The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. FarisIrving Malin
Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, eds. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Duke Univ. Press, 1995. 580 pp. Paper: $23.00.
This collection of new and old essays is a necessary, valuable text. It refuses to allow the term magical realism to be a cliché for South American fiction written in the last decades. It suggests that magical realism—a phrase used in 1925 by the German art critic Franz Roh—deserves a thorough, philosophical exploration. What exactly is “magic”? What exactly is “real”? The various theoretical essays grapple with the paradoxical phrase; and although these do not arrive at a final solution, they make me aware that glib definitions (or non-definitions) limit and distort appreciation of literary and painterly texts.
I don’t want to give the impression that this massive collection is a dull, theoretical exploration. Some of the essays offer detailed readings of such works as Midnight’s Children and Janet Frame’s odd conflations of fictional and nonfictional depictions of madness. Some probe the relation—is there one?—of Gothic, baroque, surrealist creations to recent fiction. The book is an expansive exploration of the cliché magical realism. [Irving Malin]