THIS<\/a> to say about it. But in essence, it is a genre of literary fiction most widely associated with Latin works, like those of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His novel 100 Years of Solitude is a prime example. In this High School Senior required reading (at least it was for my senior year), the elements of magic are seamlessly woven into the normal experiences of the characters. For instance, one character in the story lives for over a hundred years and the story moves on as if this is just a part of the normal every day life.\u00a0Better put, Magical Realism\u00a0is about the\u00a0meshing of the ordinary and the fantastic, or the common world we know merged seamlessly with fantasy or the fantastic without the need to be explained. On the other hand, Harry Potter does not do this. In Rowling’s world, a separate magical realm has been established with rules and world building that are explained. Just on the other side of a magical barrier exists the normal world we know. So what about Practical Magic?<\/p>\nI don’t believe, after reading all the texts about Magical Realism, that stories involving latent witches or those with true powers of witchcraft actually fall into the category of Magical Realism. I may be wrong. Though, Alice Hoffman’s book Practical Magic may be the closest thing to MR because she seamlessly weaves a world of witchcraft practitioners into the normal world and her novel is literary fiction. But I think the world is explained in some degree, something true MR shouldn’t contain. We know that Gilly and Sally have descended from a long line of witches. We know, through the girls’ observations, that the Aunts are practicing witches, handing out potions, ect.\u00a0\u00a0But look at the novel Like Water For Chocolate or the film Chocolat. Without having any indication that what the characters are doing is witchcraft, we get the sense that magic is being created through the food, through the chocolate. Even the actions, the cooking,\u00a0are everyday mundane. So is a world where witches and magic exists, shown to us through more widely recognizable symbols and actions,\u00a0really Magical Realism? I feel it’s fantasy, but\u00a0I just don’t have a solid answer. Feel free to add your thoughts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning I’m listening to sound of silence as all the kiddos in the house, mine and my niece, are still asleep after my brother took them to the pool for five hours yesterday. It’s wonderful. Today, I’m going to address a more in depth look at what defines Magical\u00a0Realism. I’ve noticed a vast amount of agents and editors asking for Magical Realism. I’m one of them. But when I started thinking about it, I became confused. My initial thought was Magical Realism is like Practical Magic or the Craft or Harry Potter. Boy was I wrong. And I wonder if it’s a label we’ve tagged to these books, but maybe I’m the only one who was wrong. Except, looking at some of my queries, I don’t think I am alone in mislabeling. So what is Magical Realism, you ask? Well, Merriam-Webster Dictionary has THIS to say about it. But in essence, it is a genre of literary fiction most widely associated with Latin works, like those of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His novel 100 Years of Solitude is a prime example. In this High School Senior required reading (at least it was for my senior year), the elements of magic are seamlessly woven into the normal experiences of the characters. For instance, one character in the story lives for over a hundred years and the story moves on as if this is just a part of the normal every day life.\u00a0Better put, Magical Realism\u00a0is about the\u00a0meshing of the ordinary and the fantastic, or the common world we know merged seamlessly with fantasy or the fantastic without the need to be explained. On the other hand, Harry Potter does not do this. In Rowling’s world, a separate magical realm has been established with rules and world building that are explained. Just on the other side of a magical barrier exists the normal world we know. So what about Practical Magic? I don’t believe, after reading all the texts about Magical Realism, that stories involving latent witches or those with true powers of witchcraft actually fall into the category of Magical Realism. I may be wrong. Though, Alice Hoffman’s book Practical Magic may be the closest thing to MR because she seamlessly weaves a world of witchcraft practitioners into the normal world and her novel is literary fiction. But I think the world is explained in some degree, something true MR shouldn’t contain. We know that Gilly and Sally have descended from a long line of witches. We know, through the girls’ observations, that the Aunts are practicing witches, handing out potions, ect.\u00a0\u00a0But look at the novel Like Water For Chocolate or the film Chocolat. Without having any indication that what the characters are doing is witchcraft, we get the sense that magic is being created through the food, through the chocolate. Even the actions, the cooking,\u00a0are everyday mundane. So is a world where witches and magic exists, shown to us through more widely recognizable symbols and actions,\u00a0really Magical Realism? I feel it’s fantasy, but\u00a0I just don’t have a solid answer. Feel free to add your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agent-observations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catehart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Wikia_DARP_-_Diagon_Alley_entrance_from_the_Leaky_Cauldron.png?fit=1280%2C720","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wmX9-2m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catehart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}