Magic Realism is a literary movement associated MOVEMENT ORIGIN with a style of writing or technique that incorpo- rates magical or supernatural events into realistic c. 1940 narrative without questioning the improbability of these events. This fusion of fact and fantasy is meant to question the nature of reality as well as call attention to the act of creation. By making lived experience appear extraordinary, magical realist writers contribute to a re-envisioning of Latin-American culture as vibrant and complex. The movement originated in the fictional writing of Spanish American writers in the mid-twentieth century and is generally claimed to have begun in the 1940s with the publication of two important novels: Men of Maize by Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias and The Kingdom of This World by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier. What is most striking about both of these novels is their ability to infuse their narratives with an atmos- phere steeped in the indigenous folklore, cultural beliefs, geography, and history of a particular geographic and political landscape. However, at the same time that their settings are historically correct, the events that occur may appear improb- able, even unimaginable. Characters change into animals, and slaves are aided by the dead; time reverses and moves backward, and other events occur simultaneously. Thus, magic realist works present the reader with a perception of the world where nothing is taken for granted and where anything can happen.
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The fantastical qualities of this style of writ- ing were heavily influenced by the surrealist movement in Europe of the 1920s and literary avant-gardism as well as by the exotic natural surroundings, native and exiled cultures, and tumultuous political histories of Latin America. Although other Latin America writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, and Julio Cortazar used elements of magic and fantasy in their work, it was not until the publication of Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in English in 1970 that the movement became an international phenomenon. Subse- quently, women writers such as Isabel Allende from Chile and Laura Esquivel from Mexico have become part of this movement’s later devel- opments, contributing a focus on women’s issues and perceptions of reality. Since its inception, Magic Realism has become a technique used widely in all parts of the world. Thus, writers such as Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, and Sherman Alexie have been added to the magic realist canon of writers because of their use of Isabel Allende (Archive Photos / Getty Images) magical elements in real-life historical settings.
including De amor y de sombra (Of Love and REPRESENTATIVE AUTHORS Shadows), translated in 1987, Eva Luna, trans- lated in 1988, which won a number of national Isabel Allende (1942–) book awards, including the Before Columbus Isabel Angelica Allende was born on August 2, Foundation award, the Freedom to Write Pen 1942, in Lima, Peru, the daughter of a Chilean Club Award in 1991, and the Brandeis Univer- diplomat, Tomas, and his wife, Francisca. They sity Major Book Collection Award in 1993. later moved to Chile, where Isabel attended a Allende’s later books include Ines of My Soul: private school. Afterwards, she worked for a A Novel (2006) and The Sum of Our Days: A United Nations development organization Memoir (2008). Allende became a U.S. citizen before becoming a journalist in Santiago. in 2003; as of 2008 she resided in California. Allende’s most notable family member was her uncle, the Chilean president Salvador Allende, Miguel A´ngel Asturias (1899–1974) who was assassinated in 1973 as part of a mili- Born in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on Octo- tary coup. This event heavily influenced Allende, ber 19, 1899, Asturias was the son of a Supreme who commented in an interview later that she Court magistrate, Ernesto, who later became an divided her life before and after the day of her importer, and his wife, Maria Asturias. He uncle’s assassination. Her first novel, La casa de became a lawyer in 1923 and left Guatemala los espı´ritus (The House of the Spirits), published for political reasons, residing in Paris and study- in 1982, won a number of international awards ing history of ancient Mesoamerican cultures at in Mexico, Germany, France, and Belgium. In the Sorbonne in Paris from 1923 to 1928. In the mid-1980s, Allende moved to the United Paris, he associated with members of the surre- States where she has taught creative writing at alist movement, such as Andre Breton and Paul various universities. In 1985, an English trans- Valery. His exposure to Surrealism as well as his lation of her first novel, The House of the Spirits, intellectual and political interests in Central was published by Knopf. Since then, she has American indigenous cultures would later influ- written a number of other well-known novels, ence his own writing. Returning to Guatemala in
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1933, Asturias worked as a journalist, publishing Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) books of poetry in small presses. In 1942, he was Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev, Ukraine, elected deputy to the Guatemalan congress and on May 3, 1891. Although trained as a medical later became a diplomat under Jose Arevalo’s professional, Bulgakov gave up medicine to pur- presidency. In 1946, he published his first sue writing in 1919. The next ten years were novel, El sen˜or presidente, translated in English rocky for his career; by 1929, Bulgakov was as Mr. President, which garnered praise from unable to publish his novels, short stories, both South and North American critics. His plays, translations, and essays because the gov- next novel, Los hombres de maize (Men of ernment had censored his work. Out of desper- Maize), published in Spanish in 1949, was not ation, he wrote a letter to Soviet dictator Josef as highly praised but has come to be viewed as Stalin in 1930, requesting permission to leave the his masterpiece. In 1954, Asturias was exiled country. From this correspondence, Bulgakov again due to the establishment of another repres- received work writing plays for theaters in Mos- sive Guatemalan regime. He worked as a jour- cow but did not find success there either. His nalist in South America and later returned in third wife, Yelena Shilovskaya, whom he mar- 1966, becoming the French ambassador under ried in 1931, inspired the central character of his Carlos Montenegro’s moderate government. He most famous work, The Master and Margarita. was awarded the 1967 Nobel Prize for literature Bulgakov died of nephrosclerosis on March 10, for his commitment to writing about the injus- 1940. His work is noted for its satire, fantastic tice and oppression of Guatemalan people, par- elements, and dark humor. ticularly working class and peasants. He died on June 9, 1974, in Madrid, Spain. Alejo Carpentier (1904–1980) Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier y Valmont was born on December 26, 1904, in Havana, Cuba, Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) to a Russian mother and a French father. He Born on August 24, 1899, in Buenos Aires, attended the Universidad de Havana until drop- Argentina, Jorge Luis Borges was the son of a ping out due to economic circumstances. For lawyer and a translator. Of mixed European and many years afterward, he worked as a journalist, Spanish-American heritage, he was educated in editor, educator, musicologist, and author. Switzerland, England, and Argentina. In 1919, Involved in revolutionary activities against the the Borges family moved to Spain. However, dictator Gerardo Machado y Morales, Carpent- young Borges moved back in 1921 and began to ier was forced to leave Cuba after he had been write poetry and essays for literary journals. He imprisoned and subsequently blacklisted. He also cofounded a number of magazines before lived in France for many years, publishing his publishing his first book of poetry in 1923. His first novel in 1933, Ecue-yamba-o! which faded current reputation is based more on his short quickly into obscurity. In 1939, Carpentier stories than his poetry, and it was the publication returned to Cuba, where he began to write fic- of Historia universal de la infamia (AUniversal tion again. This time, with the publication of History of Infamy) in 1935 that heralded his novels such as El reino de este mundo (The King- career as a well-known writer of a hybrid genre dom of This World) in 1949, Los pasos perdido that was part fiction, part essay. In 1941, his (The Lost Steps), and El Acoso (Manhunt in magic realist tales El jardı´n de senderos que se Noonday), Carpentier became an established bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths)werepub- and world-renowned author. He continued to lished, and it was followed a few years later by write short stories, novels, essays, and criticism Ficciones, 1935–1944 (Fictions, 1935–1944) and until his death, from cancer, in Paris, France, on El Aleph (The Aleph). For many years, he worked April 24, 1980, where he served as Cuba’s cul- as a municipal librarian in Buenos Aires, as well tural attache´ . as a teacher. In 1955, he was appointed director of the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) where Laura Esquivel (1950–) he served until 1970. By the late 1950s, he was Born in Mexico on September 30, 1950, Laura completely blind but continued to publish in a Esquivel began her writing career as a screen- variety of genres: poetry, essays, and stories. writer. Married to the Mexican director Alfonso Borges died of liver cancer on June 14, 1986, in Arau, Esquivel wrote a screenplay for a 1985 film, Geneva, Switzerland. Chido One, which he directed. They continued to
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collaborate on projects, culminating in Arau’s writing career full-time in the 1960s. In 1967, directing of Esquivel’s first novel, Like Water Garcı´ aMa´ rquez published his most famous for Chocolate. Published in Mexico in 1989 as novel Cien an˜os de soledad (One Hundred Years Como agua para chocolate, the book became a of Solitude), translated in 1970. The publication bestseller and was soon translated into numerous put Latin-American fiction on the world’s liter- languages, including an English translation in ary map, particularly those works related to the 1993. The film’s release in the United States movement known as Magic Realism. Although brought record-breaking attendance to a foreign primarily known as a fiction writer of novels film. Subsequently, Esquivel published The Law such as El oton˜o del patriarca (The Autumn of of Love (1996); Swift as Desire (2001), a book of the Patriarch) and El Amor en el tiempo de colera autobiographical writings; Between the Fires: (Love in the Time of Cholera) and short story Intimate Writings on Life, Love, Food & Flavor collections El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (2000); and a novel, Malinche (2006). As of 2008 (No One Writes to the Colonel), Garcı´ aMa´ rquez she lived in Mexico City. continued to produce reportage for both Span- ish- and English-speaking periodicals. In 1982, Carlos Fuentes (1928–) he won the Nobel Prize for literature. He has Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes was born in Pan- also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for ama City, Panama, on November 11, 1928. The fiction in 1988 for Love in the Time of Cholera. son of a Mexican diplomat, Fuentes was from One of his later novels is Memories of My Mel- an early age exposed to a number of South- ancholy Whores, published in English in 2005. As American literary giants, such as the Brazilian of 2008, Garcı´ aMa´ rquez lived in Mexico City. poet Alfonso Reyes and the Chilean novelist Jose Donoso. He attended Henry D. Cooke, a public school in Washington, D.C., where he learned to speak English. He later went on to REPRESENTATIVE WORKS study in Geneva, Switzerland, and followed up by receiving a law degree from the National Aura University of Mexico. Fuentes has written a Aura, a novella by Fuentes, was published in its number of influential and deeply provocative original Spanish in 1962 and translated into novels that interrogate the notion of Mexican English in 1965. Narrated by a young scholar identity. In 1958, he published his first novel, La who has been hired by an elderly woman to write regio´nma´s transparente (Where the Air Is Clear), the memoirs of her husband, a deceased general, translated in 1964 to international acclaim. With the novella reveals how the past and present are the publication of La muerte de Artemio Cruz often interlocked and how time is fluid, rather (The Death of Artemio Cruz), translated in 1964; than progressive, all through the figure of Aura, Aura,translatedin1968;Terra Nostra, translated who is a projected ghostlike image of the gener- in 1976; and Gringo Viejo (The Old Gringo), al’s widow at her most beautiful. In this novella, translated in 1985. Fuentes is seen as Mexico’s Fuentes’s use of the second person ‘‘you’’ is premier author, winning a host of literary prizes meant to pull the reader into the web-like reality in Spanish-speaking countries such as Venezuela, in which the scholar is enmeshed. He cannot Mexico, Nicaragua, and Chile, as well as making escape the past or extricate himself from others the New York Times best-seller list for The Old as his identity slowly transforms into that of the Gringo. As of 2008, he lived in London, England. dead general. Because of its accessibility and brevity, Aura has been anthologized widely as a Gabriel Garcı´aMa´rquez (1928–) classic example of Magic Realism’s ability to Born in Aracataca, Colombia, on March 6, transform what people think of as reality into 1928, Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez is South Ameri- something mysterious and grounded in the ca’s most renowned author. Many of Garcı´ a supernatural. Ma´ rquez’s novels are set in a mythical town based on the town of Aracataca where he was Fictions raised by his maternal grandparents. For many Originally published in Spanish in 1944 as Fic- years, Garcı´ aMa´ rquez worked as a journalist, ciones, Borges’s collection of short stories could first in Colombia, then later in Paris, London, more aptly be described as essays and parables and Caracas, Venezuela, until pursuing his rather than fiction. Embroidered with images of
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MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
On its release by Miramax in 1993, the Spanish- Realism, and a history of Colombia. Inter- language film Like Water for Chocolate,based views with him, his friends, and critics are an on the novel by Laura Esquivel, was an instant integral part of the presentation. international success. Revised as a screenplay The Modern Word, an Internet resource for for film by Esquivel and directed by her hus- contemporary authors, has an informative band, Mexican director Alfonso Arau, the film Web site on Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez at effectively translates the fantastical qualities of http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/index. Magic Realism to cinema. html with many links to other related sites and A series of cassettes produced by National sources. Public Radio in 1984, Faces, Mirrors, Masks provides a good introduction to twentieth- Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’s novella Love in the Time century Latin-American fiction writers. of Cholera was made into a major motion Authors represented include Gabriel Garcı´ a picture in 2007. Directed by Mike Newell, it Ma´ rquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel A´ ngel stars Benjamin Bratt, Gina Bernard Forbes, Asturias, and Alejo Carpentier. Each tape and Giovanna Mezzogiorno and was nomi- provides an in-depth discussion of an indi- nated for a 2008 Golden Globe Award for vidual author that includes interviews, Best Original Song. As of 2008, it was avail- music, and excerpts from stories and novels. able on DVD from New Line Home Video. Gabriel Garcı´aMa´rquez: Magic and Reality Allende’s debut novel The House of the Spi- is an hour-long biopic on the life and times of rits was made into a film of the same name in the Colombian author and Nobel Prize win- 1993. It was directed by Bille August and has ner. The film (written, produced, and directed an all-star cast that includes Meryl Streep, by Ana Christina Navarro) was distributed by Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas, Jeremy Films for the Humanities and Sciences in Irons, Vanessa Redgrave, and Winona 1995. It covers Ma´ rquez’s life, the sources Ryder. It won many international awards of his books, his development of Magical and is available on DVD from Artisan.
