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Estos cuentos me parecen bien raros. Los elegí al azar: “El vértigo horizontal,” “Sólo hablamos de la lluvia,” “He conocido a mucha gente,” “La mujer químicamente compatible,” y “Gritos y susurros.” Después de leer todos, me siento un poco confusa. No entiendo el porque de la mayoría de los cuentos. Los dos de la semana pasada me gustó porque tuvieron un tipo de “twist” o idea clave, y por esto el cuento valió la pena de leer. No sé si es porque no entiendo los dialectos latinoamericanos, o solamente no doy cuento de que está pasando, pero los cinco que elegí fueron aburridos o inútiles. En “He conocido a mucha gente,” los encuentros individuales son interesantes pero no tiene un fin bastante profundo. Parece mucho a “la mujer químicamente compatible”- hay cosas interesantes pero la última párrafo me deja confusa y decepcionado. Hay símbolos, por supuesto- los países, la idea de vivir con una mujer para siempre pero cada noche alguien distinta, pero son demasiados oscuros para que entienda lo que pudieron significar.

Entiendo bien la idea de escribir cuentos fuera de la sombra de García Márquez y realismo mágico, pero al mismo vez, hay que escribir cuentos interesantes. (Quizá no soy justa aquí- es verdad que no entendí por nada el fin de “gritos y susurros” y los fines de “la mujer químicamente compatible” y “he conocido a mucha gente” me confusan.) Pero los que entendí bastante bien son banales y no dicen nada. Por ejemplo, “el vértigo horizontal” es el cuento más común del mundo- la mujer se rompe con el hombre, el hombre se siente triste, la mujer tiene cáncer, el hombre se siente triste otra vez, el hombre se vuelve loco. punto. ¿Qué cuento es esto? No vale nada. El mismo con “Sólo hablamos de la lluvia.” Un cuento poco interesante, con sexo, y al fin nada cambia. Todos quedan tristes y solos. Tal vez esto sea lo que quieren decir los autores- que la vida es banal y estúpida y triste.

A new mode of writing. One in which a story becomes internalized, vastly personal. The story, yes, can be communicated to readers; maybe they can even empathize with it. But the feeling of collective memory, of applicability to all: that’s gone. This writing is much smaller in scope.

Amor a la Distancia is a funny little story because it’s a letter, but all at once, a diary entry and an essay too. Boliviano Edmundo Paz Soldan writes to his girlfriend (or his character does, but it appears nonfictional). For much of it, it feels like he’s writing to himself, trying out ideas that he’s formulating as he has the experiences that make him arrive at such conclusions. It’s very step by step in feel, though the ending obviously wraps it all up into a little package and kind-of laughs in your face. SMACK! That’s how we arrive at conclusions – by trial and error, by taking steps – and SMACK! again, the nature of “telling” (a thing which pervades all cultures and systems) is duplicitous. There is the appearance of the idea, the reality of the idea (which only the teller knows) and the conclusion at which the receiver of the idea arrives. This system makes for some very serious doubts pertaining to verifiability versus fictionality. When can we, as human beings, ever know what is true? Especially in intimate relationships, when so much is at stake and so many details are passed back and forth between two people, there is no sure-fire way to insure oneself against scams… We’re always vulnerable, we’re always in a state of unknowing, as the ending to Distancia surely proclaims…

Hay angustia y amargura en este texto, en que el narrador intenta explicar (a sí mismo, me parece) por qué las cosas son así, por qué algunos detalles se suelen excluir, y entonces el cuento acaba así. Por qué, siempre y sin fin. Y duele al lector porque necesitamos también saber por qué. And this questioning makes us conclude that there are expectations of us as people, as partners, because that’s the way our culture is set up. We don’t cheat. We love each other without flinching. But Soldán realizes that other side of the coin. We love eachother, but we make up a love-reality, an image of the “us”, that perhaps overestimates our ability to not jeopardize that love-reality. So therefore, we do cheat, we do lie, because we’re all individuals who can and will. He says “tampoco te puedo contar muchas cosas porque sin secretos ninguna relacion subsitiría” (75): he puts citrus on the wound that is the paradox of coupling and it hurts…

Starting with McOndo. As the editors of the book indicate, Westerners for the most part are consumers of mass-created products and ideas of lo latinoamericano. And those products and ideas seemed to stop advancing by the end of the 1960s, or thereabouts. Magic realism is a dominant force, to the point of being stereotypical, clichE, avant-garde no longer; there’s nothing subtle about it anymore, the essence has been commodity and that makes it somewhat fake. The McOndo guys are contemporary contemporary contemporary. They’re post-postmodern, as the magic realists themselves were post-modern.

