I believe literary magical realism already is becoming more popular with mainstream readers, in part because editors and publishers have shown themselves willing to allow it through the gates.
Magical realism isn't new, but contemporary writers are using it to dress the old myths in diaphanous new clothing that allows readers to experience the moment of creative arrest, the viewpoint along the highway that allows us, suddenly, to see not just directly ahead and behind but all around ourselves, in directions we may not even have known existed.
I have a sneaking suspicion that's what the mystics have been trying to tell us all this time, that simply following the plot (that awful word) from Point A to Point B is taking the fast, easy, and very narrow road -- the freeway, you might say -- through the wide, rich, and various Land of Story.
We have described literature as a continuing conversation, but we have not been particularly willing to let others come in, or to consider, in its progress, points of view other than our own, the known, the comfortable. And yet the best part of learning, it seems to me, is being let into that conversation, being brought a folding chair and having others move over to make room for us, being invited to say what we think, to hear others say what they think -- and then talking about the differences, the similarities -- examining how our words and ideas connect to the work of others past and present, echoing, supporting, refuting, revising, expanding, sometimes even rocketing off in new directions entirely.
Surely it is our hope as writers to encourage ourselves, each other -- and our readers! -- to take part in this ongoing conversation. Magical realism is the invitation: the extra plate, the empty chair, the door cracked open.