mirrors, circular towers, mazes, gardens, art, and above all the limitless power of magic to swords, and ruins, these concise, broadly imagi- envision a better world. Fictions offers readers a native sketches are meant to be viewed as alle- series of inventive worlds that are intellectually gories of different states of consciousness. challenging but are not situated in current Latin- Rather than creating fully developed characters American politics and history. Both in its maze- and traditional narratives, Borges creates char- like narratives that often pose questions that are acters who appear to have no relation to con- never answered and in its excessive use of details, temporary reality but who are, for different Fictions presents reality as a linguistic puzzle reasons, on a quest for some kind of knowledge. that needs to be obsessively figured out. Unlike Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, who views the specific historical and political reality of South America The House of the Spirits as having certain magical or ‘‘unreal’’ aspects to Allende’s 1982 novel, La casa de los espı´ritus, it, Borges uses different settings, historical char- published in English in 1985, immediately acters, and fantastical plots as a way of exploring became an international bestseller among the ideas about politics, philosophy, world events, literary crowd who had followed the older
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and later translated into English in 1957. This seminal work, set in both Cuba and Haiti, fol- lows the story of Ti Noe¨ l, a slave who recounts the numerous insurrections by slaves who were aided by magic and the natural world against their oppressors from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. Its emphasis on Afro- Caribbean life, with its roots in African spiritu- alism, music, magical and healing practices, reveals the vitality of a culture that refused to be completely assimilated into Western cultural practices. Critics claim that this novel paved the way for a new generation of Spanish American writers who used the novel as a form of social protest that related particularly to the political, social, and physical conditions found in Latin America. The novel can be seen as a fictive extension of Carpentier’s essay ‘‘The Marvelous Real,’’ which argues that the rich cross-fertilizing of different cultures in South America engen- dered the literature that has come to be called Magic Realism. Alejo Carpentier (Ó Jerry Bauer. Reproduced by permission) Love in the Time of Cholera Originally published in 1985 as El amor en los tiempos del co´lera, this novel is another lavishly ‘‘Boom’’ writers such as Marquez, Fuentes, and drawn epic written by Garcı´ aMa´ rquez. How- Borges. The narrative follows four generations ever, unlike many of his previous novels and of an upper-class family in Chile, revealing the short stories that focus on the political and social political and social upheaval of that country as upheavals in Latin America, Love in the Time of witnessed by various members of the family. The Cholera (translated into English in 1988) relates novel is a reconstruction of history that has been the intricacies of Florentino Ariza’s love for undertaken by Alba, who is a recent descendent Fermina Daza, a love that is requited after of the family and its current social commentator. nearly sixty years. The novel is a tribute to the Its fierce political critique of the Pinochet dicta- long-lasting abilities of love to succeed in a cor- torship as well as its use of fantastical description rupt and unpredictably violent world. The and supernatural acts places it well within the bizarre and unlikely political and social events parameters of magic realist fiction. As many that become commonplace in One Hundred critics have noted, in tone and content this Years of Solitude are secondary in this novel to novel is similar to Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’s One Hun- a lyrical and deeply affecting portrait of the dred Years of Solitude, yet its focus on women as everyday lives of a group of people who are agitators and writers of history demands that it intimately connected to each other. Because be viewed as a work that is not completely deriv- this novel lacks some of the political intensity ative of Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’s. Feminist critics have and narrative improbability that much of his applauded the novel’s ability to portray women previous work had, it has not received as much not as passive victims of political and social critical attention, yet for many Love in the Time injustice but as active resisters to political and of Cholera reveals the same intelligent and force- sexual oppression through their desire to write ful wit at work that emphasizes the magic inher- about these experiences. ent in the everyday.
The Kingdom of this World The Master and Margarita The Cuban writer Carpentier, one of the earliest The Master and Margarita is a satirical, fantas- writers of Magic Realism, is best known for his tical novel by Russian novelist and playwright novel, El reino de este mundo, published in 1949, Mikhail Bulgakov. It is his most famous work;
442 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism however, during his life he was best known for over thirty languages. Through his penetrating his plays. Bulgakov was frequently censored by analysis of Colonel Aureliano Buendia and his his government so The Master and Margarita subsequent descendents, Garcı´aMa´ rquez pro- was only published in censored form in 1966, vides the reader with a micro-history of Latin about 26 years after the author’s death. An America that pushes the limits of what readers uncensored edition did not appear until 1973. think of as reality. His ability to mix historical Set in 1930s Moscow, the Master is a frustrated and political events with fantastical and often poet; Margarita is his mistress. Satan—known outlandish events in the village of Macondo on as Woland in the book—and assorted other dev- the Colombian coast has earned this book the ils are visiting Moscow. Woland seduces Mar- label of masterpiece. Although the novel explores garita into his power, making her a witch with serious questions about the nature of reality and supernatural powers. At the end of the novel, she the effects of colonialism, progress, and imperial- asks Woland to save her Master from poverty, ism on so-called Third World countries, it is also and he whisks them away from Moscow while comical and ironic in tone. the city burns as Easter Sunday dawns. The novel, widely considered a classic of Russian literature, is a thinly veiled criticism of the cor- rupt and paranoid Soviet government. Bulga- kov’s use of Christian mythology is particularly THEMES poignant given the official position of the Soviet Exploration of Latin-American Identity government regarding religion and the suppres- A theme that runs through nearly every magic sion of religious expression. realist text is the urge to redefine Latin-American identity by forging a point of view specific to Men of Maize the events, history, and culture of that region. In 1949, Asturias published his novel Hombres Therefore, its history of colonization, the de Maize, which was later translated into English importation of slaves and influx of immigrants, as Men of Maize. Although the book may be the political tumult after independence, and viewed as too early to be part of the Magic economic dependency on imperial powers Realism movement, the novel’s focus on politics, such as the United States and England that the effects of colonialism, and the fantastical positioned Latin America as inferior and back- qualities of reality certainly shares characteris- wards become subjects of investigation that are tics with many later novels. Influenced by both rewritten and retold from an alternative point European Surrealism and the indigenous myths of view. For example, Carpentier’s The King- of pre-Columbian Latin America, Asturias’s dom of this World is told by a slave who is novel reveals the plight of indigenous Guatema- witness to numerous catastrophic and trau- lans as their world becomes increasingly sub- matic events occurring in Haiti during the jected to exploitation by the encroachment of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Likewise, whites. The novel’s magical qualities invoke in The House of the Spirits, Allende attempts to indigenous myths of the power of transforma- forge a feminine identity within a social and his- tion through humans’ ability to assume animal torical framework that covers nearly a century of shapes. Critics have pointed out that its narra- political conflict. For many writers, magic realist tive nonlinearity, shifting points of view, and techniques were used as an attempt to break with magical aspects were informed by the sacred many of their inherited representations by engag- Mayan book The Popol-Vuh. ing with oral histories of indigenous people, as found in Asturias’s Men of Maize. One Hundred Years of Solitude A book that put the term Magic Realism into Importance of Magic and Myth circulation, Garcı´aMa´ rquez’s Cien an˜os de sole- A defining aspect of magic realist texts is the dad was first published in 1967 and later trans- powerful capabilities of myth and magic to cre- lated into English as One Hundred Years of ate a version of reality that differentiates itself Solitude in 1970. The book, amazing in its ability from what is normally perceived as ‘‘real life.’’ to cover the intricate lives of several generations This approach to narrative relies on legends and of the Buendia family, sold more than thirty mil- myths from oral pre-Columbian cultures, family lion copies worldwide and was translated into histories (both Garcı´ aMa´ rquez and Allende
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America, and the spiritual magic of African slaves to the Caribbean region. Drawing from these various influences, magic realist writers redraw the parameters of what is possible by TOPICS FOR invoking legends and myths that have been FURTHER passed from one generation to the next and that invoke a loss of some kind with the onset STUDY of the modern age. Sometimes it is the loss of Compare Allende’s The House of the Spirits traditional values, as in One Hundred Years of to Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude; other times it is the loss of the intimate Solitude by researching the histories of Chile relationship between humans and animals. and Colombia respectively. How does the These mythical influences form a collective use of Magic Realism evoke the specific voice that often acts as it does in Men of Maize political and social realities of these coun- and The Kingdom of this World, as a resistant tries? What do the histories of these coun- force against oppression and exploitation. tries reveal about the formation of Magic Realism as a literature of protest? A Critique of Rationality and Progress Read Toni Morrison’s Beloved in light of The use of magic and myth in magic realist fic- Carpentier’s notion that magic realist texts tion can be viewed as a critique of rationality and are specifically related to Latin-American progress. Because many South American coun- history and culture and that the term cannot tries were economically exploited by countries in address imaginative works outside this con- text. State whether you agree with his argu- the industrialized West, first through slavery and ment by making a case for or against exploration and then through economic imperi- Beloved as a magic realist text. alism, magic realist writers attempt to subvert the values that dominating cultures privilege in Many magic realist writers incorporate order to justify their exploitation of other cul- indigenous people’s legends, myths, and rit- tures. Thus, logic, progression, and linearity are uals into their fiction as a way to disrupt traditional notions of time and space. Read cast aside for a reliance on emotions, the senses, Asturias’s Men of Maize in light of the Gua- circularity, and ritual. For example, Asturias’s temalan oral text The Popol-Vuh. What Men of Maize consistently thwarts the notions of structural and conceptual elements does he progress and rationality by presenting the per- borrow from this traditional text to enhance spectives of indigenous peoples as being outside the ‘‘ethnographic’’ elements of his novel? of what most consider traditional concepts of time. Rather than present the reader with a lin- The natural world plays a large part in magic realist texts, often providing a richly textured ear narrative, Asturias divides his book into six backdrop to the social and political aspects of chapters, each exploring an aspect of indigenous these works. Research the natural resources of beliefs that counter Western conceptions of time, one or two Latin-American countries. What rationality, and progress. Similarly, One Hun- minerals, plants, cash crops, natural forma- dred Years of Solitude begins with a sentence tions, and ecosystems are most common in that disrupts the sense of time being a logical these countries? How have these natural progression with a distinct past, present, and resources become a source of conflict as well future: ‘‘Many years later, as he faced the firing as of value to the various inhabitants and out- squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendı´ a was to siders of these countries? Use examples from remember that distant afternoon when his father magic realist texts to help formulate your took him to discover ice.’’ The fast-forwarding of argument. time as well as the memory embedded in this future scene reveals time as occurring simulta- neously. The notion of progress and its relation to technology is also critiqued in One Hundred admitted the influence of their respective grand- Years of Solitude, particularly in its relationship mothers’ yarn-spinning on their writing), the to economic imperialism. For example, the rail- narratives of early explorers and clergy to Latin road that is finally established in Macondo is
444 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism viewed as both a sign of Macondo’s assimilation them apart from each other. In magic realist into the modern world and a metaphor for its fiction, genres such as the epic, autobiography, eventual exploitation by the North American historical documents, essay, and oral storytelling Banana Company. are used as a way of blurring the lines between fact and fiction. One of the earliest magic realist Questioning of Reality writers, Borges, is known for his use of the short Many magic realist writers use language in inno- story form that uses elements of the essay and vative ways that raise doubts about the concept autobiography to question the ability of language of reality as well as art’s ability to imitate it. For to represent observed reality. His stories also many writers who work within the magic realist make use of the parable, a genre found most paradigm, reality is much more ambiguous and frequently in the Bible, in which brief narratives complicated than meets the eye. Rather than stress a philosophic statement about existence create a realistic fiction that attempts to mimic through the telling of a story. Other magic real- the events and outward appearance of the exter- ists, such as Asturias, rely on older storytelling nal world, magic realists use a variety of techni- traditions from pre-Columbian times and thus ques that force the reader to question the nature incorporate tall tales, nonlinear narrative sequen- ces, and repetitive phrases that are also onomato- of reality. For writers like Garcı´ aMa´ rquez and poeic, which attempt to imitate sounds they Allende, reality constitutes both real and imag- denote. A genre used by Carpentier in The King- ined acts. Thus, a levitating priest, appearances dom of this World is the travel narrative, specifi- of the dead, and animals that have transcendent cally those written during the centuries of powers all take on matter-of-factness by those exploration in the New World that described in who observe these phenomena. For Borges, real- detail the flora and fauna found in Latin America. ity becomes an exploration of multiple universes and existences that tear away assumptions most people share about observed reality. Reality in Hyperbole Fictions is never taken for granted but in fact is Hyperbole, or overstatement, is a figure of often distorted so that what the reader thinks he speech, or trope, that makes events or situations or she knows is cast into doubt. This approach to highly unlikely or improbable due to its gross understanding the nature of reality assumes that exaggeration. Hyperbole is often used in the folk reality is not external and objective but is created tale to make an event that may be commonplace subjectively in human thought. In this respect, appear larger than life. It is often used for dra- reality and selfhood itself become fragile con- matic affect, such as to invoke comedy or irony, cepts. For many magic realist writers, existence yet it may also have serious meaning. Magic real- is a concept that does not have a one-to-one ist texts tend to use hyperbole for both comic and correspondence with observed reality. By sub- serious effect. In engaging the reader with bizarre verting the assumption of an observed reality and catastrophic historical events that have through innovative forms and devices that occurred in Latin America, magic realist authors address the fantastical, magic realist writers use hyperbole to dramatize the emotional and relay the message that language itself is unable traumatic effects these events had on the people to provide an accurate depiction of reality. affected. At other times, hyperbole may be used to make what is commonplace seem extraordi- nary and magical. This is a technique that Garcı´a Ma´ rquez uses quite effectively to convey the mys- STYLE tery that ordinary objects, such as ice, for exam- ple, can have for those who have never been Genre exposed to them: ‘‘When it was opened by the An innovative technique of magic realist writers giant, the chest gave off a glacial exhalation. is to experiment with incorporating different Inside there was only an enormous, transparent kind of genres into the novel and short story block with infinite internal needles in which the form. Genres are different literary types that light of the sunset was broken up into colored share certain characteristics. Thus, plays, short stars.’’ Thus, hyperbole has the effect of making stories, novels, biographies, and poems can all be the ordinary appear extraordinary through exces- seen as having specific characteristics that set sive and outlandish description.