I was taken in by their attack on their predecessors and also on the people who endorse the predecessors (aka Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who is cited like an A-list fluff star) and make live on these pretty visions, images, of an unreal, floating, and frankly, fictionalized reality that is Latin America. While we strive to believe that magical realism poignantly points out aspects of life that we tend to miss, one could also read it as following the non-perceivable and mythical into the dark hole of unreason, of bad vision, of denial of a real-life-reality that pales in comparison. Zamora and Faris cite writer-critic Julian Barnes in the introduction to Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community to exacerbate the common approach to and emphasis on lo latinoamericano in MR>>>
:”A quota system has to be introduced on fiction set in South America. The intention is to curb the spread of package-tour baroque and heavy irony. Ah, the propinquity of cheap life and expensive principles, of religion and banditry, of surprising honor and random cruelty. Ah, the daiquiri bird which incubates its eggs on the wing; ah, the fredonna tree whose roots grow at the tips of its branches, and whose fibers assist the hunchback to impregnate by telepathy the haughty wife of the hacienda owner; ah, the opera hours now overgrown by jungle. Permit me to rap on the table and murmur “Pass!” Novels set in the Arctic and the Antarctic will receive a development grant.”

A big quote, I know, but it speaks wonders (one of which is that MR applies not only to Latin America but to the world). Critics realize the faults of magic realism: its magic can’t undo its faults, its shortcomings.. The crazy cliches (like what Barnes describes) and the vague communal ownership over all this stuff has got to go, according to McOndo. I get it, totally. One would get tired of hearing about all this stuff when, after all is said and done, you still eat, shit, sleep and die (pardon the phrase). Latinos are normal people, just like any other place, and MR is a style that can or cannot be applied to Latino writing, according to taste. It’s not automatic! There are alternatives!

But then back to roots. Leyendas de Guatemala and Reino de este Mundo are predecessor steps toward magic realism; some consider them part of the package itself. Personally, Leyendas bored me. I’m a postmodern child and I’m used to referential everything, so the floatiness and frankly magical everything that isn’t quite relateable but simply exists? It leaves me not knowing which way to step, it’s so separate. However now, I can see how just this very quality can make it such a good source for fiction, a novel like Cien Anyos, for example. It has such a high-saturation aestheticism, it would look good in splices on the page. On that note, when I think of Leyendas, I think of fantasy film, like Avatar or Fern Gully; it tells a story, but the vividness of the images takes over plot, characters, action…

Reino de este Mundo sits much closer to Cien Anyos, in that Leyendas is most explicitly a point of inspiration, whereas Reino can much more easily stand on its own (like 100 Anyos does). Connected with my point above, these latter two works are more relatable. Though there are fantastic elements involved in both, they have characters with whom we can empathize, the plots have shape, and there’s more of a critical message. Both Carpentier and Marquez are commenting intravenously through the various choices they make in the respective two works, whereas the Leyendas are what they are: legends. They’re not so much a return to something, but are that which we might return to (minor points of narration aside: these aren’t the parts that weigh heavily).

And how might the McOndo guys feel about Reino… I don’t think they’d spit quite so hard. To me, Reino is an historical account fused with life, and I love how real dances with magical here. I venture to say that the fact it is a telling of the past may moderately redeem it in contemporary critical eyes; Carpentier says that it happened, like that, then. Conversely, Marquez attests that it was, it is, and it will be: a fact that McOndo-ists fervently reject (“it” being, made simple, magical realism). But don’t get me wrong. I love the MR layers of reality; there should always be some-ones, some-wheres, who emulate that heightened spiritual realm of thought…

