Magical Realism and the Fantastic

2018 ◽  
pp. 223-277
Author(s):  
Eitan P. Fishbane
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Ordinary Experience ◽  
Terrestrial Life ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Alternate Reality

In this chapter we encounter the zoharic representation of reality as an enchanted realm, one in which miracles erupt in the ordinary stream of human events, where ordinary experience opens into an alternate reality of the fantastic. In many zoharic cases, I have argued, these narrative scenes may be characterized as instances of magical realism, a depiction of terrestrial life that inserts an otherworldly dimension blended smoothly with the representation of ordinary reality. Here we observe structures and themes such as: sensory ambiguity and temporal confusion; entrance into a fantastical and otherwordly domain through portals in the mundane realm; representation of a dynamic heavenly mythology that involves shape-shifting celestial beings.

Cairo: Urban Space, Surveillance and the State

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-72
Author(s):  
Yasmine Ramadan
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
The State ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
The Cross ◽  
And Control ◽  
The City ◽  
Literary Techniques

This chapter focuses on the representation of the urban space of Cairo. It examines Sonallah Ibrahim’s Tilka-l-raʾiha (The Smell of it, 1966), Gamal al-Ghitani’s Waqaʾiʿ harat al-Zaʿfarani (The Zafarani Files, 1976), Ibrahim Aslan’s Malik al-hazin (The Heron, 1981), and Radwa Ashour’s, Faraj (Blue Lorries, 2008) reading the novels in opposition to the realist narratives of earlier decades. The shift away from the realist depictions of the urban metropolis as the site of national struggle, or of the alley as the cross-section of Egyptian society, is accompanied by a new representational aesthetics. Through the presentation of the city as the space of incarceration, the reimagination of the alley as a fantastic space, and the turn towards the previously ignored neighborhood of Imbaba, these writers showcase new literary techniques; aspects of magical realism; elements of the fantastic; a turn to hyper-realism, in order to represent the transformation of the urban space of Cairo into one of surveillance and control.

scholarly journals “Remember Me, in Your Stories and in Your Songs”

MANUSYA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-107
Author(s):  
Wisarut Painark
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Healing Process ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Song Of The Sea ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Animated Film ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
To Come

This study examines the deployment of magical realism along with cinematic techniques in Song of the Sea. Analysing the animated film as a cultural text in light of magical realism, it argues that the film intermingles two different worlds, the mundane and the fantastic, to provide audiences with a more inclusive view of reality. The existence of Celtic mythical beings, selkies, brought to life by magical realism, becomes the cornerstone in the protagonists’ healing process as their interactions with these mythical beings gradually reshape their conception of reality. A new “reality” is, thus, employed to vex the protagonists’ mind and make them reconsider reality in a new light by helping them vividly see Irish cultural aspects in their mundane life. Taking two selkies, Bronagh and Saoirse, as a metaphor for Irish cultural roots, this paper asserts that the protagonists’ embarking on their magical journey to retrieve the selkie’s coat not only heals their shattered selves but also induces them to hark back to their cultural roots. Ultimately, the research posits that the protagonist’s newly developed self, which eventually allows him and his family to come to terms with their loss, resolves his conflict with Saoirse, who successfully prevents the Irish cultural roots from being forgotten.

scholarly journals Magical Realism in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101
Author(s):  
Saeede Hosseinpour ◽  
Nahid Shahbazi Department of English Language and
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Juvenile Literature ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Narrative Mode

Abstract Magical realism, as a narrative mode or genre in adults’ literature, has been in vogue since its revivifying with the publication of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). However, the depiction of the genre in children’s and juvenile literature is a new trend; the presence of its elements have been traced and proved feasibly applicable in the interpretation of recent children’s fiction such as David Almond’s Skelling (1998). In this regard, the main concern of the present article is to sift the characteristic features of magical realism within Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002) through the application of Wendy B. Faris’s theoretical framework of the genre therewith Tzvetan Todorov’s definition of the fantastic in order to introduce the novel as an exemplar of magical realism in the domain of children’s literature.