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Imagery MOVEMENT VARIATIONS Imagery is an essential device used in magic realist works since the attempt to create aspects Given that writers such as Asturias and Garcı´ a of reality that are unfathomable relies on con- Ma´ rquez began using magic realist narratives to vincing images. Thus, the use of concrete lan- critique the role of imperialism (especially U.S. guage in detailing supernatural events and imperialism), it should not be surprising that the conjuring a sensual world that is both mysteri- style became well known and popular in other ous and based in material reality is key. Allende, regions of the world where writers, readers, and Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, and Carpentier use extensive thinkers found themselves in similar political description in their works, detailing the worlds and social predicaments. Thus, Magic Realism they create with sensory images that communi- emerged in fictions in various parts of the post- cate the mysteries of the natural world. In The colonial world such as South Asia, Africa, and Kingdom of this World, a description of the sea is the Middle East while also influencing many like peering into a kaleidoscope: ‘‘It was gar- writers in the United States and England. In landed with what seemed to be clusters of yellow turn, it reemerged in Latin America with a par- grapes drifting eastward, needlefish like green ticular focus on women’s writing. glass, jellyfish that looked like blue bladders.’’ The wonder and amazement at the varied diver- In the years between the end of World War sity of life forms found in the New World is part II and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the political of Carpentier’s construction of ‘‘the marvelous predicament of imperialism and the social cata- real.’’ Images of the natural world also pervade strophes of dictatorship and underdevelopment Men of Maize, in which, as the title indicates, were very common throughout developing maize is an essential life-force for the people who regions such as South Asia, the Middle East, grow it. Thus, as the maize’s sacred powers are and Africa. For example, in Salman Rushdie’s destroyed by outsiders, the traditional ways of second and most celebrated novel, Midnight’s the Indians are eroded. Children, the Indian-born author creates a nar- rator who is born at the very moment that the British leave the subcontinent and when India Point of View and Pakistan are partitioned on midnight, A main feature of magic realist writing is its August 14, 1947. This point of departure allows attempt to incorporate numerous points of view the narrative to relate a series of accounts of the into their narrative, many of which are drawn climactic events in India’s colonial and postco- from popular or folk tales and are thus based lonial history from the perspective of a very more on popular understanding of events rather ordinary Indian family. The resulting effect sug- than originating from a specific character. Point gests that free movement of South Asian history of view traditionally investigates the formal does not obey the narrow empirical rules of dimensions of how a story is told and who is tell- European historiography and that history is ing it. Magic realist texts often subvert these tradi- rewritten from the perspective of one born into tional notions of who is telling a story by the legacy left by the British colonial enterprise. presenting different versions of a particular event In other well-known works such as V. S. Nai- through a collective perspective, thus raising the paul’s The Bend in the River and Ben Okri’s The question of which version is true. For example, in Famished Road, narratives are infused with nar- One Hundred Years of Solitude, the disappearance rative surprises and events that jar the reader’s of Remedios the Beauty is described as having two sense of reality. Translator Tara Chace intro- versions. The more descriptive one that is pro- duced the English-speaking world to the Magic moted by Remedios’s family is that she ascended Realism and Postmodernism of Amorfiaana by into heaven, holding her bed sheets tightly in her Finnish novelist Marianna Ja¨ ntti. Ja¨ ntti’s novel hand, whereas the more mundane story has is about a collapsing apartment building in Remedios running off with a suitor. However, which she explores boundaries, physical bodies, because the village people of Macondo believe and textual forms using Magic Realism. the family’s story, it is that version that becomes privileged despite its improbability. Thus, point of Meanwhile, in Latin America female novel- view in this context suggests that reality is ascribed ists revised the traditional genre with a feminist not by any sense of rationality but by what people slant in Allende’s The House of the Spirits and are willing to believe. Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, two novels
446 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism that focused on the experiences of women and reaction to the narrative Realism that attempted their roles within the family and state. Feminist to mimic reality. At the same time, ‘‘the new Magic Realism was combined with a connection novel’’ arose as a response to the increasing between Third World oppression and oppres- understanding that Latin-American society was sion of African Americans in the works of Toni changing, particularly as it became increasingly Morrison and Ntozake Shange and also among urban and modernized by new technological Native-American and Latino writers such as innovations. Thus, many writers responded to Sherman Alexie, Leslie Marmon Silko, and these changing conditions by experimenting Rudolfo Anaya. In her book Show and Tell: with new forms and genres that presented reality Identity as Performance in U.S. Latina/o Fiction, as ambiguous, complex, and disorganized rather literary critic Karen Christian notes that magic than orderly and meaningful. This style of writ- realist approaches to Latino fiction are found in ing reached its height in the Boom period of the 1971 novel Bless Me, Ultima by Anaya: Latin-American literature, a period from the ‘‘Anaya’s novelistic portrayal of rural Chicana/o early 1960s to the mid-1970s, in which a number life and folklore, set in northern New Mexico, of extremely important works, most notably offered readers access to mythical, magical, Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude and and spiritual aspects of Chicana/o culture.’’ How- Cortazar’s Hopscotch, became internationally ever, Christian is quick to note that although recognized. influences of Magic Realism are found in con- temporary U.S. Latino fiction, it does not neces- As one literary development among many sarily mean that there is a Latino ‘‘mystical occurring at the time, Magic Realism focused on essence’’ that derives from Latinos connection the fantastical elements of everyday life as found in imagined communities situated primarily in to their ethnic roots. Instead, she claims that Latin America. Its specific influences are found these magic realist tendencies are used to perform in the surrealist movement in Europe during the a certain kind of Latino identity that in fact may 1920s and 1930s of which Asturias, Borges, and parody magic realist techniques rather than imi- Carpentier, three early magic realist writers, tate them. were exposed to while studying in Europe. In In another incarnation, the magic realist fact, the first magic realist movement was cen- movement has begun to influence Western writ- tered in Europe, especially Germany and France ers in what is seen as an ironic circling back to where the major exponents of Surrealism were Surrealism in the work of Czech writer Milan Franz Roh and Andre Breton, respectively. Dur- Kundera in such works as The Joke and the ing the 1920s, these critics and their cohorts Italian writer Italo Calvino in a Borges-like blur- declared the ‘‘marvelous’’ not only an aesthetic ring of genres book called Cosmicomics. category but a whole way of life. These critics influenced and learned from artists like Max Ernst, whose painting Two Children Are Threat- ened by a Nightingale brings together a random association of images to jar the viewer’s conven- HISTORICAL CONTEXT tional sense of what the contexts for the images should be. Ultimately, the work of Ernst, Joan As a literary movement, Magic Realism was part Miro, Salvador Dali, and others, as well as the of a larger cultural development in the mid- writings of Breton and other surrealist thinkers, twentieth century among a group of Latin- sought to utterly confuse the distinctions American writers in the Caribbean, South Amer- between art, thought, ideas, and matter. ica, and Mexico who contributed to the creation of an innovative approach to writing called ‘‘the This interest in an ultimate union of all new novel.’’ Some generic aspects of the ‘‘new things was not shared by the first major propo- novel,’’ as defined by Philip Swanson in his intro- nents of Magic Realism in Latin America. This duction to the anthology Landmarks in Modern second movement, whose best known figures Latin American Fiction, are interior monologues, were Borges and Carpentier, both of whom multiple viewpoints, fragmented or circular nar- lived as young men in Europe, borrowed from rative structures, and an overall distorted sense the surrealists’ style and shared in their fascina- of reality. Thus, to understand the social, polit- tion with the fact that a banal everyday object ical, and cultural climate that engendered magi- could become magical simply by having extra cal realist fiction, one must first view it as being a attention called to it. But these writers practiced
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COMPARE & CONTRAST
1950s–1960s: Many Latin-American writers 1960s: Very few Spanish-American writers rely on aspects of indigenous cultures, espe- are translated or taught in English classes in cially their customs and beliefs that flour- high schools and college classrooms in Eng- ished before the Conquistadors arrived in lish-speaking countries such as the United America, as material for their writing. States and England. Today: Many indigenous cultures of Latin Today: Teaching literatures from India, America are celebrated all over the southern Nigeria, Latin America, Egypt, and East Asia hemisphere through the reenactment of tradi- has become a staple of the English classroom tional songs, dancing, and music by national as more and more novels by non-Western or and international groups and organizations. non-English speaking writers are translated 1960s: The Magic Realism writers mix ele- and become part of the literary canon. ments of fantasy and fact, history and myth- 1960s: Many Latin-American countries are ology as a way of capturing the social and controlled by military dictatorships that cultural complexity of Latin America and often resort to violence, suppression of rights, exposing social injustices and political and censorship to maintain their power. instability. Today: A new generation of Latin-American Today: Most Latin-American countries have writers such as Elena Poniatowska and Car- moved toward democratic forms of govern- los Montemayor rely on documentary real- ment, although corruption and human rights ism to expose the contradictions and violations continue to exist, especially in corruption that make up the contemporary countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and urban realities found in Latin-American Ecuador where drug trafficking creates countries. regional and national conflicts.
their versions of Magic Realism almost exclu- in his own terminology). Specifically for Car- sively in narrative fiction rather than visual pentier, this magical element comes from the arts, and each had his philosophical difference rich religious mixture, heavily invested in with the European movement. Borges, a staunch magic, which manifests in Afro-Caribbean cul- philosophical idealist, rejected the attempt to ture. This essay by Carpentier is considered a unify all categories. Instead, he wrote stories landmark because it is the first attempt to and essays that consistently embraced the notion describe Magical Realism as uniquely Latin of an orderly universal realm of thought that was American. Thus, whereas Surrealism focused confused by a flawed (and utterly separate) on dreams and the unconscious in creating new world of matter. Carpentier also rejected the kinds of images and experimental writing styles surrealists’ attempt to impose the magical on through the juxtaposition of unrelated objects, everything. But in his rejection of surrealist both Asturias and Carpentier returned to their unity, he went in the opposite direction from homelands in Latin America and infused their Borges. In his 1949 essay, On the Marvelous writing with mythic, historical, and geographical Real in America, which was a prologue to his elements found in their local environments. novel The Kingdom of this World, Carpentier The historical and political currents that are argues that the very material history of the often an indelible aspect of magic realist writing Americas is essentially magical (or ‘‘marvelous,’’ reflected a variety of social and political ills that
448 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism individual countries were undergoing or had undergone at some prior time. More specifically, Latin America’s history of conquest, slavery, imperial domination, and subsequent attempts to self-govern become the backdrop as well as the primary ‘‘raw’’ materials for many magic realist writers. For example, Carpentier in The Kingdom of This World focuses on the slave uprisings in Haiti, which occurred in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. Other writers, like Fuentes in Where the Air Is Clear, probe the issue of national identity in contemporary urban societies such as Mexico City or Havana. In Allende’s and Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’s work, historical events of the recent past tend to appear as piv- otal scenes. For example, American multina- tional companies’ entrance into Latin America economies in the late nineteenth century resulted in exploitation, alienation, and sometimes death of workers. The consequences of U.S. economic imperialism is referred to in the massacre scene at the banana plantation in One Hundred Years of Solitude in which hundreds of demonstrating workers are killed and thrown into the sea. This ´ scene is based on the 1928 banana strike by Miguel Angel Asturias (AFP / Getty Images) United Fruit Company workers in Colombia, many of whom were gunned down by the army. Similarly, both The House of the Spirits and One Hundred Years of Solitude reveal the rise of mili- tary dictatorships that created an endless succes- mapinthe1960s,particularlyintheUnitedStates. sion of civil wars and political coups in countries As Jean-Pierre Durix points out in his book Mim- like Colombia and Chile. esis, Genres, and Post-Colonial Discourse,theterm Magic Realism ‘‘came into common usage in the By contrast, a much-lauded event in Latin- American countries, where divisions between the late 1960s, a time when intellectuals and literary rich and the poor were and still are extreme, was critics were often involved in Third-Worldism, the socialist revolution in Cuba in 1960. The over- civil rights, and anti-imperialism.’’ Propitiously, throw of a long-standing despot ushered in an these same issues are often the underlying themes optimistic era among socially minded Latin- of many magical realist novels, and thus they were American artists and intellectuals who were widely read and discussed as significant testimo- fueled by the socialists’ hopes for an egalitarian, nies that ‘‘evoke the process of liberation of classless, and safe society. Thus, despite the many oppressed communities.’’ However, it was not atrocities that many magic realist works depict, just these novelists’ politics and commitment to the movement’s adherents have often been seen as socialjusticethatmadetheirworkssowell delivering a hopeful message, revealing at its received. In their article, Doris Sommer and roots a joyful engagement with life that is bound George Yu´ dice claim that Magic Realism’s popu- together with the utopian vision that destruction larity could not be summed up as response to one and violence will be overcome. particular aspect of the works but instead to an array of characteristics:
Latin Americans dazzled the reader with crys- talline lucidities (Borges), moving renderings of CRITICAL OVERVIEW madness (Sa´ bato, Corta´ zar), and violence (Vargas Llosa), larger than life portrayals of As a literary movement whose most well-known power and corruption (Fuentes, Garcı´ aMa´ r- writers are from Latin America, Magic Realism quez), ebullient baroque recreations of tropical played an important role in placing Latin- culture (Carpentier, Souza, Amado, Cabrera American fiction on the international literary Infante, Sarduy).
