Gabriel García Márquez and the Magic of Magical Realism

The Genre: Magical Realism Defined

One of the most interesting trends in modern literature is the combination of literary realism and the postmodern tradition. Literary realism focuses on the everyday cultural experience of ordinary people who may, within their otherwise banal lives, do extraordinary things. The postmodern movement, as a reaction to a number of twentieth-century trends, tends to be anti-establishment and looks for meanings hidden within the text — meanings that must be exposed and reflected through the deconstruction of that text (Perkins & Perkins, 2008). But what of authors who combine both genres: those who are slightly anti-establishment, allow for deep contextual symbolism, yet also find wonder in the everyday?

Fortunately, that combination of realism and postmodernism has blossomed globally into a genre called magical realism. The term was actually first used in 1925 by a German art critic commenting on a certain post-World War I style called "New Objectivity," and was later rendered as lo real maravilloso (marvelous reality) in the prologue to a 1949 Carpentier novel called The Kingdom of this World (Abrams, 2004, p. 195).

For the contemporary reader, magical realism is a genre in which magical — or some would say illogical — scenarios and events appear within an otherwise normal setting. The power of this genre lies in the juxtaposition of its two elements: magic and realism. In an everyday, somewhat banal setting, one does not expect magic, the unexpected, or the delightful to occur without a logical explanation. Contrary to many critical interpretations, the basic purpose of this juxtaposition is not simply to entertain; rather, it is a genre designed to provide greater insight into the possibilities of both the human and the divine — the belief that not everything that happens can, or should, be explained rationally, and that as advanced as we are as a species, there are still things to learn about the universe. This is encapsulated neatly in Arthur C. Clarke's famous Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Biography: Early Life and Literary Formation

One remarkable example of this genre in the contemporary world is the author and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. Márquez belongs in today's most important literary canon for works that not only bring Latin American literature into global prominence, but also reflect a marvelous and magical blending of history, legends, and folktales into contemporary consciousness.

Márquez was born in 1928 in a tiny Colombian village in the coastal region. He was the eldest of twelve children and was raised predominantly by his maternal grandparents and an extended family of aunts and great-aunts. These formidable women were constant storytellers who wove legend, myth, and superstition into tales of heroism, love, and tragedy. His grandfather, by contrast, was full of stories of past military might and nostalgia. The combination proved seminal for Márquez (Martin, 2009, pp. 3–58).

After his grandfather's death, Gabriel went away to school, eventually studying journalism at the University of Cartagena. In 1950 he became a columnist for El Heraldo in the city of Barranquilla, and though desperately poor, he became acquainted with a number of writers, intellectuals, poets, and journalists. These poor but intellectually hungry individuals would meet at local cafés to read and discuss world politics and great writers. It was here that Gabriel encountered authors who would prove extremely influential to his life and later style: Hemingway, Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Kafka, Joyce, and even Joseph Conrad (Bell-Villada, ed., 2005).

The Magic of Márquez: Key Novels Analyzed

One of the best ways to understand Márquez is to read his stories, ideally in the original Spanish. His use of imagery and graphic symbolism is unparalleled, evoking a time and place that is colorful and imaginative yet filled with pathos. It is perhaps this juxtaposition between love and death, pathos and elation, the routine of life and the vision of magic, that makes his works so broadly accessible.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, we are introduced to the story of the Buendía family. Even from the opening line the reader is thrown into a world where the present, past, and future intersect — possible only within the human psyche: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." The primary focus of the novel is individual solitude and what that constitutes for each person. For some, solitude is loneliness; for others, seclusion; for still others, it is feeling isolated in the midst of a crowded room. Yet it is the nature of this solitude — how each character both defines and develops it — that becomes the true empowering force of this very human trait. This intertwines with the way solitude contributes to love and passion, or, at worst, how it prevents love and passion from coming to fruition.

Like one of Márquez's favorite stories, Oedipus Rex, the very attempt to prevent a prophecy from occurring almost guarantees that it will take place. It is also in this novel that the reader can almost hear the influence of Márquez's grandmother and aunts telling story after story — reliving life the way it should have been had the young people only listened. Márquez acknowledged that in theme and motif this work unmistakably reflects magical realism, natural, he said, because of a long tradition of paganism interspersed with Catholicism and such a vibrant ancestry. In one interview, Márquez noted:

"Clearly, the Latin American environment is marvelous. Particularly the Caribbean. To grow up in such an environment is to have fantastic resources for poetry. Also, in the Caribbean, we are capable of believing anything, because we have the influences of [Indian, pirate, African, and European] cultures, mixed in with Catholicism and our own local beliefs. I think that gives us an open-mindedness to look beyond apparent reality" (Sidelights, 2006).

Similarly, Love in the Time of Cholera, set between the 1870s and the 1930s, tells the story of a man who waits over fifty-one years to be with the woman he loves. Not only is it a story of first love and its ability to transcend time and space, but it is also an exploration of the true nature of that love — how, despite any number of intrusive events (wars, political crises, other relationships), this celebration of feeling goes to the very heart of Márquez's optimism about the human spirit.

Aging, then, is what ultimately allows Florentino and Fermina — Márquez's Romeo and Juliet — to understand that it is the cyclical nature of human life (aging, decay, and death) that comes for everyone regardless of social status, political leanings, or wealth. The novel is equally a testament to the power of sensuality and the notion that youth is wasted upon the young. And yet, despite the eventual bliss the two lovers attain, they are not the same people they were when they made their vow of love. The world, too, is not the same; for Márquez it has become somewhat apocalyptic in nature. As their love is finally set free to grow, the external landscape has changed so profoundly that even nature has been reduced to a series of alterations and ambiguities. Magically, though, it is this passage through time that allows the landscapes of the mind to flow into sensuous prose and sensual texture.

Conclusion: Legacy and Literary Importance

Márquez's body of work now spans five decades. He has served as a role model for thousands and has brought the plight and world of Latin America to millions. His importance to the literary world is indisputable, and his place in the canon of influential writers of the late twentieth century should be a foregone conclusion. As one scholar observed, "No one can deny that García Márquez has helped rejuvenate, reformulate, and decontextualize literature and criticism in Colombia and the rest of Latin America" (Sims, 1994).

References

Abrams, M. (2004). A Glossary of Literary Terms (8th ed.). Heinle Press.

Bell-Villada, G., Ed. (2005). Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez. University Press of Mississippi.

Esquivel, L. (1998). Like Water for Chocolate. Anchor Books.

Hamilos, P. (April 2, 2009). "Gabriel García Márquez, literary giant, lays down his pen." The Guardian.

Martin, G. (2009). Gabriel García Márquez: A Life. New York: Knopf.

McCurry, J. (2003). "Review — The General in His Labyrinth." Tryst3.com.

Nichols, J. (2000). The Milagro Beanfield War. McMillan.

Perkins, G. and B. Perkins. (2008). The American Tradition in Literature. McGraw-Hill.

Sidelights. (August 9, 2006). "Love in the Time of Cholera." Caboodles Book Club in a Bag.

Sims, R. (1994). "Dominant, residual, and emergent." Latin American Research Review, 29(2), 223–224.

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