What do we do when the doors of our house open up to an entirely different place, when long-passed relatives visit to give us relationship advice, and when it starts raining cats and dogs...literally?
Well, you and I might find it strange and amazing, but these sorts of events are the everyday bread-and-butter of
magical realism.
Magical realism is "
a style of literature which integrates a realist mode of writing with fantastical or marvelous events treated as perfectly ordinary occurrences" (A Dictionary of Critical Theory).And visiting someplace else that is almost (but not
quite) like here can be a fun literary vacation. We have a number of great finds related to magical realism at the library, so let's get started!
Films (descriptions from
IMDb)
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
[UCC Library DVD 791.43 P]
"In the fascist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world."
Volver (2006)[UCC Library DVD 791.43 V]"After her death, a mother returns to her home town in order to fix the situations she couldn't resolve during her life."
Amélie (2001)
[UCC Library DVD 791.43 A]
"Amelie, an innocent and naive girl in Paris, with her own sense of justice, decides to help those around her and along the way, discovers love."
Books
Kafka on the Shore (2005)[UCC Library stacks 895.635 Murakami M]
"The black cat slowly stretched out a leg, then it narrowed its eyes and gave the old man another good long look.
With a big grin on his face, the man stared right back. The cat hesitated for a time, then plunged ahead and spoke. 'Hmm...so you're able to speak.'
'That's right,' said the old man bashfully. To show his respect, he took off his threadbare cotton hiking hat. 'Not that I can speak to every cat I meet, but if things go well I can. Like right now.'
'Interesting,' the cat said simply" (43).
One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)[UCC Library stacks 863 Garcia G]Garcia Marquez tells the story of Macondo, a town frequented by gypsies and found by following birdsong, and the Buendia family over the course of generations. Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, and this novel is often cited as the classic example of magical realism.
American Gods (2001)
[Douglas Co. Libraries, Roseburg: SF Gai](You can have this novel sent to UCC by placing a hold!)
Shadow has just been released from prison, and all he wants is to get back to a normal life. But he has a problem-- all through America's history, immigrants have been bringing their stories with them to the new country-- Odin, Spider, Leprechauns and all the rest-- and now Shadow is caught in a war between the old myths and the new.
