What is the point of this genre?
>>24885375Fantasy for fartsniffers pretending to be scared of genrebooks.
>>24885375i don't know what you mean by 'point'. but somewhere fredric jameson says that latin american magical realism was a way of capturing how a precapitalist mode of production in that that continent coexisted alongside capitalism. the mystical, ancient and irrational sat side by side, as a living reality, with the practical, cynical world of commerce and industry. compare with gothic horror, in which the feudal past returns to haunt you but is only spooky because the audience knows it to be, in reality, dead.
>>24885375To make you glad that we live in dreary but predictable objective reality instead of a world where random shit happens that makes you feel like you are insane.
>>24885404>muh capitalismdude stfu 20th century thinkers are so fucking lazy
I don't really get this genre or what differentiates itself from fantasy.
>>24885418so a popular book from my country is zoo city, which just has people but they have pokemon following them that represent their sins or vices. it seems like the genre is based in the real world as far as possible but has fantastical elements, along with parable type symbolism.
>>24885375I like it because it actually feels less contrived than regular realism. The latter is transparently invented and a futile attempt to replicate the complexities of the world while magical realism when done well captures emotional realities while trimming the tedious details and baggage demanded by realism.
Magical realism is more a style than a genre and there are no real classics in that sense. As a style >>24885404It definitely has strong roots in Latin America other than obviously reflecting the fairy tale and other poetic devices in general.
>>24885375It's a vehicle for a story.
>>24885416the point of seeing how something like the gothic was an unconscious effect of commerce is so that one day we can arrange our commerce to consciously produce things like the gothic. i don't see what's lazy about that approach to history, it seems the first-step towards a very ambitious goal. is it somehow less lazy to relate everything back to an unchanging 'psychology of the reader'?
>>24885467so how does "capitalism" explain the fact that magical realism was only really a thing in latin america?
>>24885416you can replace "capitalism" with "modernity" if you want. They are essentially equivalent, and i suspect saying that>latin american magical realism was a way of capturing how a pre-modern worldviews in that that continent coexisted alongside modern worldviewswould not trigger you so much, and maybe even be kind of insightful.
>>24885515well yes this one of those lamest parts of marxoid pablum, the conflation of capitalism with modernity, as if the communist world didn't experience the same dramatic changes during brutal forced "five year plans" to industrialize
To put you in the head of a premodern person I guess?
I call it half ass fantasy.
>>24885533Ok sure, socialist projects were very much part of modernity, but socialism builds off the historical developments of capitalism. the advent of capitalism is the advent of modernity, and the aim of socialist projects was to transmute that into something else from within modernity. To get into the nitty gritty 'marxoid pablum' you are confusing yourself with, the 'communist world' would not consider itself to have reached communism. Thats why they generally call themselves socialist, defined as the transition phase towards communism. They were acutely aware they werent out of modernity yet.
>>24885597>lame marxist handwaving to dismiss the fact that communism sucked worse than capitalismimagine falling for this
>>24885607Have you lived in a communist country?No? Then shut the fuck up pseud
>>24885607I know you dont like Marxism and cannot talk about it without doing these childlike affirmations to yourself that you are totally so right and everyone that disagrees with you is totally stupid. You can shut up about it. Im just explaining why capitalism and modernity are in fact intertwined if not equivalent, and how socialist projects being part of modernity are not a contradiction of that. The argument is neutral on whether those socialist projects (or modernity!) sucked or not.
>>24885375Isn't that Novalis' philosophy?
>>24885651so then talk about modernity or industrialization, not "capitalism". if someone says freud is full of shit, this crew of simps won't show up to defend him, but state that marxism isn't some infallible tradition but really a somewhat dopey modernist ideology and marx defense force shows up to shill u down. so tiresome.
>>24885375The point is to pretend that Latin America has a great literature that's not at all lowbrow genre trash.
>>24885404That's a big cow
>>24885734Marquez is the best novelist of the 20th century
>>24885375Here's a good example. Mundane 1990s suburban setting, until it's discovered that there exists a single vast attic connecting all homes with an attic trap door.https://alexbeyman.substack.com/p/the-universal-attic
>>24885449>I like it because it actually feels less contrived than regular realism. The latter is transparently invented and a futile attempt to replicate the complexities of the world while magical realism when done well captures emotional realities while trimming the tedious details and baggage demanded by realism.There's always ways you can "elevate" the real world without sounding ridiculous. "What if payphones were still a thing?" can still work instead of "dragons and unicorns in suburbia".>>24885383The real problem is the fantasy genre is more or less copy-and-pasted from Tolkien, therefore you can't really do any advanced world-building that doesn't sound like parody. A wandering knight can't walk into a bar and have the friendly barkeep pull some limes out of the refrigerator. Steampunk allows for steam-powered stuff, naturally, but even that genre is even more pigeonholed with impractically large machinery and stupid hats.
>>24886809To me magical realism done well as opposed to realism is like the difference between a metaphor and an objective description. Mythology always contains fantastical elements yet feels more true than any realist novel because it's more charged and immediate, cutting right to the heart of the matter. You feel before you understand, while a literal description of walls and character quirks reminds you that some writer is attempting to convince you of his perspective while claiming neutrality.
Genre discourse was a massive thing until recently for some reason. It probably stems from "literary fiction" snobs unwilling to call their stuff "urban fantasy" or whatever. I listen to old radio interviews with authors and roll my eyes with how prevalent genre discourse was back in the day, like who gives a fuck!
>>24886809>fantasy genre is more or less copy-and-pasted from Tolkien,What. Basically the only reason you would think this is if your only exposure to fantasy was dnd and video games. You have the pre-tolkien pulp, moorecock, vance, zelazney, brandon sanderson. You have urban fantasy, historical fantasy, steampunk, and (to varying degrees) grimdark/romantasy. All that's ignoring other countries' fantasy genres like wuxia, xanxia, and xuanhuan. Plenty of other weird stuff that doesn't fit into any boxes too like the wraeththu series
>>24886624Buy an ad, beyman
>>24885671> if someone says freud is full of shitI think the issue here is, by analogy, that nobody brought up Freud by name, only mentioned a psychoanalytical term that actually preceded Freud by a lot, and was popularized without his involvement, which in turn somehow triggered someone to go "dude stfu with your fucking Freudism"
>>24885375Magical realism is just realism
