Magical Realism

"Our fairy tales also have their roots in this prehistoric darkness, and the hidden geometry that survives in them is... a lost cosmology of correspondences that connect the flowers to the stars. It requires an act of imagination to bring it forth..."

So imagination is how we - so focused on the sandwich we're going to eat for lunch or the snow forecast - are able to attempt to understand the universe. Our inventiveness is how we approach the subject of the cosmos from the self-centered awareness we normally carry.

Magical realism is a genre in both art and literature that knits together the objective with the subjective. It's a jolt of the unknown juxtaposed with the commonplace.  This is that fantasy bridge between the real and the surreal. This is a way for our society to ease into broadening their awareness to encompass more than just themselves.


Two examples would be The Swimmer - as the story begins realistically before sliding into the more unrealistic - and The Night Sea Journey - as the topics of creation and purpose and religion are discussed from at the beginning what seems to be a man, before delving into the land of personifying sperm.

Just as we have the assignment to convert a fairytale to something more "realistic", every author also is a converter of myths whether they realize it or not. All literature incorporates some tie to the mythical, and so every work of literature must also belong to the category of magical realism to some degree.

                                                                    ernst thoms

                                                                   ernst thoms

                                                                 ernst thoms

                                                                      pierre roy

                                                                     pierre roy

                                                                pierre roy

The present is nothing but an accumulation of the past.

Is anything truly original? Previous works, metaphors, and ideas fundamentally influence literature. How can anything be original if it’s based on millennia of tradition? People search for a purpose in life, but anything they could come up with would only self-created. The only true purpose in life is to be that carrier of the genetic code, to transfer a million years of human life and adaptation on. Complete originality is impossible; everything is influenced by something that came before, all the way to the beginning of time.

There must have been a single point at the beginning of all time in which something was completely original. From there stemmed the rest. This first something, the originator of everything, what could it possibly be? The answer must lie in everything then, and it would be the ultimate answer to every question.