(no subject)

[healingmirth]

Okay, so, with the caveat that I have not taken a literature course in nearly 20 years (so in addition to the perpetual odds that I am wrong, maybe I am missing a wider debate or cultural difference or something else that didn't show up on the first page of google results.)

Isn't Magical Realism a fairly specific genre? Like, just from the summaries in the Alternate Universe - Magical Realism tag, I'm getting what seems like more nopes than yesses.

(If it sounds like Harry Potter - not magical realism. If it sounds like Dresden Files - not magical realism. If there be dragons in modern London... Maybe. Depends how you use them.)

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I think I might be overcaffeinated. And the cat was being a total jerk five minutes go, but now he's asleep.

Comments

[silverr]

The wikipedia article on Magical Realism seems relatively comprehensive, and from that I'd agree that HP is not magical realism (while I suuppose The Golden Compass is) because in HP magic is treated as something special that needs to be hidden from the Muggles. If everyone in the HP world could do magic, and if it were treated as No Big Thing, then I guess it might be magical realism.

I think you're right about the dragon thing, too. Again, it seems like how the magic fits into the environment is an important criteria; if people paid no more attemtion to a dragon flying overhead then we do to a helicopter or jet, then I think you might have magical realism.

I could be wrong, though: I just got up and I'm undercaffeinated.

[taliahale]

Sam (copperbadge) did up a few posts on magical realism over at his pro site. *digs around for links* Graduate Level Fumbling, That Fantasy Book Is a Fantasy Book, and Learning From Television.

[dirty_diana]

Yeah it sounds like some of those people mean urban fantasy? In general I feel like alternate universe and magical realism are contradictory labels? It should be more like, the regular universe, where weird shit occasionally happens.