SPAN 312C was an enjoyable journey, one that I’m extremely sad about it’s closure. Being an RMST 202 alumni (lol) I was really looking forward to learning more about the themes related to Latin American literature, especially magical realism, from Professor Jon. Reflecting on the past four months, that is certainly what I got out of the course.
First of all, I have to say that I still don’t quite know what magical realism really is. I can’t really define it, nor can I pick it out within a certain book like I can do with other narrative devices. However, one thing I learned was that magical realism should be approached more as a ‘lens’ through which we view certain aspects of a story, and not so much as a literary device. For me, Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was most helpful in giving me a better understanding of what magical realism might be within a book. For example, the fantastical event of the flight to heaven alongside a heavier theme of the book that ‘everything comes to an end’ seemed to me as a good indicator of what magical realism could be. The constant interplay between fantasy and reality seemed to me like the best definition I can come up with magical realism, and it also goes along with the title of our course, “Hopscotch!”
Secondly, a very interesting aspect of a lot of the readings was the use of a child narrator—from Mama Blanca, Cartucho, etc. While at first I questioned the credibility of a child narrator, reading such books made me change my mind. The unfiltered, perhaps naïve, perspective of a child felt more authentic and credible. At times it was gruesome, like the part on “General Sobarzo’s Guts” in Cartucho, but at least it felt like the child narrator wasn’t ‘picking and choosing’ what to include or exclude in the book. At the same time, however, all the books weren’t actually written by children; this realization raised more interesting thoughts. Why did the authors choose a child narrator? What purpose those the child narrator serve? Is there some sort of political agenda that the author wants to spread, secretly, through the narration of a child? While these questions cannot be answered directly, they still feed interesting thoughts and discussions. In a fairness, Cristina Rivera Garza did write, “Sometimes the best informants are women and children” (The Taiga Syndrome, p. 25).
To end this course with a question: What was your favorite book from this course? Why? Were there any aspects of the book that helped you understand magical realism and/ or Latin American literature in general?
Thank you very much Professor Jon and Daniel for making this an unforgettable journey for all of us.
Daniel, I am glad to know that we were able to accompany you on this journey. Now that you mention it, we could establish less obvious relationships between works that were written at very distant historical moments, but that have an air of family. Perhaps that makes works like “Cartucho” continue to be relevant, despite the crudeness of the violence. Could it be that putting the magical realism label on a novel can be a barrier to reading it in all that it can offer us? Thank you for your effort and your work done!
Hi Daniel !
Thank you for all the blog posts over the past four months! I liked “Fever Dream,” a more recent book, because it describes in depth the horrors of environmental pollution and the consequences of ignoring nature’s cries for help. Many collections I read proved to me how women acted with the utmost respect toward men and that men should act as dominating figures toward women, and the literary reality of the revolution consists of a reflection on the role of literature as a lens through which history can be transformed into a meaningful dimension of the present.
Hi Daniel, I really liked your interpretation of magical realism as “the constant interplay between fantasy and reality”! Up till this point, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what magical realism means and I think your definition of magical realism makes the most sense to me. As for your question, I think my favorite book has to be Borges’. I really liked how Borges played with symmetry, cyclicity, differences, and repetition in his stories, and his ability to use literature as a tool to communicate his fantastical world was fascinating!
Hi Daniel, really cool blog post! To answer your question, I think Rita Indiana’s Papi is my favorite book that we’ve read as I feel like it blends together the child narrator theme and magic realism theme together really well. I echo your sentiments regarding the credibility of having a story told, whether it was also intended to speak about their own version of history, or simply for storytelling purposes, but the more we read through the term, the more I understood the magic that a child narrator have in this sense.
Hey Daniel, great blog again! my favourite book was probably 100 years of solitude, and I believe that the reason why also sort of answers your later question. It introduced magical realism to me in a way that the other books did not, and is one of the most unique books I have ever read. I guess a better way to put it would be that it is the most memorable for me, in terms of the storytelling, the writing format, and the stylistic choices it employs, as well as plot. Basically everything about it is so striking that it really is a book impossible to forget.