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However, for Latin-American critics, the Zamora and Faris’s book is the liberty it takes in concept of Magic Realism had been debated for presenting Magic Realism as a device utilized by quite some time. In his famous 1949 essay, ‘‘On writers worldwide yet at the same time publishing the Marvelous Real in America,’’ Carpentier dis- key articles such as Carpentier’s and Leal’s that cusses the importance of ‘‘lo real marvilloso’’ (the argue against this global approach. marvelous real) as an artistic movement that had Other critical approaches to Magic Realism sprung from the soil of Latin-American history, that fall within the two poles mentioned can be myth, and geography. The richness one finds in seen as unorthodox. For example, the most rad- Latin America due to its unique history and ical view is taken by Gonza´ lez Echevarrı´a, who fecund landscape acts as a catalyst for the imag- represents the skepticism that is part of post- ination in Latin-American writers. However, structuralism. He states, ‘‘The relationship other critics such as Angel Flores disagree. In between the three moments when magical realism his 1955 essay, Magical Realism in Spanish Amer- appears is not continuous enough for it to be ican Fiction, Flores argues that (Latin) American considered a literary or even a critical concept Magical Realism is distinguished by a transfor- with historical validity.’’ Others such as Jose´ mation of ‘‘the common and everyday into the David Saldı´var in The Dialectics of Our America: awesome and the unreal.’’ Flores locates magic Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary His- realist’s roots in the aesthetics of European art, tory attempts to forge a pan-American approach particularly Surrealism. Interestingly enough, to Magic Realism that includes the diaspora of Flores does not even mention Carpentier’s earlier slaves and Mexican immigrants in North Amer- essay on marvelous Realism, which later became ica as being part of the collective voice that sit- influential. However, much later in 1967, Luis uates specific histories in a magic realist moment. Leal put forward a thesis in his essay ‘‘Magical Lastly, Durix’s book Mimesis, Genres and Post- Realism in Spanish American Fiction’’ that res- Colonial Discourse probes Magic Realism as a onated with Carpentier’s. His claim that Magic specific genre that developed within a sociohistor- Realism is not ‘‘the creation of imaginary beings ical postcolonial moment in which writers and or worlds but the discovery of the mysterious intellectuals in former colonized countries began relationship between man and his circumstances’’ to question the representations and realities coincides with Carpentier’s material definition of handed to them by the colonizers. Thus, Durix Magic Realism as being a confrontation with a is attempting to broaden the concept of Magic specific sociohistorical reality rather than an Realism by viewing it as an artistic manifestation escape. Thus, a large part of the critical reception of the psychological and ontological conditions of magic realist fiction has been defining what posed by the European colonial era. exactly it is in terms of origins and philosophy. For the most part, critics tend to divide into two camps: those who view Magic Realism as specifically tied to the formation of a Latin- CRITICISM American literature and others who view Magic Realism as less about geography, history, and Doreen Piano culture and more about rendering a specific ver- Piano is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Bowling sion of reality that can be adapted across cultures. Green University in Ohio. In this essay, Piano For example, whereas Chilean literary critic Fer- analyzes the literature of the Magic Realism nando Alegrı´a, in ‘‘Latin America: Fantasy and movement as a new form of social protest to Reality,’’ reads magic realist works as a political oppressive governments and imperial powers critique in which ‘‘we come to realize [that their through the use of history and myth, supernatural realism] is a truthful image of economic injustice events, and folkloric tropes as an antidote to nar- and social mockery which passes off as author- ratives of progress and rationality. itarian democracy in Latin America,’’ for other In the mid-twentieth century, a literary critics, such as Zamora and Faris, authors of movement developed in Latin America that Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, expressed a new form of writing that was deeply Magic Realism ‘‘is a mode suited to exploring— embedded in the cultural, physical, and political and transgressing—boundaries, whether the landscape of Latin America. This movement boundaries are ontological, political, geographi- known as Magic Realism has been interpreted cal, or generic.’’ What is most impressive about as both a literary device in terms of infusing
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WHAT DO I STUDY NEXT?
The History of Surrealism, written by Maur- a range of essays that focus on the previous ice Nadeau and published in 1944 in French, century’s visual trends found in different parts is a classic text on this avant-garde move- of Latin America. Particularly relevant may ment. It provides an overall account of the be the essays that focus on Surrealism and its movement and its evolution as well as inter- connection to artistic movements in Latin nal debates about the meaning of artistic America. production. Leading surrealist proponents Twenty five years ago, Paraguayan writer like Breton, Tzara, and Aragon are quoted Eduardo Galeano wrote a highly engaging extensively. social and political analysis of Latin-Amer- Published in 1967, Luis Harss and Barbara ican history entitled Open Veins of Latin Dohmann’s book Into the Mainstream: America that is still a definitive poetic and Conversations with Latin American Writers historical work on the area’s colonial and is one of the first books to present interviews postcolonial past, particularly as it relates with the leading writers of the Spanish- to United States foreign policy. American Boom period. Interviews with A 1999 article by Jon Anderson in the New Asturias, Borges, Cortazar, Fuentes, Garcı´ a Yorker Magazine titled ‘‘The Power of Ma´ rquez and Vargas Llosa are included. Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’’ provides a cur- Landmarks in Modern Latin American Fic- rent profile of this prolific author within tion, edited by Philip Swanson, provides the current political and social context of a variety of essays on notable twentieth- his homeland, Colombia. century es as well as on avant-garde writers Naomi Lindstrom’s book of literary criticism, like Cortazar and Rulfo. This collection Twentieth-Century Spanish American Fiction reveals a range of Latin-American literary (1994), covers each period of Latin-American styles and traditions that Latin American literature extensively from the beginning to writers were working in during the Boom the end of the century. She reveals important period. works in their historical context while provid- Based on an exhibition of Latin-American art ing in-depth discussions of adherents to spe- at the Museum of Modern Art in 1993, the cific movements such as Realism, Modernism, book Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Magical Realism, Avant-Gardism, Boom and Century, edited by Waldo Rasmussen, reveals Post-Boom literature.
realistic narrative with fantastical qualities and literature at the same time that it addresses social hyperbolic descriptions such as those found in and political issues. the works of Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, Allende, and Car- One of the most daring innovators of magic pentier as well as an attitude that, as critic John realist fiction is Borges, author of The Garden of Brushwood notes, is the reaffirmation of the Forking Paths and Fictions, who not only ques- novelist’s right to invent reality, to make up his tions the limits of what is known as reality but story rather than copy what he has observed. who questions the possibility of language to Thus, Magic Realism can be viewed as both a depict it accurately. His wide-ranging experimen- political and aesthetic movement in its attempt tal forms of writing explore chance, coincidence, to forge new formalistic developments in and fate as essential elements of a reality that
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The history of the Caribbean is full of magic—a magic brought by black slaves from Africa but also by Swedish, Dutch and English pirates who thought nothing of setting up an Opera EMPHASIZING THE FANTASTICAL QUALITIES House in New Orleans or filling women’s teeth OF REALITY ALLOWS FOR A BLURRING OF FACT AND with diamonds.
FICTION WHERE THE QUEST FOR TRUTH IS DISCERNED His comment intimates how the particular ambience of Latin America engendered acts of AS BEING BEYOND THE MERE SURFACE OF THINGS.’’ radical imagination that were not confined to the literary. That Latin-American culture is a product of numerous cultural influences and powerful needs to be figured out. Thus, his preoccupation forces is revealed most powerfully in Garcı´ a with images such as labyrinths and mazes attest to Ma´ rquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude,a his construction of a puzzling universe that has an work that probes the very question of what is order to it, but one that must be figured out. His real and what is not. His use of traditional story- numerous short fictions, however, are less con- telling techniques and reliance on historical cerned with the physical geographies and political events points to an implicit conclusion that it is landscape of Latin America than other magic more a matter of point of view than the existence realists’ works are. In fact, although he is viewed of facts that constitutes reality. For example, as part of the magic realist movement, he is more although the massacre of thousands of banana concerned with different kinds of settings as a strikers in Macondo that takes place in the way to probe metaphysical questions about the novel, based on a historic confrontation between nature of reality. Thus, although he shared many the American multinational company United of the aesthetic aspects of Magic Realism such as Fruit Company and the local workers, is wit- innovative structure and uses of time, fragmented nessed by the sole survivor Jose Arcadio Segundo, his story is discredited, the event narratives, and shifting points of view, it is the erased from history because of the power of the later writers such as Asturias, Carpentier, military to determine which version of history Fuentes, and Garcı´aMa´ rquez who were more should be written. involved in invoking fantastical elements within a realist depiction of Latin America. That power has been dictated from the top down in Latin-American history, first through Therefore, although the fantastical elements the conquistadors, then the colonizers, and more of Magic Realism are its most notable feature, recently through the rise of military dictator- the importance of setting, particularly the social ships, has inspired writers such as Carpentier, and political climate of Latin America, is not to Asturias, Allende, and Garcı´ aMa´ rquez to use be dismissed. In his introduction to Landmarks literature as a method of telling a different ver- in Modern Latin American Fiction, editor Philip sion of history, one that critiques progress and Swanson argues that ‘‘Magical realism is based rationality and that protests social injustices, around the idea that Latin American reality is especially as it is directed toward those most somehow unusual, fantastic, or marvelous vulnerable—the working poor, peasants, indig- because of its bizarre history and because of its enous peoples, and slaves. David Danow’s varied ethnological make-up.’’ The observation observation that Magical Realism manages to that Magic Realism was a literature that present a view of life that exudes a sense of stemmed specifically from Latin America was energy and vitality in a world that promises not first delineated in Carpentier’s ground-breaking only joy but a fair share of misery as well reveals essay ‘‘The Marvelous Real in America,’’ which the importance of understanding Magic Realism ends on this note: ‘‘After all, what is the entire not as simply a way to make stories appear fan- history of America if not a chronicle of the mar- tastical like traditional ghost stories emerged as velous real?’’ Thus, the fantastical elements these a radical artistic response to the complex history writers use are intimately situated in the physical that envelopes Latin America. In fact, another and historical realities in which their works take form of novelistic genre that magic realist writers place. Garcı´ aMa´ rquez makes this clear in The engage in is called ‘‘the dictator novel,’’ which Fragrance of Guava when he states: may or may not invoke magical elements. Garcı´ a
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Ma´ rquez’s The Autumn of the Dictator, Astur- ias’s Mr. President, and Carpentier’s Reasons of State are all examples of another form of ‘‘pro- test’’ novel that has emerged in Latin-American literature. Magic realist writers incorporate innovative narrative techniques to convey an alternative view of history by borrowing aspects of tradi- tional storytelling devices as well as avant-garde experimental writing. James Higgins, in his essay ‘‘Gabriel Garcia Marquez,’’ poses the theory that magic realists’ use of hyperbole and/or lin- guistic exaggeration is linked to traditional forms of storytelling such as the ‘‘folk tale’’ and preliterate forms like the epic. Using the ‘‘tall tale’’ provides an alternative perspective of his- torical events from the point of view of ‘‘the people.’’ In other words, ‘‘it permits a rural soci- ety to give expression to itself in terms of its own cultural experience.’’ Creating a ‘‘people’s his- tory’’ has the effect of raising doubts about his- torical accounts that appear rational and sequentially ordered by providing a point of view that may disrupt the appearance of an orderly universe.
