Do you “Really” Believe in Magic? An Introduction to Gabriel Garcia-Marquez & Magical Realism

Do you Believe in Magic? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDYNuD4CwlI As you listen to the lyrics, mark instances of magic referenced in the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDYNuD4CwlI   Let’s discuss!

Magical-Realism Authors Jorge Luis Borges – Argentina, 1899-1986 Guenter Grass – Germany, 1927- 2015 Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Columbia, 1928 – 2014

Don’t let a stranger into your room!

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Beginning Born on March 6, 1927 in Aracataca, Columbia Son of Gabriel Eligio Garcia and Luisa Santiaga Marquez Eldest of 12 children

Grandparents’ Influence Luisa's parents did not approve of her marriage to a telegraph operator. When father chose to move to enhance his career, they sent Gabriel to live with his maternal grandparents. His grandparents Colonel Nicolas Ricardo Marquez Mejia and Dona Tranquilina Iguaran raised him for 8 years Gabriel returned to his parents after his grandfather died and his grandmother became increasingly helpless due to going blind.

Grandparents’ Influence Grandmother : *“Treated the extraordinary as something perfectly natural.” *Filled the house with stories of ghosts, premonitions, and omens – all of which grandfather ignored *“The source of the magical, superstitious and supernatural view of reality.” AKA “Papalelo” : *Liberal veteran of the Thousand Days War *Refused to remain silent about the “banana massacres” *Instead of fairy tales, recounted horrifying accounts of civil war *Political and ideological views shaped by grandfather’s stories

A Writer Emerges… Began career as a journalist writing for El Universal in Cartagena while studying law at the National University of Columbia Used pseudonym “Seplimus” while writing whimsical column for local paper El Heraldo in Barranquilla Active membership of writers and journalist group known as the “Barranquilla Group” motivated and inspired him Unique perspective on Caribbean culture GGM depicted Roman Vinyes (short story writer & book seller) as Old Catalan, a bookstore owner in OHYS Wrote editorials and film critiques for Bogota’s El Espectador

Name in Spotlight Ending in controversy, his last editorial for El Espectador was a series of fourteen news articles in which he revealed the hidden story of how a Colombian Navy vessel’s shipwreck “occurred because the boat contained a badly stowed cargo of contraband goods that broke loose on the deck.” Survivor’s account (cargo) vs. officials’ account (due to storm)

“Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez His True Love… GGM met Mercedes Barcha while she was in college; they decided to wait for her to finish before getting married. When he was sent to Europe as a foreign correspondent, Mercedes waited for him to return to Barranquilla. They finally wed in 1958.

“My heart has more rooms in it than a whore house.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez His Heart Expands… A year after wedding, their first son, Rodrigo Garcia, now a television and film director, was born. In 1961, the family traveled throughout the southern US Eventually settled in Mexico City. Three years later the couple’s second son, Gonzalo, currently a graphic designer in Mexico City, was born.

Leaf Storm (La Hojarasca) first novella Seven years to find a publisher (1955). Garcia Marquez noted that “of all that he had written (as of 1973), this was his favorite because… it was the most sincere and spontaneous.” All the events in the novella take pace in one room, during a half- hour period on Wednesday, September 12, 1928. Supported only by his daughter, it is a story of an old colonel who tries to give a proper burial to an unpopular French doctor. Exemplifies Garcia Marquez’s stream of consciousness style of writing and provides a feminine point of view.

A Family Vacation Ruined, But… Imagine going on a much anticipated vacation as a child with your family. You and your younger sibling are lost in battles of car games. Ever wonder what your parents may be thinking as they drive?

A Family Vacation Ruined, But… Since he was eighteen, he wanted to write a novel based on his grandparents’ house where he grew up. However, he struggled with finding an appropriate tone and put off the idea … …. until one day the answer hit him while driving his family to Acapulco. He turned the car around and the family returned home so he could begin writing!

