of realism and magic in the same process, which leads to an awareness of a “fictional, felt reality” that has stronger effects that merely describing real events in a more conventional fashion (71). Arva then briefly moves on to address the history of magical realism in Latin America, importantly citing “Latin America’s colonial inheritance, brutal military regimes, failed revolutions, and economic disasters” (77) as catalysts for the literary movement in the region. He also addresses magical realism as a trend rather than a genre of its own, stating that magical realism is merely a different approach to realism, and continues to expand on this idea using quotes from Weisgerber, Faris, and Zamora (see pages 77-80).
Daniel, Lee A. “Realismo Magico: True Realism with a Pinch of Magic”. The South Central Bulletin. 42.4 (1982): 129-130. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3188273>.
Lee A. Daniel addresses the varying definitions of magical realism as understood according to the ideas of several sources such as Angel Flores and Alejo Carpetier. Daniel settles on his own definition using Julio Cortázar’s “La noche boca arriba” to characterize what magical realism is and what it is not. Daniel states that magical realism is “…mainly realism, but with the aid of magic, additional planes of reality are possible – but always realistic…For example, the events of "La noche boca arriba," although unusual, are totally within the realm of what is generally considered the real world. One unnamed individual lives two normal lives simultaneously in the same place but in two different time periods, centuries apart. Even though he moves, apparently while dreaming, from one time period to another, everything happens normally within the respective centuries” (129). Daniel also considers Jorge Luis Borges and Alejo Carpentier as to where they fall in literary genres. In an overall attempt to point out that many works that are considered to be magical realist should be reconsidered, Daniel suggests that literary analysts keep in mind the differences between fantastic literature (as he classifies Borges’s work), lo real maravilloso, and realismo mágico, along with “additional terms” (130).
Flores, Angel. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction”. Hispania 38.2 (1955): 187-192. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/335812>.
“Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction” is one of the first and most referenced articles on magical realism in Latin American literature. Flores explains magical realism to be a result of the fusion of romanticism and realism, seemingly “bound together in one afflatus” (188). The article continues to give a brief history to the buildup to the period of literary magical realism in Latin America, moving through realism to the imaginative, citing Jorge Luis Borges’s Historia universal de la infamia in 1935 as the starting point of the literary movement which continued to flourish with the works of authors such as Bombal, Ocampo, and Albamonte. Between 1940 and 1950, magical realism in Latin America reached its peak with prominent writers appearing all across mainly South America, specifically in Argentina. Centering on the specific style of the aforementioned magical realist authors, Flores states that “one finds in [the authors] the same transformation of the common and the everyday into the awesome and the unreal” (190). The article continues to focus on the technical style of magical realism, citing several examples from works such as Bioy Casares’s Lan invención de Morel and Franz Kafka’s The Trial.
Merello, M. “Julio Cortázar quotes on normal and abnormal movements: Magical realism or reality?”. Movement Disorders 21.8 (2006): 1062-1065.
[Note: This article wasn’t what I was anticipating and doesn’t approach magical realism from a literary perspective so much as from a scientific perspective, but I figure it could still possibly be used to analyze the reality (according to science) that is created through two of Cortázar’s short stories.] Merello analyzes the stories “No One’s Guilty” and “Uncle in Trouble” to address descriptions of real medical conditions that are seemingly too good to be true. Merello states, “Regarding the question about Cortázar's descriptions being real or not, both examples quoted here fit real medical conditions quite well, making it hard to believe that they are simply fantastic descriptions rather than the product of Cortázar's inquisitive observation and hence descriptions of real patients” (1065). Important to note as well, Merello provides a concise, but well-stated definition of what magical realism is and some of the tactics that are used in the writing.
Simpkins, Scott. “Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism”. Twentieth Century Literature 34.2 (1988): 140-154. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/ stable/441074>.
In “Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism,” Scott Simpkins criticizes magical realism as a literary style that falls short of overcoming the “’limits’ of realism” as a result of the “inadequacies of language” (140). He points out contrasting opinions surrounding how magical realism has been defined as a literary style over time in comparison to realism (according to Franz Roh), lo real maravilloso and surrealism (Carpentier), and those ideas presented by Angel Flores in the 1955 article, “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Rather than defining magical realism, he says that there is “one element which does recur constantly throughout many magic realist texts [which is]… an awareness of the ineluctable lack in communication, a condition which prevents the merger of signifier and signified” (143) which creates a disproportional reality that according to García Márquez, is “more realistic than a ‘realistic’ text” (143-144). Simpkins then examines the effects of the use of magical realism; for example, the presentation of the familiar in strange ways creates a more realistic text that “move[s] language toward reality not away from it” (147). Through the duration of the rest of the article, Simpkins explores how the use of magic supplements a sense of reality according to the ideas of several authors and literary critics. Ultimately, he comes back to the shortcomings of a text, citing that although magical realism may seem to overcome the restraints of realism, “the question of doubt always lurks (or should always lurk, anyway) between the lines because the physical presence of the text ceaselessly calls attention to its inherent falseness as a construct” (150).
Simpkins, Scott. “Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism”. Twentieth Century Literature 34.2 (1988): 140-154. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/ stable/441074>.
In “Magical Strategies: The Supplement of Realism,” Scott Simpkins criticizes magical realism as a literary style that falls short of overcoming the “’limits’ of realism” as a result of the “inadequacies of language” (140). He points out contrasting opinions surrounding how magical realism has been defined as a literary style over time in comparison to realism (according to Franz Roh), lo real maravilloso and surrealism (Carpentier), and those ideas presented by Angel Flores in the 1955 article, “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Rather than defining magical realism, he says that there is “one element which does recur constantly throughout many magic realist texts [which is]… an awareness of the ineluctable lack in communication, a condition which prevents the merger of signifier and signified” (143) which creates a disproportional reality that according to García Márquez, is “more realistic than a ‘realistic’ text” (143-144). Simpkins then examines the effects of the use of magical realism; for example, the presentation of the familiar in strange ways creates a more realistic text that “move[s] language toward reality not away from it” (147). Through the duration of the rest of the article, Simpkins explores how the use of magic supplements a sense of reality according to the ideas of several authors and literary critics. Ultimately, he comes back to the shortcomings of a text, citing that although magical realism may seem to overcome the restraints of realism, “the question of doubt always lurks (or should always lurk, anyway) between the lines because the physical presence of the text ceaselessly calls attention to its inherent falseness as a construct” (150).
Wechsler, Jeffrey. “Magic Realism: Defining the Indefinite.” Art Journal 45.4 (1985): 293-298. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/776800>.
Jeffrey Wechsler begins by pointing out the vast understanding of imaginative realism, which “has occurred in many places and times, …taken many forms, …been called Surrealist, magic realist, fantastic, Symbolist, visionary, eccentric, and so on, …it has been practiced by groups with common theories and by isolated individuals,” and proceeds to relate this vague understanding of the general idea of imaginative realism to a similar unorganized reaction to magical realism as well (293). Wechsler cites the understood and accepted influences of Italian painter, De Chirico, along with German metaphysical art, and the work of French painter, Pierre Roy. Wechsler explains the growth of magic realism in the United States as its own movement that paralleled Surrealism rather than growing from it. Furthermore, the article focuses on comparisons between Surrealism and magic realism, but blatantly point out its distinctions between the two. He says, “Magic realism does not invent a new order of things; it simply reorders reality to make it seem alien. Magic realism is an art of the implausible, not the impossible; it is imaginative, not imaginary” (293). Wechsler explains the growth of magic realism in the United States as its own movement that paralleled Surrealism rather than growing from it.