As mentioned in the beginning of the term magical realism was going to be introduced to us in moderation. Three different writers who all used different approaches in the use of magical realism in their works allowed for a well-rounded analysis that made the understanding difficult at times and yet intriguing and entertaining. We covered Asturias in Leyendas de Guatemala in which magical realism was introduced to explain the origins of the region with the fantastic, imaginative and creative use of nature and its surroundings which came alive. The living world was interacting with man and created a reality that one could only imagine. The author Asturias wrote in a way that brought his imagination and dreams alive to seem believable. With the use of colorful and poetic words and phrases he was able to really draw the reader into his narration of his description of nature, wildlife and forests. Carpentier’s El Rey De Este Mundo touches on a different subject, that of politics and a nation that is deeply divided. In comparison to Leyendas this book was more of a darker approach into the magical realism. One that focused on more difficult and sensitive issues such as racism, segregation, religion, and freedom. What is also different is that the merging of historical accuracies blending in with the fantastic through the narrative and description of the historical context during a time of transition and self-discovery of a new nation and its new found freedoms. Finally, in Garcia Marquez’s Cien Años de Soledad the central theme revolves around the premise of destiny and prophecy and how we follow and observe the slow demise of the Buendía family. Cien Años reflects the chronological order in which we have read this works as we went from Asturias, which covered the origins and discovery, to Carpentier which focused on the recent-present times with Haiti’s recent events and now Marquez which introduces the future and destiny which is a somewhat interesting connection among the readings.

¿Qué puedo decir a cerca de los tres libros que hemos leído? Creo que cada uno tiene su proprio lugar en consideración al Realismo Mágico. Una cosa que aprendí en mis investigaciones para el proyecto de Wiki pedía es que el Realismo Mágico a menudo habla de los problemas de un grupo de personas. Creo que los tres libros tienen eso en común pero cada uno incluye esta lucha de su propia forma. En mi opinión, Leyendas de Guatemala se basa principalmente en el asunto de la identidad y los orígenes de los guatemaltecos. Cuestiona la evolución de la identidad nacional y también examina la evolución de una identidad hibrida al preguntar qué lugar ocupa en la sociedad. Creo que Asturias utiliza los cuentos en una tentativa para establecer lo que significa ser guatemalteco en ese tiempo. Asumo que fue un asunto importante, como todavía existe el cuestionamiento de lo que significa ser latinoamericano y que lugar ocupan dentro del mundo globalizado. Por supuesto esta pregunta aplica a cualquier individuo debido a que el mundo se moderniza rápidamente. Creo que el tema de la identidad no es una cosa constante, siempre va cambiando y evolucionando.

Con respecto a El Reino de Carpentier de este Mundo, la lucha implica a un grupo de personas oprimidas que fueron llevadas contra su voluntad para satisfacer las necesidades económicas de sus opresores. Como estas personas lucharon por vencer sus condiciones de vida, ellos sólo encuentran otra forma de opresión. Eventualmente estaban libres en el concepto pero en la realidad, no eran libres. En mi opinión, Carpentier demuestra que los opresores pueden tener cualquier forma y el problema es con respecto a la humanidad. A pesar de que un grupo pueda ser liberado, los asuntos de avaricia y brutalidad igualmente pueden quedar constantes.

Creo que el libro de GGM toma los elementos de los dos libros anteriores y lo lleva a un nivel diferente, podría decir casi a un nivel global. Aunque Cien años de Soledad se centra alrededor de una familia, creo que GGM intento retratar la lucha de mucha gente latinoamericana. Uno podría decir, América latina en conjunto. En mi opinión, GGM cuestiona en su libro como una persona se ajusta o se inserta en un mundo que se moderniza rápidamente. Como resultado de la globalización, los opresores no son más los dueños de las tierra de caña de azúcar. Los opresores ahora, se han desarrollado en las compañías multinacionales que continúan con la institución de la esclavitud pero que es ocultado a los consumidores, así no cuestionan sus conciencias cuando comprar los productos. También, hacen a menudo tratos con los altos funcionarios para apropiarse de tierras para hacer con ellas lo que ellos quieran. Después que sacaron provecho de las mismas, se van sin importar las consecuencias de sus acciones. En mi opinión, GGM utiliza las luchas que encontramos en los dos libros anteriores para generar una lucha universal que unía muchas personas a causa de sus experiencias. Es por esta lucha que esos individuos están en busca de su identidad en el mundo moderno.

Como pueden ver en mi título para este post… me parece que los tres textos que hemos leído se pueden comparar si comparamos los tres lugares en los que suceden los sucesos de las historias. Esto significa que los tres textos son literatura de lugares, y al decir que son sobre lugares, estos pueden incluir todo lo que pasa en los lugares… desde sus orígenes (claramente visto en 100 años), sus creyencias (visto en Leyendas de Guatemala), hasta sus sucesos entre la población de los lugares (El Reino…). Estoy de acuerdo con lo que hemos dicho de que los textos tienen mucho influencia de la historia de sus países y de el conocimiento de los autores sobre estos lugares, pero no estoy seguro de si podemos decir que 100 años tiene que ver con la historia de Colombia )ya que GGM es colombiano…

Mucha gente en la clase ha dicho que el tiempo y la política son los temas más interesantes y relacionados entre los tres textos. Y que el realismo mágico también es lo que une estos tres textos en una sola categoría de literatura. Estoy de acuerdo con la mayoría de los comentarios sobre el tiempo y la política, así que no voy a repetir nada más. Lo que me interesa más es, por qué estos dos temas?