Although the narrative’s point of view may Murals in a Mayan Temple, Bonampak, shift from one character to another through omniscience, by focusing on local settings or Lacandon jungle in Chiapas (Ó Danita Delimont / Alamy) specific histories, these writers project a version of history that is polyphonic, using a number of points of view to create multiple and sometimes conflicting histories. In Asturias’s Men of Maize, convey logical reasoning about certain events. the narrative structure of the novel is divided Thus, extraordinary events in One Hundred into six parts and an epilogue that creates a Years of Solitude such as the levitation of Father shifting point of view. The disruptive breaks in Nicanor Reyna, the ascension of Remedios the point of view prohibit traditional notions of Beauty into heaven, and the birth of a child with cause and effect and reveal a concept of time a pig’s tail are as common as ice that is discov- that is recursive, revealing that the injustices ered and delighted over in Macondo. As Zamora occurring to indigenous peoples continue despite and Faris note: occasional moments of resistance. Thus, the his- Texts labeled magical realist draw upon cul- tory of conquest and colonization is one that tural systems that are no less than those upon continues to be present in the lives of indigenous which traditional literary realism draws—often people who are supposedly ‘‘free’’ of this history. non-Western cultural systems that privilege mystery over empiricism, empathy over tech- This presentation of time as nonlinear raises nology, tradition over innovation. questions about the art of storytelling, particu- larly as it relates to the construction of a collec- Emphasizing the fantastical qualities of real- tive, and not individual, voice. Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, ity allows for a blurring of fact and fiction where Allende, and Asturias tend to view the stories the quest for truth is discerned as being beyond told by families and communities as true rather the mere surface of things. than to weigh their truth-value against objective What becomes most clear in reading the notions of reality. In many magic realist works, works of magic realists is that a reconfiguration truth lies in a community’s agreement of what of the relationship between artists and society constitutes reality rather than its ability to has occurred. A more recent fictional work by
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Allende, The House of the Spirits, illustrates this point succinctly by having one of the narrators of the novel, Alba, chronicle not just her family’s history over four centuries, but the history of a JA¨NTTI’S REFLECTIONS ARE VERSIONS OF nation that has not yet been told. In her book SUBJECTS’ SELVES THAT HAVE SPLIT OFF, SEPARATED Twentieth-Century Spanish American Fiction, Naomi Lindstrom claims that ‘‘[t]he long-standing FROM THE ORIGINAL SELF, AND HAVE THE POWER TO association between social criticism in litera- RETURN THE GAZE.’’ ture and realistic representation began to be questioned by writers who found stylized, mythical, and magical modes the best vehicle for their artistic statements about society.’’ Thus, although magic realist writers were, like their watch as a miscellaneous conglomeration of narrative realism predecessors, social critics par- events including legal proceedings, seedy sexual ticularly concerning freedom from oppression, encounters, illness, decay, meals, domestic squab- their approach incorporated elements of tradi- bles, and housework unfolds in the building. tional forms of storytelling as well as new techni- Ja¨ ntti taunts readers with sketchy details about cal innovations that engaged in questioning the the fatal tricycle accident that frames the rest of assumptions of an observed reality and that the book’s events forcing readers to strain in an embarked on a new form of social criticism. attempt to see what really happens. Ja¨ ntti draws Source: Doreen Piano, Critical Essay on Magic Realism, readers in with hints of unspecified secrets, possi- in Literary Movements for Students, The Gale Group, ble incest, abortion, or child abuse but never 2003. resolves whether they are true or false or partially true. Her readers are left in a state of confusion Tara Chace wondering how the characters are related, who is In this essay, Chace offers an analysis of Finnish telling the story, and what is actually happening. author Mariaana Ja¨ntti’s novel Amorfiaana To date, Ja¨ ntti’s answer to the nouveau roman focusing on magical realism and postmodern has inspired two full-length articles, which focus techniques. largely on the text’s relationship to theory, partic- Why am I telling you this story? [‘‘Miksi ularly Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Cixons. Kris- kerron ta¨ma¨n tarinan sinulle.’’] Thus begins tina Malmio interprets the novel’s characters as Mariaana Ja¨ ntti’s 1986 novel, Amorfiaana,in representations of body parts, bodily functions, which she uses magical realism and narrative and psychological circumstances and the tricycle techniques to probe the ontologies of textual accident as a metaphor for female authorship. and physical bodies. Since the novel’s publica- Anna Makkonen, on the other hand, devotes tion, Ja¨ ntti has been compared to Franz Kafka, more attention to the novel’s form by classifying James Joyce, Lewis Carroll, Walter Kilpi, Vir- it as poststructuralist, a cross between an artist’s ginia Woolf, and He´ lene` Cixous. As the list dem- self-portrait and a female Bildungsroman.Mak- onstrates, Ja¨ ntti’s style impresses readers but konen also analyzes recurrent themes including proves hard to place. Philip Landon describes the Daedalus myth, gender rolls, and numerical Amorfiaana as the most radically experimental and maternal images. In common with Malmio work in the Finnish language (34). I will show and Makkonen, my analysis of the text looks at how Ja¨ ntti’s narrative transcends reality’s boun- its stylistic devices and treatment of physical daries with magical realism and the borders of bodies but takes a somewhat different turn. I consciousness with its amorphous array of nar- focus on Amorfiaana’s narrative mode, particu- rative styles in order to explore the constantly larly the incorporation of magical realism and changing ontologies of subject formation. postmodern techniques and its exploration of Amorfiaana’s characters are united by their the nature of the posthuman body. Publicly, presence in one building and by the fact that the Ja¨ ntti has said little about the text insisting that narrative rarely leaves the building. Ja¨ ntti organ- it should speak for itself. She enjoys confused izes the text into chapters designated with locative boundaries, permanently partial identities, and headers like ‘‘cellar,’’ ‘‘kitchen, hallway, and contradictory standpoints (Landon 36–7). Com- room,’’ and ‘‘room.’’ Readers voyeuristically fortable with the idea of miscegenation—well
454 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism aware of the Jewish, Spanish, Swedish, German, Sen nyytit voi ottaa ka¨ siinsa¨ .Niita¨ hellia¨ .Naa- and Finnish blood running through her veins— vaa no¨ yhta¨ illa¨ . . . Vena¨ la¨ iset teekupit kiliseva¨ t. Ja¨ ntti requires her readers to embrace it as well pours a cup (of tea) for both of them, warms (Landon 36). She calls Amorfiaana a context by her hand on the side of the cup, then takes hold explaining that being in Amorfiaana means test- of the little gentleman’s plum-like head with ing boundaries (Landon 37). her warm fingers. [It] is a gentleman. When Alfhild asks if [it] has missed her, [it] replies That is precisely the approach I take here: I with a nod . . . You can take its bundles into will demonstrate how Ja¨ ntti tests these various your hands. Fondle them. Ruffle the mossy boundaries in Amorfiaana. She explores the beard . . . The Russian teacups clink. boundaries of reality by using all five of the The Finnish distinguishes between the third primary characteristics Faris suggests for magi- person personal ‘‘ha¨ n’’ used to refer to the Black cal realism (167). Ja¨ ntti tests ontological boun- Man with whom Alfhild is having sex and the daries by foregrounding postmodernist literary third person impersonal ‘‘se’’ referring to the devices. She tests narrative boundaries by creat- gentleman. Richard Impola reflects the Finnish ing a text that amorphously combines numerous tendency to represent personals in the imperso- narrative perspectives and modes of presenting nal form by translating both ‘‘ha¨ n’’ and ‘‘se’’ as figural consciousness with unannounced transi- ‘‘he’’, whereas I have preserved the impersonal in tions from one to another. Finally, in all of these my translation above for clarity. Despite the ways, she tests the boundaries of what it means linguistic distinction, there are multiple scenes to have a human body thereby probing the superimposed on each other here. In a larger boundaries of the posthuman subject. context, Alfhild is losing her virginity with the Black Man on the dirty floor; squeezed between MAGICAL REALISM the radiator and the stove. She is also having tea Wendy Faris spells out five primary charac- with a gentleman. At the same time, the gentle- teristics of magical realism, and Amorfiaana ful- man represents the Black Man’s penis; his bun- fills all of them: an ‘‘irreducible’’ element of dles, his testicles; and the mossy beard, his pubic magic (168), detailed descriptions of a realistic hair. When the gentleman nods, it is both the world, contradictory understandings of events, gentleman tilting his head and his penis moving the near merging of two worlds or realms, and a in Alfhild’s hand. Ja¨ ntti’s magical metaphors are questioning of received ideas of time, space, and so thorough and consistent that they become identity (167–74). Ja¨ ntti uses these magical ele- coexistent, palimpsestic story lines. ments to put forward the unpresentable, not for More in the spirit of Latin American magi- the reader to enjoy or take solace in, but to cal realism, Amorfiaana’s magic is also mythical impart to the reader a stronger sense of the alluding in the following case to the Daedalus unpresentable (Lyotard 81). and Icarus theme:
Irreducible magic runs as a consistent theme Pyo¨ rre levitta¨ a¨ Alfhildin kiharoita. Madamen throughout Amorfiaana. This magic occasion- sa¨ a¨ sta¨ ma¨ t hiustupot nousevat yo¨ po¨ yda¨ lta¨ len- ally involves a playful sense of surrealism: as toon, rva Parkstein ja Ko¨ tt, tottuneet linnustajat, Alfhild becomes aroused, for example, she feels hiustipujen pera¨ ssa¨ ha¨ tista¨ va¨ tniita¨ harittavin her behind being stroked. Ja¨ ntti writes, ‘‘Taka- sormin itsekin na¨ in lentoa oppien. puoli levita¨ a¨ itsea¨ a¨ n, ottaa henkea¨ ’’ [‘‘Her rear A whirlwind spreads Alfhild’s curls. The tufts spreads itself, takes a breath.’’] Magical meta- of hair Madame has saved rise in flight from phors also create parallel scenes where events the night table, Mrs. Parkstein and Fleisch, can be read either literally or metaphorically. experienced fowlers, pursue the hairfalls with spread fingers, thus learning to fly themselves. In these cases, the surrealism derives from the overlay of literal and metaphorical to create a Here Impola chose to translate the name doubly coded scene. As Afhild’s sex scene pro- ‘‘Ko¨ tt’’—the Swedish for ‘‘meat’’—has the Ger- gresses, she man ‘‘Fleisch’’ to preserve the allusion to meat in non-Swedish speaking readers’ minds. The locks kaataa kupillisen molemille, la¨ mmitta¨ a¨ ka¨ tta¨ a¨ n of hair stir realistically in the breeze, but the kupin poskella ja ottaa sitten la¨ mpimin sormin kiinni pikkuherran luumumaisesta pa¨ a¨ sta¨ .Se realism gradually blurs into magic as two of the on gentlemanni. Kun Alfhild kysyy, onko se characters take wing. The motif of flight as well ika¨ vo¨ inyt ha¨ nta¨ ,sevastaanyo¨ kka¨ a¨ ma¨ lla¨ ... as allusions to Daedalus and Icarus recur
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throughout Amorfiaana and are an irreducible Ja¨ ntti exhibits the third characteristic of element of magic. magical realism by presenting a plethora of con- Ja¨ ntti also includes more epistemological tradictory understandings of events. Multiple examples of magic, moments that can almost readings of Alfhild populate the text. On the be ascribed to an individual character’s halluci- one hand, she is inside the apartment building nations (Faris 165). In the following example, when the tricycle accident occurs. On the other instead of looking at her reflection in the mirror, hand, she frequently seems to be the girl with the the three dimensional Alfhild merges with her tricycle. The text refuses to answer the simple mirror image. Gazing into the mirror, question, ‘‘are Alfhild and the tricycle girl one character or two?’’ but hovers instead on the Alfhild hiipii lasiin na¨ hda¨ kseen tarkkaan ja border between the two possibilities. The text kuullakseen tarkkaan.—Itse, siitenkin itse— tytto¨ puhuu peilissa¨ ja—epa¨ ilen onko olemuk- creates mutually exclusive story lines, alternate sia . . . Kerro, onko olemuksia. Onko minulla textual realities, and then allows for their simul- olemus ja mika¨ se on?——Kaukana on kaiken taneous existence. olemus ja syva¨ lla¨ , syva¨ lla¨ ; kuka voi sen lo¨ y- ta¨ a¨ ?—tulee vastaus peilin a¨ a¨ rista¨ , jossa Alfhild The story of the girl’s accident is both a part tarkkasilma¨ havaitsee varatien viime hetkella¨ . of the novel, in that it happens, and not a part of the novel, in that it does not happen. In the quo- (Alfhild slips into the exact seeing and exact hearing glass. ‘‘Oneself, after all oneself,’’ the tation below, the accident seems to have been girl speaks in the mirror and, ‘‘is there a doubt only a performance and the headlights are only in existence . . . Tell, is there. Do I have exis- circus spotlights. Just after the accident, we read, tence and what is it?’’ ‘‘All being is far away ‘‘Tytto¨ niiaa kun kullanva¨ risia¨ kolikoita heiteta¨ a¨ n and deep, deep; who can find it?’’ the answer ha¨ nen jalkoihinsa, niiaa, vilkaisee takanaan sei- comes from the edges of the mirror, in which sovaa rekkaa, jonka sirkuslyhtyjen valokeilassa keen-eyed Alfhild notices the other way out at ha¨ n, ja¨ a¨ prinsessa, esiintyi. Vastaako na¨ ky todelli- the last minute.) suutta?’’ [The girl curtsies when gold coins are Here Alfhild’s physical body merges into her thrown at her feet, curtsies, glances back at the own reflection thus asking what constitutes exis- standing truck, in the beam of light from its circus tence. In the world of the text, Alfhild’s journey spotlights she, the ice princess, was performing. into the mirror is magically real, not the result of Does this correspond to reality?]. The accident a dream or vision. Amorfiaana’s magical ele- becomes absurdly theatrical. The headlights ments consistently emphasize ontological con- become circus spotlights, and the audience throws cerns in the text. coins at the performer’s feet. Ja¨ ntti illustrates the second characteristic of The fact of the girl being hit by the truck magical realism with exhaustive details describing occurs in Amorfiaana as a real event, as a theat- a realistic world. Full of smells, blood, prisoners, rical presentation, as a woodpecker’s cry in the servants, physical punishment, broken glass, woods, does not occur, and may or may not have potatoes, grease, and urine, Amorfiaana’s world occurred. The tricycle story is one example of is not cleaned up for presentation. The reader Amorfiaana’s self-conscious, postmodern exper- desperately searches for a unifying point of view imentation with textual ontology. It is a contin- for the text and seeks identifiable characters and gent event, an exploration of boundaries, and an objects within the rundown landscape of the events sous rature. apartment building and the characters’ lives. Ja¨ ntti’s readers repeatedly pull back in horror Ja¨ ntti exhibits the fourth characteristic of and revulsion realizing that they are voyeuristi- magical realism by creating two realms that cally gazing at general decay, gritty reality, and a nearly merge and yet do not completely. Here traffic accident. The Norwegian author Jan Kjær- characters who are nearly single, unified subjects stad creates a remarkably similar scene in his 1993 split apart into two separate entities that are novel Forføreren, where Jonas’s childhood friend almost entirely separate, but not completely. Nefertiti is killed by a truck while on her bicycle, This division takes place when Alfhild looks at but the similarity is even more pronounced in that herself in the mirror. Ja¨ ntti carries voyeurism to he refers to the accident several times before tell- an extreme by creating dissonance within individ- ing readers what actually happened. In the same ual characters so that they become voyeurs of way, Ja¨ ntti taunts readers with allusions to the their own selves. Characters experience alienation accident but never relieves their fears. from their own thoughts, feelings, bodies, their
456 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism own reflections in the mirror, and their own of distinct eyes, not a unified face. The reflected selves. Normal patterns of reflection and observa- image and the person are not the same; both tion collapse. The whole, unified form of a single have the ability to watch the other. The idea of character breaks apart into multiple reflections. the unified individual is split. As Landon Jan Kjærstad singles this multiplicity out as explains, ‘‘Unlike its distant modernist cousins a distinctly postmodern trait using the prism as a (Woolf, Faulkner), Amorfiaana frustrates any- metaphor for postmodernism’s predilection for one who searches for a solid center within the spreading open and looking at the many facets rampant texture’’ (34). The character looking at of the postmodern individual (Menneskets 268). her reflection is not a solid handrail in the whirl- Not only do Ja¨ ntti’s characters undergo diffrac- pool of this text; there is no single center of tion-like splittings, but they are also conscious of consciousness to focalize all the evidence (see it. As Alfhild looks into the mirror, we read, McHale 9). Samanaikaisuuden ongelma on kahdenlainen: The body of the real person and the reflection jonkin katsominen vaatii erillisyytta¨ siita¨ ,itsen are present, but they are not identical. They are katsominen erillisyytta¨ itsesta¨ ,jakautumista... related to and contingent on each other. Ja¨ ntti En siis katso itsea¨ ni peilista¨ , katson kuvaani uses magical realism to draw attention to the near siita¨ . merging of the two worlds of the original and the (At the same time the problem is two-fold: reflection. Posthuman theorist Katherine Hayles watching something demands separation from describes the implication of reflexivity by saying it, being separated from oneself to see oneself, that ‘‘once the observer is made a part of the division . . . Therefore, I don’t see myself in the picture, cracks in the frame radiate outward mirror, I see my image there.) until the perspectives that controlled context are The act of observation causes the viewing fractured as irretrievably as a safety-glass wind- subject to break apart into component parts, to shield hit by a large rock’’ (70). Ja¨ ntti’s reflections disintegrate. are versions of subjects’ selves that have split off, Ja¨ ntti problematizes the relationship between separated from the original self, and have the ‘‘original’’ and reflection. The boundary between power to return the gaze. the two is not as fixed as would be expected in a Magical realism’s fifth characteristic is ques- realistic world; they can be split apart and sepa- tioning received ideas of time, identity, and rated from each other. As we will see here, they space. Ja¨ ntti unsettles the reader’s sense of dia- are not separate, distinct entities rather there is chronic progression by jumbling the reader’s leakage between the two. Alfhild’s eyes and their sense of time. Alfhild is mother to the little mirrored reflections trigger philosophical mus- ‘‘incest-begotten’’ paperboy, but ‘‘ha¨ n ei ole ings about the borders of her identity: viela¨ pa¨ a¨ sta¨ nyt keta¨ a¨ n miesta¨ kokonaan Mutta nyt peilissa¨ katsovat minun itseni silma¨ t, sisa¨ a¨ nsa¨ ’’ [‘‘she has not yet let any man com- eiva¨ t silma¨ t vastaan silma¨ t vaan yhdet silma¨ t pletely inside her’’]. Similarly, Ja¨ ntti confuses yksissa¨ silmissa¨ , eiva¨ t helman silmissa¨ vaan identities to the extent that even an attentive minun minussa. Yhta¨ aikaispeilaus ruumismie- reader cannot keep straight who is hit by the lesta¨ lasiin ja takaisin vuotaa jatkuvasti. [ . . . ] truck, who is looking out the window, having Jos minulla nyt olisi ta¨ ssa¨ peili, todistaisin, etta¨ sex with the Black Man, or slicing the potato. juuri vuoto kuvan ja alkukuvan va¨ lilla¨ on niita¨ va¨ litta¨ va¨ yhteys. Ja¨ ntti’s magical realist treatment of spaces (But now in the mirror the eyes are watching takes the form of imperceptible walls in the fol- my self, not eyes facing eyes but single eyes lowing selection, facing single eyes, not the border in the eyes Muuri ei ollut ihmisaistein fyysisessa¨ katsan- but mine in me. A simultaneous reflection of nossa havaittavissa, mutta olkaapa hyva¨ tja the body-mind leaks continuously into the kuvitelkaa mielessa¨ nne ela¨ ma¨ a¨ tuollaisten idi- glass and back. [ . . . ] If I had a mirror here oottivarmojen muurien sisa¨ lla¨ . [ . . . ] Yksi pak- now, I would demonstrate, that precisely the otie elektronimuureistakin oli, ei ulos vaan leakage between the picture and the original sisa¨ a¨ n. image is their mediating unity.) (The wall couldn’t be perceived or observed in The mirror is not reflecting merely her sur- a human sense, but please imagine in your face features, but rather, somehow, her inner mind such life inside the dead-certain walls. self. Her reflection comes apart into separate [ . . . ] And there was one escape route from the elements; the reflection of her eyes is a reflection electron wall, not out but in.)
