Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh):
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez may be considered the fountainhead of magic realism or magical realism, but it was the German photographer, writer and art critic Franz Roh who coined the word. He wrote a book in 1925 – Post-expressionism: Problems of the newest European Painting in which Roh devised the word magic realism.
There is a lot of confusion about the definition of magic realism. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms says, “A kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the reliable tone of objective realistic report.”
‘The Tin Drum’ by German author Gunter Grass has the feature called magic element. Grass writes: “When Satan’s not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn’t even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a while?”
The Tin Drum is a satirical novel, but it consists of many other elements like picaresque, farce and fantasy. Grass’s Indian counterpart Salman Rushdie has magical realism in his novels, like Midnight’s Children, Satanic Verses and Quichotte. In such novels, characters are limned with fantastic attributes – levitation, flight, telepathy, and telekinesis – to portray the political realities of a particular era.
Likewise, Baltasar and Blimunda by Jose Saramago, who got the Nobel Prize in literature in 1998, weaves a captivating tale of love and ambition against the backdrop of 18th century Portugal where dominated Inquisition. Both characters survive in a situation in which dreams clash with harsh realities. Blimunda is blessed with a weird power to see within people and their ailments.
Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is a satire intertwined with magical realism. In the novel, magic courts reality in postmodern fashion to tear apart the iron curtain of the former Soviet Union.
From a woman, Margarita metamorphoses into a witch. Bulgakov uses broom and hog as means of transportation, and then there is The Master who embodies an authoritarian ruler – maybe Joseph Stalin. Some critics say Margarita is the wife of Maxim Gorky, Maria, but many differ, saying she is the third wife of Bulgakov.
This is how he portrayed reality through magical elements: “Would you like to denude the earth of all the trees and all the living beings in order to satisfy your fantasy of rejoicing in the naked light?”
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Tagore’s The Hungry Stones
Although the concept of magical realism found its way in the canvas of literature in the 20th century, its elements always existed. Rabindranath Tagore’s short story, Khudita Pashan (Hungry Stones), published in 1895 and rendered into English in 1916, has the spin of magical realism.
It sketches the story of an ancient building whose new tenant, as the time passes, comes across the spirits of its Mughal era residents. Their memories begin to fill the dreams of the tenant.
Entrenched in each stone that the building is made of are the souls of the residents of a by-gone era, who yearn for the life they once lived. The fall of dusk is painted through metaphors: “The moment the sun slipped below the mountain-tops, a low dark curtain descended upon the stage of the day.” Tagore creates a magical world through which he speaks about the condition India was in at that time, and her struggle against colonialism.
Realism on magical canvas
Magic realism is enrooted in the 20th century paintings. They have tried to tell the world through tinges and brush strokes that it is possible to paint out of the ordinary occurrences as if they had existed. The artists who portrayed life through their way of magic realism included Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico and Alberto Savinio.
Likewise, several French surrealists and American artists Paul Cadmus and Ivan Albright viewed the world through the eyes of a magical realist. Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo also cut a corner for themselves in the world of magical realism. They focused on strange, scary, and satirical imagery that manifest the changes occurring around the world.
Every writer and every painter who sees the world through magical realism holds different notions. This is the confusion that the word has caused because most of the critics have never tried to see the term's evolution through historical perspective.
This is the reason why many critics found the elements of magical realism in Alice in Wonderland, though it is treated as fantasy. Nevertheless, when Roh coined the word, magical realism, he could barely imagine that his notion would trip to Latin America, India, Africa, Canada, and be a part of debates across the world.