Creo que la razón por la que los autores escriben sobre el tiempo y la política es porque estas son dos cosas que pasan en la vida real y ellos no pueden hacer nada para cambiarlas. Lo importante de este punto, para mí, es que esto es lo que define el realismo mágico. Los textos son sobre cosas de la vida real, pero como los autores no pueden cambiar la vida real, tratan de escribir/crear algo que nos de más posibilidades de como pudieron haber terminado las cosas. Y si no, entonces nos dicen lo que pasó envida real a través de otros puntos de vista. Yo creo que esto es importante porque si no, entonces cual sería la diferencia entre el realismo mágico y la ficción?

También quiero decir algo acerca los comentarios de que los textos, especialmente El Reino y 100 años. Muchos han dicho, incluyéndome a mí mismo hace una  o dos semanas, que los textos son muy tristes y negativos. Pero ahora que lo pienso, y tiene que ver con lo que dijo Jon al final de la clase, los textos talvez son muy positivos. La historia de la vida en esta tierra, en la vida real, no es toda feliz. Es más, han habido incontables historias de tristeza, violencia, y depresión en la historia del mundo, pero también están las historias de la gente que vive a través de estos momentos y luchan por sobrevivir. Además, al final de El Reino y 100 años, los personajes descubren algo, tienen un momento de realización en la que saben TODO (lo que importa en su mundo). Y es este conocimiento que obtienen que hacen los textos positivos, no negativos. Digo esto porque ahora me acuerdo de un quote en una película, dice que el mayor tesoro de la vida es: el conocimiento.

(ok, maybe not a pleathora, but it’s just so fun to say)

Marquez is in no way giving us a history lesson, he’s more concerned with human behaviour than the telling of events. Cien an~os de soledad is more centered around the playing out of the impulses of individual characters rather than the playing out of socio-political events that is central to El Reino and less so to Leyendas. When the war comes to Macondo, Marquez devotes more attention to showing how it effects individual characters rather than describing the ins and outs of the war. For example, the way the war changes Aureliano, his initial blooming out of his shell and then slow spiral into ever deeper solitude is more important to the story than the war itself. What keeps the reader’s interest is not the ideological struggle between liberals and conservatives, it is the everyday struggle of the rich characters of Macondo and especially the Buendia family. Many characters central to the story seem to be suffering from some classifiable disorder, be it post traumatic stress disorder in the case of Aureliano Buendia or OCD in the case of the soil eating. Cien an~os reads like an epic soap opera because it is so centered around family and individual psychology. Its setting is much more contained than the other two book. The bulk of the novel takes place in a single house which gives the story an insular feeling and also a feeling like this story could be taking place in the small town of any country. El Reino and Leyendas are the stories of whole countries.

Two of the three books have specific objectives. Leyendas de Guatemala has an anthropological objective, El Reino de Este Mundo has historical objective and Cien An~os seems more like a study of human behaviour with great attention to the cyclical nature of families over generations and the effects of these cycles on human civilization. Asturias had a strong cultural agenda in writing Leyendas de Guatemala. He was motivated by a need to tell the story of the Guatemalan people in the face of the country progressing into modernity and losing its collective identity. In the book he tells the myths of a specific group of people through time. Cien an~os, jumps back and forth in time. The absence of linear time gives the book a mythic quality that in some ways resembles the mythic qualities in Leyendas but it has no sign being a myth to inform. Didactic it is not. I’m not sure if Marquez intended for it to have any message no matter how deeply hidden. The one that I can extract most readily, and here it is in a crude form, is that history repeats itself because human behaviour is predictable. Marquez tells a fable about a family and a town while at the same time, telling the history of human civilization. El Reino also tells of how history repeats itself but unlike Cien An~os, it follows a linear path, telling the events of the revolution in chronological order. It shows the cycles of oppression. Ti Noel cycles between being a slave and being free. He never escapes the oppression. When he escapes the oppression of the whites, he becomes oppressed again by the black leadership. The members of the Buendia family are caught in a cycle that could be called the oppression of genes and place of nurture… hmm food for thought.