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In the spatial world of Amorfiaana, people tricycle accident would only take an instant, the merge into walls or glass becoming part of an other events within the apartment building amorphous two-dimensional continuum. require some time. This fact creates a split in Glass imagery often emphasizes and demar- which the tricycle accident occupies a chrono- cates characters’ unusual spatial situations in the logical realm different from the metadiegetic text by separating inside from outside. Sometimes events unfolding inside the apartment building. glass holds characters in; the narrator in the frame And yet, they all appear to occur synchronously. story says, ‘‘Voit na¨ hda¨ naamani litistyneena¨ lasia The two narratives are not only not synchron- vasten, katsahdat ylo¨ s, siihen ikkunaan ja luulet- ized but are also largely not related thematically. kin minua vain a¨ killiseksi heijastukseksi ikkunan Genette describes the function of this type meta- pinnassa, valon oveluudeksi’’ [‘‘You can see my diegesis as distractive (61–4). One of the best- face pressed against the glass, you look up at that known examples of a distractive narrative is Sche- window and mistake me for only a sudden reflec- herazade’s in The Thousand and One Nights.The tion in the surface of the glass, a trick of light’’]. At metadiegetic stories she tells do not relate to her other times, characters wish for glass to hold them present (diegetic) situation. Instead, they serve a in. One character asks, ‘‘Uskotteko etta¨ lasimes- purpose: she narrates to delay her death and the tari voisi puhaltaa jonkun halvan kuplan suojak- longer she narrates, the longer she lives. I will seni. Mina¨ nimitta¨ in ja¨ a¨ dyn’’ [‘‘Do you think the demonstrate that Ja¨ ntti’s first narrator is a sub- glazier can blow me a cheap bubble to protect me? version of Scheherazade. For I’m freezing’’]. Sometimes they are trapped inside the glass. ‘‘In the pauses between words,’’ While Scheherazade’s narration delays her we read, ‘‘a¨ a¨ ni kierta¨ a¨ ta¨ ssa¨ talossa. [ . . . ] Haloo! death, nothing can stop the tricycle accident in Mina¨ ta¨ a¨ lla¨ ,ta¨ a¨ lla¨ ,ta¨ a¨ lla¨ ,ta¨ a¨ lla¨ , kerrrrrrosssvan- Amorfiaanna. The narrator tells the story so that kilasssa, lasinsisa¨ ssa¨ hhh’’ [A voice circulates in it will happen and taunts the reader, saying ‘‘tie- this house . . . Hello! I am here, here, here, here, da¨ t etta¨ se tapahtuu’’ [‘‘you know it will hap- in this aparrrrrtment prrrrison, on the inside of pen’’]. So, while Scheherazade narrates to the glassssss]. When the glass finally breaks and maintain life, Ja¨ ntti’s narrator does so to end it. the narrator is able to draw a deep breath, the air Scheherazade’s motivation is preserving her life, smells of exhaust. while Amorfiaana’s narrator’s is to make herself known, to narrate herself and the story into NARRATIVE existence. She explains, ‘‘Kukaan ei tunne While most of the events in the novel occur minua, siksi minun on kerrottava, vasikoitava. within the walls of an apartment building, these Kaikki painostavat minua. Siksi minun on indoor actions are occasionally interrupted by hajottava, kerrottava’’ [‘‘No one knows me, so I reference to something that happens outside the have to narrate, to stooge. Everyone twists my building. This frame story comprises the text’s arm. So I have to disintegrate to narrate’’]. If primary diegetic level; the events in the apart- Scheherazade stops narrating, her life will end. ment building are one level removed or metadie- If Ja¨ ntti’s narrator stops, no one will know her. getic. The diegetic tricycle accident is And yet, as she continues, she is unable to pre- differentiated from the rest of the text by both vent the tricycle accident and ‘‘disintegrates.’’ its italic typeface—a style not used elsewhere in Similarly, Scheherazade repeatedly interrupts the text—and its outspoken first-person author- her world of stories to introduce more stories, ial narration. more fiction. Amorfiaana’s narrator interrupts Amorfiaana’s story line in order not to tell the This first-person diegetic narrator gives the story she promised to tell. While Scheherazade impression of a monologic presentation; it feels struggles to distract her captor from reality, as though the narrator is directly addressing the Amorfiaana’s narrator struggles to break the reader in the opening, italicized statement. In the spell of fiction and remind the readers of the beginning, she asks in the present tense why she story about death they are not hearing. is telling this story and at the end of the book, in the past tense, why she told this story. This gives Ja¨ ntti plays self-consciously with the read- the impression that the tricycle accident and er’s desire to find out what happens to the girl on events in the apartment building are occurring the tricycle. The diegetic narrative, the story of simultaneously with both Amorfiaana’s narra- the girl on the tricycle, repeatedly breaks into the tion and the reading of the novel. While the metadiegetic text, the world inside the apartment
458 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism building. Genette calls this me´talepse, the deliber- create distance, a sense of alienation. We read, ate transgression of the threshold between die- ‘‘‘Syda¨ mesi pumppaa huonosti’—vastaa joku getic levels (58). For example, in the midst of huoneessa ja joku toinen saa verukkeen harjoi- other events, we read, ‘‘Kysyt ja vaadit, ka¨ rsim- tella ivanaurunsa vivahteita’’ [‘‘‘Your heart a¨ to¨ nsina¨ ,etta¨ missa¨ on tytto¨ kolmipyo¨ rineen, pumps poorly,’ someone in the room answers etta¨ tytto¨ ja rekka esiin! ‘TYT-to¨ ja REK-ka ja and someone else has an excuse to practice the TYT-to¨ ja REK-ka’ . . . Niin niin, aina siita¨ nuances of his scornful laugh.’’] In this case, the tyto¨ sta¨ ’’ [You ask and demand, impatient you, narrator appears unable to identify who is doing where is the girl on the tricycle, bring out the girl what in the room. Not only are the characters’ and the truck! ‘‘G-irl and TRU-ck and G-irl and motivations and thoughts opaque to the narra- TRU-ck’’. . . Yeah, yeah, always that business tor, she cannot even tell who is who. about the girl]. The first-person narrator’s inter- At the other extreme, Amorfiaana’s narrator ruptions voice the readers’ ‘‘impatient’’ curiosity is privy to characters’ motivations and thoughts, about the accident and, at the same time, remind what Cohn terms psycho-narration, which can readers that they still do not know what happened be either consonant or dissonant (Cohn 14, 26). to the girl. Instead of producing humorous or In consonant psycho-narration, the narrator fantastic ends (Genette 58), Ja¨ ntti unsettles Amor- fuses with the characters’ consciousnesses, and fiaana’s reader with metalepses, alluding to a we read their unspoken thoughts and feelings. tragedy, but refusing to tell the story. Examples of this are when we read of Alfhild This story that self-consciously remains untold that ‘‘ha¨ nen tekee mieli rakastella’’ [‘‘she feels is only one cause of Amorfiaana’s narrative con- like making love’’] or when ‘‘Madamen mielesta¨ fusion. The pervasive reason that Amorfiaana is keittio¨ sta¨ veta¨ a¨ ’’ [‘‘In Madame’s opinion, there is confusing and difficult to read is the instability of a draft from the kitchen.’’] narrative focalization in the text. Borrowing Consonant psycho-narration also occurs Cohn’s phrasing, Amorfiaana’s narrating and figu- with regard to feelings that should be there but ral minds vary dramatically in their degrees of are missing and thereby create another level of transparency. I will show how Ja¨ ntti blends differ- distance or removal. When the woman pours oil ent narrative modes in the metadiegetic text, which into the flying pan saying, ‘‘Ta¨ ma¨ on minun is primarily narrated in the third person and varies vereni’’ [‘‘This is my blood,’’] we then read, between psycho-narration and narrated mono- ‘‘Mutta ei tunne tuntoaan’’ [‘‘But she does not logue. Psycho-narration, sometimes called ‘‘omnis- feel her feeling.’’] In this case, the feeling is com- cient description,’’ entails the narrator’s discourse pletely absent. In the next case, Alfhild has a about a character’s consciousness and can be either fuzzy sense that she is missing something. Alfhild consonant, where the narrator is effaced and fused ‘‘na¨ kee muistavansa jotakin. Ha¨ nna¨ kee sirista¨ - with the character’s consciousness, or dissonant, va¨ nsa¨ silmia¨ a¨ n, tarkentaa’’ [‘‘sees herself remem- where the narrator is distanced from the charac- bering something. She sees herself squinting, ter’s consciousness (Cohn 14, 26). focuses.’’] The next is an example of the extreme At one extreme, there is no psycho-narra- to which Ja¨ ntti carries this lack of feeling, which tion at all; the figural minds are not at all trans- creates an alarming degree of alienation. The parent, and the narrator is not privy to any of the Black Man ‘‘ei tunne itsea¨ a¨ n. Huutaa. Ei kuule characters thoughts or motivations (Genette 34). itsea¨ a¨ n. Alasti polvin lumessa ei na¨ e nahkaansa’’ We read, for example, that ‘‘oikeastaan epa¨ ja¨ rj- [‘‘does not know himself. He screams. He does estys johtuu Uri-koirasta (joka haukkaa milloin not hear himself. Kneeling naked in the snow, he kenenkin jalkaa) ja niista¨ , joita sanotaan henki- does not see his skin.’’] lo¨ iksi’’ [‘‘actually, the confusion is caused by the Dissonant psycho-narration, on the other dog Uri (who chews indiscriminately at people’s hand, involves a prominent narrator who even feet) and by the so-called characters.’’] Here, the as she focuses on an individual psyche remains narrator has no insight into the characters’ emphatically distanced from the figural con- minds but is merely reporting the situation. She sciousness she narrates (Cohn). For example, even metafictively draws attention to her exteri- the Black Man ‘‘avaa suunsa huntaakseen (tai ority by using the qualifier ‘‘so-called’’ in her na¨ la¨ sta¨ )’’ [opens his mouth to shout (or out of reference to the characters. At one end of the hunger).] The narrator seems to know why the spectrum, Ja¨ ntti uses this narrative mode to man is opening his mouth but then admits
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doubt, a degree of dissonance. In the following looks around. As Alfhild is having sex with the example, the narrator can see inside Alfhild’s Black Man, we read: mind, but not Ko¨ tt’s: ‘‘Alfhild ei huomaa ivaa Alfhidin silmissa¨ vilahtaa puupino nurkassa. Ko¨ ttin a¨ a¨ nessa¨ (onko siina¨ sita¨ ?)’’ [Alfhild Mihin tarkoitukseen ovat pitka¨ t uuniin ja hel- doesn’t notice sarcasm in Ko¨ tt’s voice (is there laan sopimattomat halot? Kaikista esineista¨ any?)]. This excerpt is rife with dissonance ha¨ n tahtoisi kysya¨ , mita¨ ne ovat, mihin tarkoi- between Alfhild, who does not notice sarcasm, tukseen, miten ne toimivat voisiko ha¨ n saada Ko¨ tt, who might or might not have inflected jonkun niista¨ (sita¨ ha¨ n kysyisi vain kokeil- sarcasm, the narrator, who is self-consciously lakseen), mista¨ ne ovat pera¨ isin, kuka on tuo- aware that Ko¨ tt’s mind is not transparent to nut tuliaisena vena¨ la¨ iset teekupit, kuka on sa¨ rkenyt kristallimaljan, miksi kankaalle maa- her, and the reader, who has no way of answer- latuissa kasvoissa on viiltoja, miksi semettisei- ing the narrator’s rhetorical question. na¨ ssa¨ on pa¨ a¨ nkokoinen sa¨ rmika¨ s kolo, miten Ja¨ ntti carries narrative dissonance to its tahrat ovat syntyneet kattoon, miksi ka¨ yteta¨ a¨ n kynttilo¨ ita¨ vaikka talossa on sa¨ hko¨ , mita¨ ovat extreme. In the following example, the narrator, seina¨ lla¨ ryo¨ miva¨ t ruskeat elio¨ t, purevatko ne, speaking from a consonant position within Alf- saako jonkun kekeytta¨ ma¨ n aterian syo¨ da¨ lop- hild’s mind, reports the dissonance that Alfhild puun lautaselta, joka on pantu po¨ yda¨ n jalan is experiencing from own consciousness: ‘‘Alf- juureen vai pita¨ a¨ ko¨ odottaa ensin, varmistua hild riemuitsee vaikka ei sita¨ viela¨ tieda¨ ’’ [‘‘Alf- ettei se ole muille. Alfhild on utelias. hild rejoices, although she does not know it yet.’’] The woodpile in the corner flashed into Alf- At times, the characters’ dissonance is so hild’s view. What are the long logs that won’t extreme that the wrong characters gain access fit into the stove for? She would like to ask to feelings. At one point, we read, ‘‘Mutta na¨ yt- every object what it is, what it is for, how it ta¨ a¨ silta¨ etta¨ naistytto¨ itse on kadottanut works, could she get one (this she would ask na¨ ko¨ aistinsa, etta¨ se on omituisesti imeytynyt only as a test), where it had come from, who muiden henkilo¨ iden silmiin’’ [‘‘But the woman- had brought the Russian teacups as a home- coming present, who had broken the crystal girl seems to have lost her sense of sight; it seems goblet, why there are cuts on the face painted to have been sucked in some strange way into the on the canvas, why there is a jagged head-sized eyes of the others.’’] Landon insightfully summa- crevice in the cement wall, how the ceiling has rizes that the narrative is ‘‘punctuated