Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community (review)

Book Reviews Lois Parkinson Zamora & Wendy B. Faris, eds. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Durham & London: Duke UP, 1995. Pp. ix + 581. Since it first appeared in Germany in 1925, the term "magical realism" has had a rich history encompassing some rather dramatic changes of fortune and venue. Though among the Latin American authors and Latin Americanist scholars who once brought it to special prominence in the 1960s the term has long since lost much of its luster, this has done little— as the volume at hand readily attests—to diminish magical realism's broad and enduring appeal, or to stem its continued propagation in other parts of the post-colonial world, as well as in the so-called metropolitan centers. This impressive and imposing volume does a marvelous job of reviewing and reflecting upon the shifting currents that have constituted magical realism's history. But, above all, the volume seeks itself to embody these more recent trends and, in their witty and eloquent Introduction, the editors openly promote the conversion of magical realism into an "international commodity" as a cause to be championed. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community has been carefully conceived and, for the most part, exquisitely executed by two well-known comparatist scholars with strong Latin Americanist credentials. The editors' decision thoroughly to revisit the history of the term, and not just to add new fuel to the magical realist fires, was key, and lends even more authority to their effort. (I must, however, note with surprise two significant errors of Latin American literary fact I have encountered: El reino de este mundo is Carpentier's second, not first novel [75]; and the author of El mundo es ancho y ajeno is not AgustÃ-n Yáñez but Ciro AlegrÃ-a [116].) Ten of the volume's 23 essays offer essentially new and unpublished material. But the other thirteen are pieces gathered here for reprinting, either in revised or unrevised form, from a variety of disperse and sometimes recondite sources. Presented mostly in the volume's opening section, the reprintings include Franz Roh's original 1925 essay (here followed by a long historical explication by Irene Guenther); Cuban Alejo Carpentier's manifesto for "the marvelous real," dating from the 1940s; two early and mostly forgotten essays by Latin Americans Angel Flores and Luis Leal; and a few contemporary essays in criticism favored by the editors. As was the editors' intention, the essays range widely, both in their approach to the problem of magical realism and especially in the array of primary texts selected for detailed treatment, which cut a wide swath across contemporary Europe, America, Africa and Asia. John Erickson's essay on French-African novels by Khatibi and ben Jelloun, and Susan Napier's discussion of modern Japanese fiction, perhaps best reflect the volume's concerted effort to expand magical realism's scope and reach. As if to bring a certain closure to one chapter in magical realism's history, overall, attention to the key texts of the Latin American boom has been subtly but significantly reduced, and in effect been strategically overtaken by reference to the so-called "post-colonial" literatures, primarily fiction from the former British colonies in India, Canada, Australia and the Caribbean. The volume groups the essays under four general headings: Foundations, Theory, History, Community. This organization highlights the volume's commitment to explore its subject thoroughly and comprehensively, though the categories' presence also demonstrates , as the editors are well aware, how impracticable any neat compartmentalization proves to be. If the opening, "Foundations" section easily qualifies as the most functional and objective heading, the concluding, "Community" section, conversely, most obviously embodies the editors' strategic interests and ideals. But even the more straightforward headings of "Theory" and "History" will admit qualification and amendment. Indeed, paradoxically, it is the "Theory" section that most consistently addresses questions of VOL. XXXVII, No. 3 101 Book Reviews magical realism's literary history, while the essays in the "History" section bring a strong dose of theory to bear on the inscriptions of the historical it addresses. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community does not pretend to provide any final or "magical" solutions to the thorny issues of (theoretical) definition and...