ps -If anyone has found a way to write accents in Open Office using accent codes, please let me know. Thanks

I’m going to expand on the similarities and differences that my in-class-group noted about the three books we have read thus far. First of all, all three books contain historical events to varying degrees. Carpentier’s book is centered around a widely known historical event: the Haitian Revolution. However, Carpentier provides a unique perspective of this time period because he writes through the lens of slaves, allowing us to see the events through a marginalized point of view. Asturias’s Leyendas de Guatemala also provides a unique perspective on a longer, more generalized period of history that has led up to modern day Guatemala. Asturias demonstrates the combination of Spanish and Maya cultures that have existed in Guatemala since the arrival of the Spanish. Asturias incorporates indigenous Guatemalan myths and a history of Spanish-Maya cultural interactions in his text. GGM’s 100 Anos de Soledad is less centered around a specific, known history but still includes identifying Latin American historical circumstances such as civil wars, foreign-owned banana plantations and a separate indigenous population. In the category of historical events this book can also be seen to provide a more “marginalized” perspective on events, as it presents things from a Latin American perspective instead of a North American or European one.

The way time is constucted seems to be very unique in each text and tied to the magical realism writing styles. In 100 Anos, time is clearly circular and characters’ personalities eventually become predictable. The circularity of time also involves the Buendia’s familial incest and the pig tail phenomenon, which occurs near the beginning and end of the family tree. In El Reino de este Mundo, time is fairly linear as the book is about the development of the Haitian Revolution and its consequences. However, the narration from the perspective of Ti Noel depicts the revolution as circular in the sense that the people in control, whether they are the slave-owners or the mulattos, act in the same entitled and authoritarian manner. In Leyendas de Guatemala, everyday time is mostly irrelevant, as days are describes as lasting centuries and the exact order of events is often unclear. In one sense, however, time seems to be circular as both indigenous and Spanish influences are portrayed in most of the legends and modern Guatemala is built upon both cultures’ legacies.

In comparing the works we read this term, the first thing that comes to mind is each book’s readability and our analysis of each. This blog entry is my analysis of the texts from the perspective of the reader. I found Cien anos de soledad to be the easiest to read as well as the easiest to deconstruct. While many works within the realm of magical realism can be tough to follow, understand and truly appreciate, I found CADS to be the most accessible. It may be that it is the most recent, the most similar in syntax to other books that I’ve read, and most obvious but still important, it is a novel. Leyendas is a compilation of cuentos. Reino de este mundo may be called a historical and anthropological account of the Haitian revolution. While the detail of structure may seem trivial, it plays an important role in how the book reads and what the author is able to achieve.

Leyendas de Guatemala was probably the toughest to read and the toughest to deconstruct. Given its structure, it never achieves the intuitive flow of the other books. It seems abstract, lacks fluidity, cohesion and intuitive structure. For a layperson reader and those without further instruction, Leyendas seems tough to follow, tough to know what Asturias is getting at, and to understand why each tales is important. However, given its aim, it achieves what the author intends: it tells the tales of Latin America, from the epic to the minimal. Each tale aids to weave a strange web of stories of ancient and recent times. Asturias is able to show diversity, depth and splendor in Latin American culture, though he does in a manner that is not easily accessible.

El reino de este mundo is a more intuitive text, though can seem abstract and tough to guage. It jumps through time, between people, between class and between race. It gives a deep look into the Hatian revolution from the perspective of the colonials and of the slaves. I found this book interesting, though not compelling nor exoteric. Again, further instruction aided my understanding of Carpentier’s intentions and achievements.

Cien anos de soledad was my favourite of the books, it was the easiest to follow, the most intuitive to deconstruct, though it was not very enjoyable to read. I found the novel fascinating at some points, riveting at others, but dry and boring for the most part. It is riddled with pages of what seems like trivial details and plot points. Simply reading through it, keeping up with who is who, and how things are connected was an exhausting task. However, after a bit of guidance of where to look and on what to focus, Marquez’s genius is revealed. His creation of Macondo and the Buendia family is truly astounding. Its no wonder the guy won a Nobel prize.

While each of these texts differ in readability and accessibility, they all, arguably, make up Latin American of magical realism. This style of writing isn’t necessarily meant to be accessible, intuitive and easy to read. It is supposed to be simple and sublime, to be real and fantastic at the same time. In this way it displays the marvel that is our world and the genius of human imagination.