with dis- become stained, why candles are used although quisitions on epistemological relativism that there is electricity in the house, what the crea- serve to accentuate the fluidity of the novel’s tures crawling on the wall are, whether they word’’. bite, whether one could eat the interrupted meal from the plate left near the table leg, or Ja¨ ntti uses a remarkably heterogeneous did one have to wait first to make sure it was palette of narrative forms including clearly not for others. Alfhild is curious. attributed first and third person narration, dia- The questions run together without question logue, and monologue. Her preferred mode, marks, move with Alfhild’s gaze about the room, however, is to shift between forms without pro- and are presented through the mask of her child- viding the reader sufficient information to be like consciousness (see Faris 177). Although it is sure who is narrating. An example of unattrib- similar to Molly’s autonomous monologue in uted dialogue is the confusing conversation the Penelope chapter of Ulysses in its lack of between Alfhild and the paperboy, in which standard punctuation and stream-of-consciousness their dialogue shifts back and forth between the style, there is a striking difference. While Molly two speakers not specifying who is speaking. spends much of her mental energy thinking about Full of references to the sea and burning news- sex, Alfhild’s autonomous monologue is full of papers, the conversation seems unreal. The child thoughts about everything but sex. This fact is talks of pinching his mother’s nipples, tells her unexpected since she has a great many thoughts she is burning, and calls her a whore. about sex in the rest of the novel, and she is actually In addition to dialogues, Ja¨ ntti also includes having sex at the time of the citation. This disjunc- narrated monologue, mimicking Woolf, Kafka, tion is another example of dissonance in that Alf- and Joyce (Cohn 101–2). The text weaves into hild’s thoughts are distanced from her body’s and out of Alfhild’s mind without perceptible physical experiences. transitions and refers to Alfhild in the third per- Ja¨ ntti uses narrative techniques to empha- son but also reports the thoughts she has as she size the characters’ de-localized experience of
460 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism physical sensations and conscious thoughts. support hose, pockmarks, and sweat smells that Ja¨ ntti’s striking treatment of bodies and body drip from ‘‘hairy pits.’’ Ja¨ ntti develops a sense of parts also draws attention to the boundaries alienation by confronting the reader with abject between characters and their environments. In images, defiling elements, and disturbing the next section, I will show how Ja¨ ntti manipu- descriptions of bodies. lates not only magical realism and narrative, but At times, the image of a contiguous body dis- also the boundaries of physical bodies to explore integrates into its composite parts. For example, as subject formation. the incensed lawyer leans over the fire, we read, Kieli liikkuu suun sisa¨ lla¨ ja¨ ykistyneena¨ po¨ t- DISINTEGRATING BODIES ko¨ na¨ pitkin poskien ryhmyisia¨ limakalvoja ja Ja¨ ntti ‘‘wrote Amorfiaana as uncompromis- rikkipurtuja huulen sisa¨ reunoja. Ehka¨ hiillok- ingly as possible, as [her] philosophy, which had sen kuumuus panee veren kiehumaan niin etta¨ to unfold precisely as it did, in bodily form’’ sita¨ tihkuu hiukan huulillekin lukemattomista (Landon 37). She tests her theories of identity and puhki nyrha¨ tyista¨ suonista. subject formation on the ‘‘playing field’’ of the His tongue, a stiff lump, moves in his mouth body. In the same way that the tricycle accident along the lumpy membranes of his cheeks and frames concerns of fictionality throughout the text, the cracked and bitten insides of his lips. Per- bodily boundaries and their transgressions prob- haps the heat of the coals has set his blood lematize what it means to be an individual in a boiling so that a little of it seeps onto his lips from innumerable eroded veins. postmodern age. Hayles’s theory of the posthuman will elucidate the implications of subject composi- In this scene, the details draw attention tion in Amorfiaana. A posthuman subject is ‘‘an away from the lawyer as a person effectually amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous compo- rendering his body as a collection of bloody, nents, a material-informational entity whose boun- fleshy lumps. Ja¨ ntti repeatedly violates figural daries undergo continuous construction and bodies by drawing the reader’s attention to reconstruction’’ (Hayles 3). Amorfiaana bears all lurid details and supplanting the idea of the fig- the signs of a posthuman text: the destabilization ure as a complete entity. In this way she dissolves of many kinds of boundaries, non-localized vocal- subjects into their component parts. ization, dispersed subjectivity, and bodies of print Ja¨ ntti also does just the opposite in compos- punctuatedwithprostheses(Hayles130).Mydis- ing subjects out of miscellaneous component cussion of Amorfiaana’s narrative has demon- parts. Most strikingly, this result occurs narra- strated how Ja¨ ntti actively destabilizes boundaries tively through her reference to the communal between narrative modes and figural conscious- transubstantiation. We read that someone in nesses to present non-localized vocalization. In the kitchen ‘‘iskee puukon perunaan.—Ta¨ ma¨ this section, I will show how Ja¨ ntti disperses sub- on minun ruumiini—,silpoo sen. Kaataa o¨ ljya¨ jectivity and employs prosthetics to create simulac- paistinpannuun, kiehauttaa yli suositusrajan— ral characters. Ta¨ ma¨ on minun vereni—’’ [‘‘stabs the knife into Ja¨ ntti disperses subjectivity by drawing the potato. ‘This is my body.’ She slices it up. She attention away from whole bodies and focusing pours oil into the frying pan, boils it above the on specific, often unappealingly depicted, parts. prescribed temperature. ‘This is my blood.’’’] Her use of graphic bodily images along with her Here, in an appropriation of the communion narrative style has garnered comparisons to Cix- sacrament, the potato and oil become the body ous and Joyce. This use of bodily elements for and blood of the cook. A sort of heteroglossia shock value also bears striking similarity to that governs the communion allusion; it is simulta- of the Norwegian author Karin Moe in Kjønn- neously sacrilegious and reverential, sarcastic skrift, for example, and American photographer and factual. The act of slicing potatoes symbol- Cindy Sherman. Sherman, in photographic izes women’s work through the ages, and the medium, and Moe and Ja¨ ntti, in the textual, woman’s body as potato is a metaphor for the explore subjectivity by drawing so much atten- labor of her forebears, the communal contribu- tion to the parts that it becomes difficult to see tion of cooking, the pleasure of food, and the the whole. Amorfiaana teems with dislocated yoke of servitude all in one. body parts and imagery such as unnaturally In her treatment of subjects, Ja¨ ntti practices large joints, sunken cheeks, crooked fingers, what Kjartan Fløgstad might call compost-mod- anatomical specimens, blood, urine, legs in ernism. She emphasizes the dissolution of the
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subject by creating bodies that compost, disinte- contains a three-legged chair that requires a grate, and break down. Beyond just merging into human leg to keep it stable. Whoever sits in that other media or shattering into shards of glass or chair becomes part chair and part human with his ceramic, one of the best examples of this bodily or her own human leg serving as the missing chair composting occurs when the first narrator says, leg. Alfhild has the missing chair leg that she took ‘‘Kukaan ei tunne minua, siksi minun on kerrot- from the woodpile. She paints human features on tava, vasikoitava. Kaikki painostavat minua. the chair leg to create a doll. So while human legs Siksi minun on hajottava, kerrottava’’ [No one serve as simulated chair legs, the chair leg serves as knows me, so I have to narrate, to inform. a simulated human. The narrator also suspects Everyone is pressuring me. So I have to decom- that an ‘‘automatic’’ Madame may have replaced pose, to narrate]. The process of coming apart the human Madame. All of these examples dem- here creates the text. onstrate the confused boundaries between human and non-human in the text. In fact, Ja¨ ntti refers to In another example, the truck hits the girl on the text itself in corporeal terms as a ‘‘book-body the tricycle, she rises up in the headlights, and we . . . a secret, satisfying partner’’ (Landon 35). read, ‘‘‘salva me fons pietatis’ ha¨ n hymyilee Amorfiaana’s non-essentialized bodies are defined ollakseen kiltti. Tuliko latinalainen rukous by their relationships and communications with ha¨ nesta¨ vai altani keosta, a¨ a¨ nilevysta¨ , jota ka¨ r- their various parts and with segments of the envi- pa¨ nen soittaa ketaroillaan?’’ [‘‘Salva me fons pie- ronment around them and their delineations con- tatis,’’ she smiles to be good. Did the Latin tinue to change throughout the text. prayer come from her or from beneath the mound that is me, from a CD that a bug plays The issue of body as text and text as body is on his limbs?]. Not merely coming apart to nar- central to Amorfiaana and plays a major role in rate, the narrator here speaks as a mound with Malmio’s article. One intriguing aspect Malmio the Finnish ‘‘keko,’’ which might apply to a stack does not discuss is that the original is often of hay. The presence of the bug makes the allu- absent, and the bodies in the text are instead sion to a compost pile or even a mound of gar- copies of a missing original or copies of copies. bage even more compelling. This mimics Baudrillard’s paradigm shift from a modern representation system to a postmodern In addition to certain characters’ overall dis- simulation system (635). Ja¨ ntti’s simulacral integration, many characters also experience bodies create a complex system of simulations. minor infringements on their corporeal borders. The boundaries of the characters’ selves are One example is Ja¨ ntti’s discussion of the amorphous. Women’s bodies merge with pota- Venus de Milo in Amorfiaana. The sculpture in toes, walls, bits of text, wood, panes of glass, the text is not the original Venus de Milo, but and mirrors. Their physical boundaries change, rather a replica; similarly, the original sculpture extend beyond and encompass their human forms is an artist’s representation of a woman’s body. as well as parts of other things around them. The sculpture in Amorfiaana is then a copy of an Posthumanists regard the body itself as the orig- incomplete copy of a woman’s body. Extending inal prosthesis that humans learn to manipulate this motif, Ja¨ ntti writes, ‘‘Po¨ ly nousee aina kah- such that ‘‘extending or replacing the body deksanteen kerrokseen niin etta¨ Madamen with other prostheses becomes a continuation ahkeraan puiva ka¨ si puuteroituu suloisen tasai- of a process that began before we were born’’ sesti ja pysa¨ htyy a¨ kkia¨ . . . Meloksen Venuksen (Hayles 3). Ja¨ ntti uses body-prosthesis amalgams kadonnut ka¨ si’’ [‘‘Dust rises all the way to the to challenge the notion of the neatly bounded self. eighth story so that Madame’s hand industri- Amorfiaana’s bizarre, parodic, and often grotes- ously fanning the air is powdered over with que bodily formations explore the postmodern sweet evenness and stops suddenly . . . Venus de female body, not as an essentialized, concrete Milo’s lost hand.’’] By layering levels of repre- entity, but instead exposing the body’s contingent sentation, Ja¨ ntti demonstrates that the posthu- boundaries, its partial connections to other things. man body is more an informational pattern than For example, the boundaries of human characters a unified, material object (see Hayles 104). in the novel can expand to include parts of things Venus de Milo’s body moves intertextually and inanimate objects around them. through Amorfiaana as a simulacral, as an infor- I have already discussed the bodies that merge mational entity. As Madadme’s hand becomes with glass and walls and mirrors. Amorfiaana also Venus de Milo’s, the fact that the original Venus
