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Comments
Yes, but calling it "fantasy" would be misleading. I mean, it's not like it's called "mundane realism" or anything.
Ninja'd.
>But if you say "fantasy," or even "urban fantasy," people are going to get a very different idea of what you mean.
That's their fault. Fantasy doesn't automatically mean dragons and elves, sci-fi doesn't automatically mean spaceships and lasers.
The only reason the term exists is because people don't want to admit there's magic in their books. It's a new level of splitting genre hairs that don't need to be split so they can make their use of magic acceptable in the randomness that is literary canon.
No, but the genre implies that the fantastic elements are the focus of the story
Er...wouldn't they not put "magic" in the name of the genre, then?
No they just want to have protagonists talk to ghosts occasionally or accidentally contract a genetically engineered virus that gives them neon green herpes sores.
It still doesn't change what the popular perception of those genres are. It's a choice between giving a potentially misleading label and just... using a different term. And fantasy usually implies that there's more... focus (I guess) placed on the non-reality.
>don't want to admit there's magic
>magic realism
sounds legit
EDIT: ninja'd
>Er...wouldn't they not put "magic" in the name of the genre, then?
No they would put 'realism' at the end to make a contradictory term to make it sound deeper. It's basically saying 'I write fantasy for people who don't want to admit they read fantasy'.
Really it's bullshit like this that leads to the creation of genre names like "New Weird" which are really just fantasy, urban fantasy or sci fi of some sort without the obvious trappings of that genre. Its a lazy and quick way to appeal to depth of the product via naming instead of the contents of said product. It's like people who call comics graphic novels.
Nerdrage now that 1984 is not considered a sci-fi in spite of having advanced tech and being set in the future, please.
Oh please I'll reserve more of my ire for sci fi dodging for Oryx and Crake, where the Attwood herself denies it is sci fi vehemently despite the sheer weight gene modification science has on the story and plot.
^^^Right. It's intellectual flotsam meant to appeal to superficial prejudices rather than tell about the actual quality of the product.
Genres exist to tell the reader what to expect. Lumping this genre in with fantasy would be misleading. If I bought a book from the fantasy aisle in a bookstore, but found that it was set in the real world, but a ghost shows up for two pages, I'd be pissed.
Maybe you should have read the back first then.
And this superficial justification of putting it in the 'right part of the bookstore' doesn't fly with me, especially since I've never seen a 'magical realism' section.
Still, in terms of organization, it shouldn't be there at all. Maybe the name for the genre isn't the best one, but it is distinct from fantasy.
But what if the ghost was supposed to be a surprise then?
Well, honestly, beyond organizing books, I've never thought of genres as really needing to exist, so
Genre has its uses, particularly since many writers deliberately confine themselves to a genre. However, what I don't like is this splitting hairs of genre into 'this story with a vampire is fantasy, but this one is magical realism'. which get tinier and tinier and more split to accommodate literary prejudices.
Things very rarely (and shouldn't be) one genre. Things can horror, adventure, romance, fantasy, and comedy all at the same time.
The idea behind Magical Realism (Back in the seventies when the movement started and blah blah blah) wasn't to deny the idea of it being fantasy but it being a sub-genre of fantasy where the magical elements were understated and/or juxtaposed to a realistic setting. Like with anything else, the genre has been stretched and turned into different things because that's what happens with genres, really. *shrug*
Does the fact, that a story has spirit-channelling Magical Native American, make it fantasy? Or would it be a mundane story with a semi-mystical (or possibly mystical) element thrown in? In trope talk, that would also include tropes like Psychic Dreams For Everyone.
Genre fiction can't exist without genres. People like genre fiction. Ergo, genres have a reason to exist.
Not necessarily a great reason, but hey.
Yep.
It should be noted that the term wasn't coined to describe a genre, either, but a movement within fantasy literature. (Which I just realized that sub-genre doesn't quite cover)
Why not?
Because genre fiction relies on being aware of there being a genre and expectations based on this in the first place.
One other thing about magic realism is that there's another perfectly good descriptor for it -- low fantasy, or potentially historical fantasy. I'm all for realism and understated magic, but fantasy is essentially fantasy, no matter how you spin it.
Doesn't low fantasy tend to imply a fictional setting with little magic?
It doesn't really matter -- either are applicable. I mean, you can have low historical fantasy or high historical fantasy. Or you can cut "historical" out altogether -- a setting can still be realistic with different landmasses and changed names.
So I'll throw in some words on Polish SF&F, and then allude that I expect to read about Serbian.
So I'll begin by saying there's a wikipedia page on it.
So, if we disregard the early, pre-War kind, sci-fi began like anywhere else, with stories about spacemen and green-skinned alien civilisations. Of course, given the times, it involved future communist societies and the like, you may call it space socrealism, but with time it freed itself of such elements. Think Lem, but he wasn't the only one and I have a collection of relatively serious stories from back in the day. But you know, the commie part never left. There always were stories depicting totally-not-commie totalitarian systems, metaphors of totalitarian systems, you know the trade. There was a whole literary movement covering that in the Eighties, sociological science fiction. I have read of a professor on a university, interested in the dynamics of power struggles in the Party facing the fall of the system, who wrote a sci-fi novel on it because he wasn't allowed to write a scientific paper. And then the commie system fell. And you know what? Quite a share, I am told, of these writers took to writing non-fiction. At least one is a notable right-wing political commenter and journalist; at first his writing took the form of fantastic (and commenting on politics of the time) adventures of a shameless author avatar (literally - basically himself in his own job - which was a trope on its own, as he wasn't the only writer who did that), then non-fiction, then he went to straight politics. But as the system fell, the gates to Western sci-fi became open for good as well, and as the Nineties came to an end, the wave of SF-tinted political fiction was increasingly mixed with non-political forms.
So, fantasy. I know much less of it. For one, sci-fi was more acknowledged, possibly because it had the aura of science and so on, and the kind of escapism it offered was wholly different to that of fantasy. But, whatever. One writer, whose comments I read, once said that about fantastic names: the hero should have a Germanic-sounding name, with lots of hard consonants, while the land should sound like a cough syrup. Grybrtryg of Asprokol. Yeah, the effect of Western, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic fantasy. There were two translations of The Lord of the Rings, one with original names left, the other attempting to localise. Guess which was more popular. Now, I won't say "and then Sapkowski happened". I don't know enough of the history. But he was, certainly, a big mover. You perhaps saw a poster "we are the Potter generation" on the Internet? The Polish version was pretty much (not literally, but close enough) "LOLWUT, you mean Witcher generation". The dude, apart from Witcher stories, also wrote a Book On Tropes, brought Slavic-sounding names back to glory, had his corner in a sci-fi journal, and worked to popularise RPGs, not to mention that pretty much every later fantasy writer grew up on him (later, as there were contemporaries in time of writing and generation). Okay, I may be overpricing him, but he is quite the most renowned fantasy writer here. So, that much I can say for now.