Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative

by Wendy B. Faris

Ordinary Enchantments investigates magical realism as the most important trend in contemporary international fiction, defines its characteristics and narrative techniques, and proposes a new theory to explain its significance. In the most comprehensive critical treatment of this literary mode to date, Wendy B. Faris discusses a rich array of examples from magical realist novels around the world, including the work not only of Latin American writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but also of authors like Salman Rushdie, Gunter Grass, Toni Morrison, and Ben Okri.

Faris argues that by combining realistic representation with fantastic elements so that the marvelous seems to grow organically out of the ordinary, magical realism destabilizes the dominant form of realism based on empirical definitions of reality, gives it visionary power, and thus constitutes what might be called a "remystification" of narrative in the West. Noting the radical narrative heterogeneity of magical realism, the author compares its cultural role to that of traditional shamanic performance, which joins the worlds of daily life and that of the spirits. Because of that capacity to bridge different worlds, magical realism has served as an effective decolonizing agent, providing the ground for marginal voices, submerged traditions, and emergent literatures to develop and create masterpieces. At the same time, this process is not limited to postcolonial situations but constitutes a global trend that replenishes realism from within.

In addition to describing what many consider to be the progressive cultural work of magical realism, Faris also confronts the recent accusation that magical realism and its study as a global phenomenon can be seen as a form of commodification and an imposition of cultural homogeneity. And finally, drawing on the narrative innovations and cultural scenarios that magical realism enacts, she extends those principles toward issues of gender and the possibility of a female element within magical realism.

Genres: Magical Realism, Nonfiction, Research, Writing

280 pages, Paperback

First published February 27, 2004

Reviews

[el · Rating 3 out of 5]

reading theory makes my brain itch 😫😖 hope this at least brought my iq up by a couple points....

[m i l · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread

[Brigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't read the last two chapters - not because it's boring or anything, but it focuses on aspects of magical realism that I don't need for my term paper and my time is very limited. The first part, though, was very good: I found a lot of interesting things in this book that weren't even mentioned in others. The only thing I didn't like about it was the structure: the theory was often mixed with examples (from many novels, most of which I haven't even read), and it made it difficult to "peel" it out. But kudos for the clear language, I appreciate every lit theory book that doesn't dazzle me with imcomprehensible texts.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had an assignment to do, a short story. For some reason I decided I wanted to run with magical realism, a genre I have read into a fair bit, but which I had never written on myself. So I needed to educate myself, and the course texts were not great, so after some general reading, I settled on this book, read it and them mined it somewhat. I learned a lot about the subject, but a lot of the magical realism I have actually read is for younger readers (e.g. much of David Almond's work) and this book did not really cover that. It was good for what I needed, because magical realism is easily misunderstood, and I didn't want to be one of the ones misunderstanding it! It is also full of plenty of excellent material, but the failure to look more deeply at magical realism in children and young adult fiction is one of those lapses that seems to come around so often when those genres are not treated as suitably respectable!

[Maka Sitomniye]

Finished December 31, 2012

[Aleks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-interpreting literature modes of magic realism in the context of post-colonial theories. Is knowledge multi-cultural? Mythos meets logos. Is science multi-cultural?