"Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature" by Luis Leal

Leal writes this essay in response to Angel Flores' "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction," specifically to repudiate a number of Flores' points including his definition of magical realism, the authors Flores includes in the movement, and the movement's inception in the year of 1935.

Leal beings with recapping a number of definitions of magical realism, including Roh's statement that "the mystery does not descend to the represented world but rather hides and palpitates behind it;" Arturo Uslar Pietri who states that it is the "consideration of man as a mystery surrounded by realistic facts. A poetic prediction or a poetic denial of reality;" and Carpentier's statement that the marvelous "begins to be unmistakably marvelous when it arises from an unexpected alteration of reality (the miracle), from a privileged revelation of reality" (120).

Leal then launches into descriptions of what, for him, magical realism is not:
"Magical realism cannot be identified either with fantastic literature or with psychological literature, or with surrealist or hermetic literature that Ortega describes. Unlike superrealism, magical realism does not use dream motifs; neither does it distort reality or create imagined worlds, as writers of fantastic literature or science fiction do; nor does it emphasize psychological aspects of characters since it doesn't try to find reasons for their actions or their inability to express themselves. Magical realism is not an aesthetic movement either, as was modernism, which was interested in creating works dominated by a refined style; neither is it interested in the creation of complex structures per se.

"Magical realism is not magic literature either. Its aim, unlike that of magic, is to express emotions, not to evoke them. Magical realism is, more than anything else, an attitude toward reality that can be expressed in popular or cultured forms, in elaborate or rustic styles, in closed or open structures.... In magical realism the writer confronts reality and tries to untangle it, to discover what is mysterious in things, in life, in human acts" (121).

For Leal, Kafka does not qualify because his characters "find the situation intolerable and they don't accept it" and Borges fails because his "principle trait is the creation of infinite hierarchies" and not "the discovery of the mysterious relationship between man and his circumstances" (121-2).

Leal then concludes his essay with a few more statements to show what he finds essential to the magical realist work: "In magical realism key events have no logical or psychological explanation. The magical realist does not try to copy the surrounding reality (as the realists did) or to wound it (as the Surrealists did) but to seize the mystery that breathes behind things.... Let us keep in mind that in these magical realist works the author does not need to justify the mystery of events, as the fantastic writer has to. In fantastic literature the supernatural invades a world ruled by reason. In magical realism 'the mystery does not descend to the represented world, but rather hides and palpitates behind it.' In order to seize reality's mysteries the magical realist writer heightens his senses until he reaches an extreme state [estado limite] that allows him to intuit the imperceptible subtleties of the external world, the multifarious world in which we live" (123).

What complicates Leal's position is his failure to then place writers like Kafka and Borges. Do Kafka or Borges ever "justify the mystery of events" as fantasists should? Clearly, neither "wound" reality as the Surrealists did. I assume Leal would want to categorize Kafka as a fantasist and Borges as a science fiction writer, based on "The Metamorphoses" and "The Garden of Forking Paths" or "The Library of Babel," respectively; yet what would Leal do with Kafka's "Report to an Academy" or "The Judgement," and Borges' "Funes, the Memorius" or "The Alepth"?

The act of definition necessitates the inclusion and exclusion of certain works based on the criteria set forth; for Leal, I presume, the classification of works that do not fill within his definition of magical realism is not his concern. Yet this is unsatisfying for a number of reasons; just because Leal wants a definition of magical realism that is unique to Latin America doesn't mean we have to accept it. For instance, who is to say that Kafka did not reach an extreme state that allowed him to "intuit the imperceptible subtleties of the external world" and found them intolerable? Leal also does not quote Carpentier's statement that the marvelous need not be beautiful, only extraordinary. In order to buy into Leal's definition, one must be content to reject a number of works encompassed by broader definitions of magical realism and, of course, find a category for them. Would Leal be willing to say that all of these works could live together under the wide umbrella of postmodern technique, but keep only the small Latin American subset as specifically magical realist?