La Vie Boheme

Magical realism, mythology, and me

I've been reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods, and I started thinking about a discussion I had with Brand not so long ago. Two 'mainstream' authors whose writing infects me with insane jealousy are Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison. Magical realism fascinates me, being able to see the unusual in everyday living. I'd love to write magical realism. Brand's contention was that I couldn't, simply because of who I am. Garcia and Morrison, he said, reflect the cultures from which they come. When, to use his example, Garcia wrote about a very old man with enormous wings, he approached it not from the viewpoint of "wouldn't it be neat if this happened?", but from the viewpoint of "this happened". The cultural mythos of South America has room for fallen angels. I got a similar feel from Morrison, an almost matter of fact tone. In her case, the 'magical' elements of the story are not the point of the story, they're simply a sideline. They're an accepted part of the world she's writing about. The main point of Song of Solomon is not that Milkman's ancestors could fly, but that Milkman learns who he is by learning who his family was.

That, I just realized, is where the line between fantasy and magical realism lies. If Song of Solomon were a fantasy novel, the point would be that Milkman's ancestor flew back to Africa. His subsequent self-discovery would be almost tangential. Whoa. I never got that before.

Anyway, Brand's argument was that my culture (white middle class America) doesn't have that same room for mysticism. I think he's right. Mainstream America does not have a mythology. We're too young. Mythology starts out as an oral tradition, often with pre-literate cultures. Look at the Greeks, the Celts, the Norse. The United States was born a literate nation. Oral traditions were already dying out in Europe when the first Europeans started landing here. As Gaiman posits, the immigrants brought their old gods and mythologies over here with them, then promptly forgot them. We have no reason to develop a mythology, because our history is all there, nice and neatly written down. No one is going to turn George Washington's life story in the Matter of America. Instead of mythology we have history and religion and folklore, not quite the same thing.

So, I think I lack a clear enough perspective to do magical realism, without it seeming strained and contrived. Why would I want to? Why focus so much on the small difference between that and fantasy? Just because Morrison isn't pigeonholed in what Ursula K. LeGuin calls the genre ghetto (she pigeonholed as an African American writer, which is a whole 'nother conversation right there), she gets enormous praise and respect for a novel that, in many respects, has as much in common with Emma Bull or Charles deLint as with Saul Bellow. I want to someday be respected, I want to write really 'literary' stuff. It's extremely difficult to get that respect as a genre writer, and I guess that's part of the reason I resist the label. (Of course, on the other hand, I've noticed it's also tough to find 'literary' genre stuff in the usual genre markets, although this seems to be changing.)

I guess I should quit worrying about labels and concentrate on writing what I write and doing it well. The rest is out of my hands.

Blah

Well, "Midsummer" is off to Fantastic Stories of the Imagination -- thanks everyone for the suggestions. I seem to be having a bit of a dry spell over the past few days. I didn't write much on Sunday, not at all yesterday. Today was one of those days where I managed to get some words down, but they all felt lifeless and flat. Of course, that might be because I feel pretty lifeless and flat today. I'm in "I hate this stupid story" mode on "Computer Dating" -- you know, the point where the whole story seems pointless, the plot seems contrived and trite, and the characters idiotic? It'll pass, I'm sure. I just need to keep working. In the meantime though, I need a nap. Too bad I'm at work.

The good news though: I managed to get the floppy disk out of my laptop finally. Go me.