Apr
18
McOndo
Posted by: | April 18, 2010 | Comments Off on McOndo
Although I have noticed some of the other bloggers in this course were surprised that a reading so different from the Magical realism genre included in the class, however I think that it was very important to read a work that reflects a broader and more inclusive type of Latin American litterarure. It would not be fair to stop at a certain time period and style and say this fully represents Latin American litterature, and I think that this is what the authors of McOndo have tried to voice. Most other styles of litterature from Latin America seem to have been overshadowed by Magical Realism and Garcia Marquez, causing an expectation for the Latin American author to produce works centering around magical realism. This is why these authors, although they definitely respect GGM, are trying to break away from this almost stereotypical genre. This breaking away is crucial to their careers as authors not because in order to write freely they must not be limited to a certain genra and constrained by its rules, which is furthermore slightly outdated for today’s modern world. Such a contraint would limit the authors’ creativity and imagination, and also not accurately reflect the modern points of view that the authors may have. A story, as we have seen, can be viewed very differently depending on the cultural background of the story-teller, therefore it would be unfair for all modern novels to onyl reflect a single, magical viewpoint of stories.
I thought that the title was very interesting, as the writers are trying to contrast with the classical (Macondo within the novel Cien Anos de Soledad), and showing the reader that there is more to Latin America than that. Since they demonstrate that Latin America is more similar to America in the present than the older genre of Magical Realism shows , the authors show that technology and the modern brands and problems of the american world are just as present in Latin America. I wondered wheather McOndo is supposed to have a connection to the brand name McDonalds at the same time in a play on the word Macondo in order to demonstrate the modernization of Latin American litterature. This use of Macondo and McOndo reflects a vast change in culture from the time when a very magically-oriented village of Macondo to the current world-wide cultural phenomenon of Mcdonalds. This world-wide aspect of Mcdonals is very interesting in this concept because Latin america used to be distinct from the world by its very distinct litterary genra of magical realism, just as the town of Macondo was alienated by from the rest of the world. The current McOndo title represents the drift of Latin American litterature and culture towards the more unified global modern-day culture in which the same technologies and brands appear allover the world. McOndo therefore represents the new modern Latin America that resembles the rest of the world, much like the Mcdonalds brand is present (in relatively identical form) allover the world: lLatin American Litterature is evolving with modernization and can relate to the experiences of everyone else in the world, not only to the traditional experiences of Magical Realism.
