Yet, Genevieve places her feminine intuition and more objective view of the situation in his path -- and he both treasures and rebels against that. He reached over the counter and took Zofia's handbag right out of her hand. He closed it and then he opened it again. I think he opened it the right way: I don't think he ended up in the dark place. He said to me and Zofia, 'I'll be right back." And then he wasn't there anymore (16).

Zofia as Earth Mother: There are a number of archetypes that humans share in common with each other regardless of chronological timeframe or even culture -- it is simply a matter of expression and definition. One of the most powerful, and ancient of those themes is of the Earth Mother; symbolizing fertility, motherhood, or creation. Artistic representations back to the Paleolithic represent this deity, and it is typically associated with reproduction. However, in the Faery Handbag, we can see Grandmother Zofia as that same character. She is wise, benevolent, but intolerant of negativity and foolhardiness. She has a gift, empathy, that transcends her physical presence in this world as well as the "reality" of what she says. She is quick to smile, and tends to bring out the best and most honest within people. Her character was independent of men (Rustan), but remained romantically attracted to the maleness in him, just not co-dependent. She enjoyed life, lived it to the fullest, and provided the magic for the next generation.

It's Not Nice to Fool With Mother Nature - as the Earth Mother, then, Zofia teaches, but not always by words. Genevieve is magical herself; she must just remember that she is a powerful...

While sad and worried that Jake won't come back -- Mother Nature comes to the rescue:
"Everything will be okay," Zofia said. I wish I could tell you how beautiful she looked right then. It didn't matter if she was lying or if she actually knew that everything was going to be okay. The important thing was how she looked when she said it. She said, with absolute certainty, or maybe with all the skill of a very skillful liar, "My plan will work…" (17-18).

Conclusions: Link's stories in Magic for Beginners are wonderful examples of contemporary magical realism that both entertain, but more cause us to pause and reflect on our own reality -- those feelings of nostalgia, the feelings of premonition, or the unexplainable communication between people and animals, of deja vu, and all the other mysteries of the universe. This, then, is one of the great powers of magical realism -- to intentionally place us in a mode of constantly doing a literary "double-take" or "an ordinary matter, an everyday occurrence -- admitted, accepted, and integrated into the rationality and materiality of literary realism. Magic is no longer quixotic madness, but normative and normalizing. It is a simple matter of the most complicated sort" (Zamora and Faris, eds., 1995, 3).

REFERENCES and WORKS CONSULTED

Helford, E. (2005). In G. Westfahl, ed. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

And Fantasy. Greenwood Press.

Link, K. (2005). Magic for Beginners. Small Beer Press.

Zamora, L. And W. Faris. (1995). Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community.