Magical Realism and The Fantastic

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaryll Beatrice Chanady
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
The Fantastic

The Art of Mystical Narrative

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eitan P. Fishbane
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Narrative Ethics ◽  
Dramatic Monologue ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
Book Studies

This book studies the Zohar as a work of literature. While the Zohar has long been recognized as a signal achievement of mystical theology, myth, and exegesis, this monograph presents a poetics of zoharic narrative, a morphology of mystical storytelling. Topics examined include mysticism and literature; fiction and pseudepigraphy; diaspora and exile; dramatic monologue and the representation of emotion; voice, gesture, and the theatrics of the zoharic tale; the wandering quest for wisdom; anagnorisis and the poetics of recognition; encounters with the natural world as stimuli for mystical creativity; the dynamic relationship between narrative and exegesis; magical realism and the fantastic in the representation of experience and Being; narrative ethics and the exemplum of virtuous piety in the Zohar; the place of the zoharic frame-tale in the comparative context of medieval Iberian literature, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

scholarly journals As variações do insólito em José J. Veiga

Organon ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (38-39) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Zaira Turchi
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
The Fantastic

This article focuses on the main themes and aesthetic aspects ofJosé J. Veiga’s stories, analyzing the magical realism and the fantastic issueswithin the boundaries of his fiction.

scholarly journals The ‘soccer war’ and the ‘city that sailed Away’: magical realism and New Journalism in the work of Ryszard Kapuscinski

Literator ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
F. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Magical Realism ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
New Journalism ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Foreign Correspondent ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

In this article, I examine Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Another Day of Life (1987) and The Soccer War (1990). Kapuscinski is a Polish journalist who has written a number of books about his experiences as a foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa and Latin America. We encounter a range of diverse and sometimes contradictory approaches in his writing, since Kapuscinski utilises realist and fantastic, surreal, postmodern, intensely subjective techniques to convey his experiences and perceptions.As a result of his blending of realist and non-realist modes, Kapuscinki's work can be related to two important trends in contemporary literature: magical realism and New Journalism. Kapuscinski's writing illustrates certain significant points of comparison between these two approaches. These aspects of Kapuscinski's writing can, to an extent, be viewed in terms of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of rhizomatics and nomadism. This article indicates that Kapuscinski's writing differs from some forms of magical realism and New Journalism in certain key respects.The significance of Kapuscinski's work lies partly in the way in which it juxtaposes and interrelates various modes, thereby challenging fixed, monologic ways of viewing events. As a result of this, his writing evades easy definitions and conclusive categorisation. Finally, one of the most striking aspects of Kapuscinki's work lies in the way in which it provides a dramatic reflection of the interface between the fantastic and reality and between the surreal, the postmodern and journalistic realism.

Myth and the Fantastic in the Work of Junot Díaz

2020 ◽  
pp. 241-266
Author(s):  
Justine McConnell
Keyword(s):  
Magical Realism ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Junot Diaz ◽  
The Fantastic ◽  
Marvel Comics ◽  
House Of Atreus

This chapter explores the ways in which Junot Díaz draws on ancient Greek myth in two of his works, Drown (1996) and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007). Placing Greek myth alongside the stories from other fantastical worlds, such as those found in the works of Tolkien and Marvel Comics, Díaz offers a pathway to realms seemingly not affected by transatlantic slavery, racism, or modern dictatorship and diaspora. Yet, as much work on magical realism has shown, a turn to the fantastic can be deeply political. Díaz’s evocation of Greek myth (most prominently, those of Homer’s Odyssey and the House of Atreus) is given only as much space as the myths of other times and places, thereby stripping the classical canon of the aura of superiority which it gained during the colonial period. In doing so, Díaz works to creates a new epic for the Dominican diaspora.

Homochirality as the Signature of Extra-Terrestrial Life

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 505-510
Author(s):  
Alexandra J. MacDermott ◽  
Laurence D. Barron ◽  
Andrè Brack ◽  
Thomas Buhse ◽  
John R. Cronin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Amino Acids ◽  
Protein Synthesis ◽  
Optical Rotation ◽  
Physical Origin ◽  
Natural Choice ◽  
Rosetta Mission ◽  
Terrestrial Life ◽  
Subsurface Layers ◽  
Solar System Bodies ◽  
Origin Of Homochirality

AbstractThe most characteristic hallmark of life is its homochirality: all biomolecules are usually of one hand, e.g. on Earth life uses only L-amino acids for protein synthesis and not their D mirror images. We therefore suggest that a search for extra-terrestrial life can be approached as a Search for Extra- Terrestrial Homochirality (SETH). The natural choice for a SETH instrument is optical rotation, and we describe a novel miniaturized space polarimeter, called the SETH Cigar, which could be used to detect optical rotation as the homochiral signature of life on other planets. Moving parts are avoided by replacing the normal rotating polarizer by multiple fixed polarizers at different angles as in the eye of the bee. We believe that homochirality may be found in the subsurface layers on Mars as a relic of extinct life, and on other solar system bodies as a sign of advanced pre-biotic chemistry. We discuss the chiral GC-MS planned for the Roland lander of the Rosetta mission to a comet and conclude with theories of the physical origin of homochirality.

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