‘Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems – but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible’ Salman Rushdie
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It is the presentation of the magical as realistic that is at the
heart of magical realism. But it is also the reaction to ordinary
mundane things as unbelievable that marks magical realism.
This is called defamiliarisation and it happens all the time in our reality.
Suggesting you have taken on magical realism as your
political perspective may in fact lessen the air of apathy
that would have otherwise hung over you. Is it not just
the very nature of life to be a bitter sweet marriage of
extraordinary and mundane elements? Is not new life
born of tragedy? Who am I to stop the flow of the world?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez said something along the lines of his
writing being social realism and that what he wrote actually
reflected the society from which he was writing.
Magical realism is the western name for something we cannot imagine being an aspect of the everyday. Perhaps what can be gleaned from Garcia Marquez’s comments is that our Western perspective is far too narrow.
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