Magic Realism shit/not shit

[8ball]

'Modern mythic fantasy' seems a good summing up.

Not read a really good book in ages - used to like stuff like Douglas Adams and Joe Heller - some of the Palahnuikh stuff is good.

 

[Idaho]

I don't agree here. There's plenty of anti heroic fantasy that doesn't have trolls dwarves and a fuedalist lite type blandscape.

Gene Wolfs Book of the Long Sun, Steven Erickson's Malazan stuff, Mieville, even Le Guin. And of course thiers pulp inspired stuff from Hugo Cooke etc.

The insane glut of tolkien inspired sub-Eddings crap clogging the shelves does make the gems harder to find

The real difference between magical reality and fantasy is that fantasy is usually epic. About the battle of good and evil or of humans and destiny, etc.

Magical reality just uses fantasy elements to accent what are usually inward looking stories about people and relationships.

 

[Santino]

The reason that there is this whole complex of definitions is because 'realistic' fiction has become the default meaning when we talk about fiction.

 

[Idaho]

Also because there has been such a conscious (and in many cases snobby and affectatious) attempt to create 'non-genre' fiction that wacky but well written books that don't fall into any genre alll get called magical realism.

 

[mrs quoad]

Pynchon, I resent for prizing the sound of his own skill above the attention of the reader. Vineland was a 3-trier, and while I enjoyed it, I couldn't get more than 150 pages into Gravities Rainbow

*checks Vintage edition*

p.151 is the start of the section that's left me cold (and giving up) four times

Roger and Jessica and the church and vespers and... ffs. ENOUGH!

Could be no coincidence

Eleven pages of dense, bland text (IMO).

Push on through, DC!!! Skip the evil section!!!

 

[sojourner]

100 Years Of Solitude is one of the greatest novels ever written.

But, like all genres, there is toilet a-plenty.

Caveat emptor innit.

Wouldn't say it's the greatest. Hated it when I read it at 21, loved it when I read it last year

And 'But, like all genres, there is toilet a-plenty' - yep

 

[Dillinger4]

*checks Vintage edition*

p.151 is the start of the section that's left me cold (and giving up) four times

Roger and Jessica and the church and vespers and... ffs. ENOUGH!

Could be no coincidence

Eleven pages of dense, bland text (IMO).

Push on through, DC!!! Skip the evil section!!!

Yeh, it was the same for me. Like I said somewhere else, it is like learning to read all over again. It is worth getting through though.