462 Literary Movements for Students, Second Edition, Volume 2 Magic Realism de Milo has long been without hands is immate- a character whose only body is textual. Ja¨ ntti’s rial. Madame’s hand fits into the pattern of rep- exploration of the boundaries between physical resentation regardless of whether it is composed and textual bodies appears here as mise-en- of flesh and blood, drywall dust, or marble. abyme; the author literally comes apart to nar- Ja¨ ntti shows that the boundaries of the subject rate and uses her blood to write the text. are not so much penetrated, stretched, or dis- Ja¨ ntti does not stop there. In the following persed as they are revealed to have been illusions passage, she takes her metafictional play with all along (see Hayles 156). When the Venus de ‘‘this is my body’’ to a new level. The blood Milo reproduction falls and breaks into shards sentence on the cellar wall becomes real: ‘‘Ta¨ ssa¨ (139), it simulates the real female bodies that ruumis kykkii, puistelee selka¨ a¨ irti seina¨ sta¨ break into shards of glass throughout the text. johon verina¨ yte on sen liimannut, muistelee eli Ja¨ ntti repeatedly composes and decomposes erittelee seina¨ a¨ n yhtyva¨ a¨ ruumistaan joka on women’s bodies, and her narrators and characters kaiken tapahtuneen muisti’’ [Here is where the are continually and ‘‘actively rewriting the texts of body squats, shudders its back loose from the their bodies’’ just as cyborgs do (Haraway 177). wall onto which the blood sample had been The pattern of revision becomes more important pasted, recollects or rather specifies from her than the flesh and blood form at any specific body (merged into the wall) a reminder of every- stage. This systematic devaluation of materiality thing that happened]. Here, a physical body and embodiment in favor of informational rather emerges from the graffiti body. A character cre- than material presence is one of the central ele- ated the textual wall-body composed of blood ments of posthumanism (Hayles 48). and text, and in this citation it emerges from the Ja¨ ntti makes her foregrounding of informa- wall ‘‘shuddering’’ itself loose as a new simula- tional bodies over material bodies explicit and crum of the fictional original that wrote it. self-conscious. As I discussed above, she empha- sizes the leakages between characters’ physical What we see in this mise-en-abyme occurs as bodies, their reflections, and the rest of their a universal in all of Ja¨ ntti’s characters. They all ontological makeup. She also self-consciously have the surface appearance of characters, draws the reader’s attention to the semiotic rela- names, job titles, and other identifying charac- tionship between physical and textual bodies. Of teristics. They remain, however, depthless. the phrase written in blood on the basement Although the narrative dips frequently into wall, we read: their consciousnesses, readers never learn the most basic facts about them or about their rela- A¨ la¨ pese. Mina¨ menen, kirjoitus ja¨ a¨ .TA¨ MA¨ tionships. Ja¨ ntti describes tableaux that might ON MINUN RUUMIINI saa ja¨ a¨ da¨ . Mutta jos TA¨ MA¨ viittaa minun ruumiiseeni, kuinka occur in an apartment building from the mun- kauas minun on menta¨ va¨ , etta¨ viittaus lakkaa? dane act of frying potatoes, being bossy, or look- Kun olen mennyt, tuleeko kirjoituksesta len- ing out a window to the peculiar legal trial and ta¨ va¨ lause? [ . . . ] Mika¨ on lauseen ulko- ja mika¨ the female performance prisoner. She creates sisa¨ puolta? Viittaako lause sisa¨ isesti itseensa¨ ? visual cliche´ s of various roles and gives readers ¨ ¨ Onko se identiteetti eli onko TAMA ¼ the illusion of recognition and reference. All the MINUN RUUMIINI? way through the text, readers have the feeling (Don’t wash. I am going, the writing stays. Let that they will be able to put the clues together THIS IS MY BODY stay. But if THIS refers to and understand. In large part, this is a false sense my body, how far must I go until this reference ceases? When I have gone, does a flying sen- of familiarity created by Ja¨ ntti’s use of repeated tence come out of the writing? [ . . . ] What is the phrases, elements, and scenes. Ja¨ ntti accom- sentence’s out- and what is its in-side? Does the plishes in text what Sherman did in her Untitled sentence inwardly refer to itself? Is it identity or Film Stills. Here Sherman photographed herself is THIS ¼ MY BODY?) posing as an imaginary blonde actress. The pho- How far can the relationship between a tex- tographs look like movie stills or publicity pho- tual reference and a physical entity be stretched tos, and although most of the characters are before their unity is divided? The question is invented, viewers sense right away that they rec- rhetorical and self-conscious. Ja¨ ntti leaves it for ognize them (see Galassi). Ja¨ ntti’s characters the reader to answer. The blood-words are a create the same false sense of recognition in the textual simulacrum of the body of the character reader. At the end Amorfiaana, it is not any who wrote them. They are written in the blood of clearer who any given character or narrator is.
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It is not clear whether the girl on the tricycle dies Chace, Tara, ‘‘Disintegrating Bodies: Postmodern Nar- or not, whether she is Alfhild or not. Even the rative in Mariaana Ja¨ ntti’s Amorfiaana,’’ in Scandinavian title of the book is unclear. Amorfiaana seems to Studies, Vol. 76, No. 2, Summer 2004, pp. 279–98. be a Finnish woman’s name made from the word Christian, Karen, Show and Tell: Identity as Performance ‘‘amorphous’’ or ‘‘amorfinen’’ in Finnish. And in U.S. Latina/o Fiction, University of New Mexico Press, yet, at no point is it clear if there is a character 1997, pp. 121–28. named Amorfiaana. Having read the entire, con- Curtis, J. A. E., Manuscripts Don’t Burn: Mikhail Bulga- fusing text, the reader will feel like there was, kov, A Life in Letters and Diaries, Overlook, 1992. that perhaps the body of the text is Amorfiaana Danow, David K., The Spirit of Carnival: Magical Real- incarnate. The text creates a false sense of recog- ism and the Grotesque, University Press of Kentucky, nition for a posthuman, simulacral body named 1995, pp. 65–101. Amorfiaana. Durix, Jean-Pierre, Mimesis, Genres, and Post-Colonial Ja¨ ntti’s amorphous narrative reflection of Discourse: Deconstructing Magic Realism, Macmillan, 1998, pp. 102–48. life, bodies, and boundaries in an apartment building collapses many times upon itself. She Esquivel, Laura, Like Water for Chocolate, Doubleday, uses magical realism to create a realistic world 1991. but also to subvert it and transgress the laws of Flores, Angel, ‘‘Magical Realism in Spanish American nature. She uses an amorphous array of narra- Fiction,’’ in Magical Realism: Theory, History, Commun- tive modes to de-localize the reader’s sense of ity, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, Duke University Press, 1995, pp. 109–17. figural consciousness and repeatedly construct and tear down the reader’s sense of narrative Galeano, Eduardo, Open Veins of Latin America: Five grounding. Finally she consistently undermines Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, translated by Cedric Belfage, Monthly Review Press, 1998. the importance of material embodiment by creating dynamic, posthuman characters that ‘‘Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez: Macondo,’’ in Modern World, challenge the notion of the neatly bounded http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/ (accessed July 17, 2008). subject. Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, Gabriel, One Hundred Years of Soli- Source: Tara Chace, ‘‘Disintegrating Bodies: Postmod- tude, translated by Gregory Rabassa, HarperCollins, ern Narrative in Mariaana Ja¨ ntti’s Amorfiaana,’’ in 1998. Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 76, No. 2, Summer, 2004, pp. 279–98. Gonza´ lez Echevarrı´ a, Roberto, Alejo Carpentier: The Pilgrim at Home, Cornell University Press, 1977, pp. 107–29. Graham-Yooll, Andrew, After the Despots: Latin Amer- ican Views and Interviews, Bloomsbury, 1991. SOURCES Harss, Luis, and Barbara Dohmann, Into the Main- stream: Conversations with Latin-American Writers, Harper & Row, 1967. Alegrı´a, Fernando, ‘‘Latin America: Fantasy and Reality,’’ in Americas Review,Vol.14,No.3,1986,pp.115–18. Higgins, James, ‘‘Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez,’’ in Land- marks in Modern Latin American Fiction, edited by Philip Allende, Isabel, The House of the Spirits, translated by Swanson, Routledge, 1990. Magda Bogin, Bantam, 1985. Isabel Allende, http://www.isabelallende.com/ (accessed Anderson, Jon, ‘‘The Power of Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez,’’ July 17, 2008). in New Yorker Magazine, September 27, 1999. James, Regina, ‘‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’’: Modes Asturias, Miguel A´ ngel, Men of Maize: The Modernist of Reading, Twayne, 1991. Epic of the Guatemalan Indians, translated by Gerald Martin, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. Leal, Luis, ‘‘Magical Realism in Spanish American Liter- ature,’’ in Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community, Brushwood, John, The Spanish American Novel: A Twen- edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, tieth Century Survey, University of Texas Press, 1975, pp. Duke University Press, 1995, pp. 119–24. 157–304. Lindstrom, Naomi, Twentieth-Century Spanish American Carpentier, Alejo, The Kingdom of This World, translated Fiction, University of Texas Press, 1994. by Harriet de Onis, Noonday Press, 1989. Mendoza, Plinio Apuleyo, and Gabriel Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, ———, ‘‘On the Marvelous Real in America,’’ in Magical The Fragrance of Guava, Verso, 1983. Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, Duke University Nadeau, Maurice, The History of Surrealism, translated Press, 1995, pp. 75–88. by Richard Howard, Belknap Press, 1989.
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Saldı´ var, Jose´ David, The Dialectics of Our Americas: This informative book engages in a number of Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary History, readings of Garcı´ aMa´ rquez’s masterpiece. It Duke University Press, 1991, pp. 90–96. provides biographical and historical context as well as a good discussion of the novel’s form Sommer, Doris, and George Yudice, ‘‘Latin American and content. Literature from the ‘Boom’ On,’’ in Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach, edited by Michael McKeon, Owomoyela, Oyekan, ed., A History of Twentieth-Cen- Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, pp. 859–81. tury African Literatures, University of Nebraska Press, Williams, Raymond L., Gabriel Garcı´aMa´rquez, 1993. Twayne, 1984. A range of bibliographic articles covering Afri- can literary production in all European lan- Zamora, Lois, and Wendy Faris, Introduction, in Magi- guages represented on the continent. In cal Realism: Theory, History, Community, edited by Lois particular, chapters on women’s literary pro- Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, Duke University duction and on East African English-Language Press, 1995, pp. 1–11. fiction are particularly relevant to Ogot’s work.
Parekh, Pushpa, ed., Postcolonial African Writers, Greenwood, 1998. This is a reference book that covers individual FURTHER READING authors of postcolonial Africa, including bio- graphical information, a discussion of themes ´ Asturias, Miguel Angel, Men of Maize: The Modernist and major works, critical responses to the Epic of the Guatemalan Indians, translated by Gerald works, and bibliographies. Martin, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993. This critical edition of an early magic realist Williams, Raymond L., Gabriel Garcı´aMa´rquez, masterpiece includes a series of critical essays Twayne, 1984. by well-known critics and writers of Latin- Williams’s book is a literary and biographical American literature that cover a variety of account of Garcı´ aMa´ rquez, discussing not topics related to Asturias’s work. only his career as a journalist and writer but providing an in-depth account of his literary Bruner, Charlotte H., Unwinding Threads: Writing by output over a period of thirty years. Women in Africa, Heinemann, 1994. This is a collection of short stories by African Zamora, Lois, and Wendy Faris, eds., Magical Realism: women from all parts of the continent. Divided Theory, History, Community, Duke University Press, by region, the book provides a comprehensive 1995. view of the variety and diversity of African wom- This recent collection of essays provides an en’s approaches to imaginative writing. Many historical overview of the various scholarly well-known and new writers are represented. approaches to interpreting Magic Realism. Of Graham-Yooll, Andrew, After the Despots: Latin Amer- particular importance are the essays by Car- ican Views and Interviews, Bloomsbury, 1991. pentier that describe the importance of Magic Collected in this book are interviews, observa- Realism to the geographic and political climate tions, and political analyses about Latin Amer- of Latin America. ica by an Argentine journalist. Written in a style Zlotchew, Clark, Varieties of Magic Realism, Academic a´ la the New Yorker, Graham-Yooll has his Press, 2007. finger on the pulse of the current literary and Zlotchew has composed ten essays for college political currents of his time. A number of pieces students that explore the breadth of Magic focus on Latin America’s leading writers: Realism, including definitions, regional over- Allende, Garcı´aMa´ rquez, Borges, and Fuentes. views, author overviews, and a historical over- James, Regina, ‘‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’’: Modes view. Zlotchew’s focus is primarily on Latin of Reading, Twayne, 1991. American authors.
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