Magic Fiction

[Nemonymous]

Magic Realism: A settled term: Fiction that creates fiction from reality, e.g. Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie.

Magic Fiction: I define this as Fiction that creates reality from fiction e.g. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

I intend to write an essay about this but not before receiving feedback from others here or elsewhere.

My earlier brainstorming about this:
http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2006/04/fiction.html
which I intend to take further with the dichotomy I've just formed above between Magic Realism and Magic Fiction.

[The Silent One]

Shouldn't it have an "-ism" on it?

Magical realism. Borges seems to have founded it, and Ligotti is part of it, although not by moniker but by concept: His horrors are both absurd (rejecting our current notion of reality) and, by extention, unnerving. They violate the real, then kill it and mutilate it, all without laying a hand once.

[Nemonymous]

Magic(al) Realism is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

I think it very appropriate to the literature discussed here, as you suggest.

I think my division (briefly stabbed at in my first post here) between this and Magic(al) Fiction has not been stated before. Please put me right, if this is otherwise.

I intend to write an essay about this divison - concentrating on the work of Ligotti, Rushdie, Susanna Clarke, HPL, Elizabeth Bowen, Anita Brookner, Rhys Hughes, Mark Samuels, Jonathan Swift, Marcel Proust, William Blake...

But I need some brainstorming feedback first.
des

[The New Nonsense]

Hey Des. This is a subject I'm extremely interested in, and magic(k) in general. When you say,

Quote

Magic Fiction: I define this as Fiction that creates reality from fiction

do you mean the fiction is inherently magical independent of the reader or rather the reader can use the text as a magical tool to alter reality? If it is the later, it is very similar to the concept of "personal paradigms", one of the basic tenets of Chaos Magic (one of the leading schools of contemporary occultism), where anything through belief and WILL may become imbued with magic. Any book may become one's Bible or Necronomicon. The later is a perfect example of how something that was once a fictitious creation is now a physical reality and can be found at your local bookstore (for better or worse). Did Lovecraft's words alter reality? I'd wager they did and are. In other words, magical fiction is not fiction about magic, it IS magic.
William S. Burroughs (a practicing magician) used his "cut-up" method as a tool for divination. He would physically cut up texts and randomly re-arrange them. He believed he was able to interpret hidden messages contained within the newly formed sentences and phrases. By doing so he created his own magical texts. He did the same thing with audio recordings.

[Mr. D.]

Has anyone read the novel Perdo Paramo by Juan Rulfo? He was a mexican writer who published this one novel and a collection of short stories in the 1950's and very little else. However, his small body of work heavily influenced what came to be known as magical realism throughout the Spanish speaking world.
It is the story of a young man who makes a promise to his mother as she lay dying. He would travel to the town of Comala and search for his father, Perdo Paramo. However, though the town is fully inhabited, it is a ghost town. The ghosts are more lively than the young man. Eventually the young man isn't sure if he is alive or if he has become a ghost himself.
it might be of interest to Des for his essay since it was so influential, but it is a fine story on it's own.
Mr. D.

[flaneur]

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. D.";p=&quot

Has anyone read the novel Perdo Paramo by Juan Rulfo? He was a mexican writer who published this one novel and a collection of short stories in the 1950's and very little else. However, his small body of work heavily influenced what came to be known as magical realism throughout the Spanish speaking world. It is the story of a young man who makes a promise to his mother as she lay dying. He would travel to the town of Comala and search for his father, Perdo Paramo. However, though the town is fully inhabited, it is a ghost town. The ghosts are more lively than the young man. Eventually the young man isn't sure if he is alive or if he has become a ghost himself. it might be of interest to Des for his essay since it was so influential, but it is a fine story on it's own. Mr. D.

I'm reading that right now, as it turns out. I discovered it from Jonathan Dunne's excellent Bartleby & Co. (another mystifying figure in literature). Pretty enjoyable.

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by The New Nonsense";p=&quot

When you say, Quote Magic Fiction: I define this as Fiction that creates reality from fiction do you mean the fiction is inherently magical independent of the reader or rather the reader can use the text as a magical tool to alter reality?

How far is it possible to see fiction as fiction that is magic rather than fiction about magic or fiction like magic?

I don't literally mean anything occult or a book of spells, so not really either of your alternatives. People talk of the strength of literature - but then hold back from crossing a certain barrier when describing/interpreting/evaluating (in that order) this very 'strength'. Wasn't there an article about HPL (by Edmund Wilson, Colin Wilson?): "The Strength To Dream'? Does literature possess a non-occult, non-magical (magical as normally defined) 'strength' which is beyond anything imagined before. A quality that needs to be defined, appreciated, trapped, tapped? A competing force to magic as we understand it? An ambition for fiction that exceeds our current ambitions? Why leave fiction as a close-ended conduit for imaginative non-reality? If a so-called magic Realist can create fiction from reality, why can't a Magic Fictionist create reality from fiction: a concept which is in itself a fiction, twirling round in a virtuous circle, till it becomes true in an as yet ungraspable (unmentionable, for fear of being called mad?) arabesque for reality & non-reality which actually is neither?

I feel some writers are doing this - have done this - without realising it.

[Nemonymous]

...or is it the New Magic (a better term than New Weird)?

[yellowish haze]

I first got interested in magic realism when I started reading Graham Joyce a few years ago. The relationship between fiction and reality was always one of my favorite subject.

Magic Fiction? Sounds great. I am looking forward to reading your essay, Des. I am even intending to delve into my copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke to see exactly what you mean.

[Nemonymous]

Thanks everyone, so far.


"Names should be charms - I used to hope that, by saying some of them often enough, I might evoke reality." - Patrick White, `Voss'.

"Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what's going on." - Anonymous.

"I'll be your mirror." - Lou Reed.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - HP Lovecraft.

"One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it." - Elizabeth Bowen.

"'Secret Way!' said Anne, her eyes shining. 'Oh, I hope it's that! Secret Way! How exciting. What sort of secret way would it be, Julian?'
'How do I know, Anne, silly?' said Julian. 'I don't even know that the words are meant to mean "Secret Way." It's really a guess on my part.'"
-- Enid Blyton (Five Go Adventuring Again).
====

Any more quotes as part of this brainstorming exercise??

Des


PS: Talking about an 'arabesque' and loosely coming over to a dance: what is the dance? The people dancing? Or something more intangible?

The Silver Saraband by DFL and MBS (written mid-nineties):
http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/2004/09/06/