An Unlikely Beginning through Perseverance and Dedication He sold his car so his family would have money to live on while he wrote. Unfortunately, writing the novel took far longer than he expected. He wrote every day for eighteen months. He wife had to ask for food on credit from their butcher and their baker, as well as, nine months of rent on credit from their landlord. Fortunately, when the book was finally published in 1967, it became his most commercially successful novel. Which novel you may wonder????

Which Cover Whispers to YOU? One Hundred Years of Solitude has sold more than 30 million copies.

O H Y S The story chronicles several generations of the Buendia family from the time they founded the fictional South American village of Macondo, through their trials and tribulations, instances of incest, births and deaths. The history of Macondo is often generalized by critics to represent rural towns throughout Latin America or at least near Garcia Marquez’s native Aracataca.

One Hundred Years Solitude Garcia Marquez received the Nobel Prize and the Ramulo Gallegos Prize in 1972. Fellow writer William Kennedy has called it “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” GGM downplayed his success by remarking, “Most critics don’t realize that a novel like [OHYS] is a bit of a joke, full of signals to close friends; and so, with some preordained right to pontificate they take on the responsibility of decoding the book and risk making terrible fools of themselves.”

The Legend’s Final Years Other popular works: Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). In 1999, he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. After chemotherapy the cancer went into remission and he went into solitude to write his memoirs. Symptoms of dementia stopped his writing in 2012. Died of pneumonia at the age of 87 on April 17, 2014.

Guenter Grass German novelist born in 1927. As a teenager he was drafted in 1944 and taken prisoner of war by U.S. forces in May 1945. Released in 1946. Best known for his Danzig Trilogy: The Tin Drum (1959), Cat and Mouse (1961), and Dog Years (1963). Literary style combines elements of magical realism, themes pertaining to WW2, intermingling realistic autobiographical elements with unreliable narrators, satirizes events to form social critiques

Jorge Borges Argentine story-writer born in 1899. Best known for Ficciones and El Aleph, both published in 1940s are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes, including dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, philosophy, time, and religion. Became completely blind by 55; since he never learned Braille, he could no longer read. His progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. Literary style included mixture of real and the fantastic and “Borgesian” (narrative non-linearity or “forking paths in time”).

Beginnings of Magic Realism Literary Magic Realism originated in Latin America Writers travelled between home and Europe Surrealistic art movement of 1920’s influenced these writers

Elements of Magical Realism Fantastical Elements: portrays fantastical events in realistic tone. Fantasy traits given to characters, such as levitation, telepathy, telekinesis, etc. Real-World Setting: writers reveal the magical in this world Authorial Reticence: deliberate withholding of information about the disconcerting fictitious world. The narrator is indifferent, and the story proceeds as if nothing extraordinary took place. Plenitude: extravagantly ornate in layering disorienting details

Elements of Magical Realism Hybridity: employ hybrid multiple planes of reality that take place in inharmonious arenas such as urban and rural. Metafiction: 1) fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, and 2) where the textual world enters into the reader’s (our) world Heightened Awareness of Mystery: reader must release preexisting ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, etc. Political Critique: implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite. Primarily about geographically, socially and/or economically marginalized

Magical Realism Criticism: Because you can’t please everyone… Ambiguities in Definition: Mexican critic Luis Leal stated, “If you can explain it, then it’s not magical realism.” Western and Native Worldviews: stems from the Western reader’s disassociation with mythology, a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures. These texts do not explain reality using natural or physical laws. Lo Real Maravilloso (The Marvelous Real): Both Marvelous and Magical Realism texts include supernatural events which are expected and accepted; however Marvelous world is unidimensional – the ENTIRE world is filled with supernatural and it is DIFFERENT than OUR world.

Magical Realism Criticism: Because you can’t please everyone… Latin American Exclusivity: Latin American invention versus global product of a postmodern world. Postmodernism: really just another term for magical realism because they share writing styles. In the eye of the writer and how he views audience… the “popular audience” (fictitious) versus “sophisticated audience”(philosophical).