R E A D E R R E S P O N S E
The Meaning of Madness in Magical Realism
BY TAMARA KAYE SELLMAN
Comment from GARRETT ROWLAN ~ October 12, 2005
[I] read your essay regarding madness, Don Q, and magic realism. It got me thinking about a couple of things. First, the idea of madness in magic realism seems more like a deviation from the norm rather than a complete alteration. When madness descends on Jose Aureliano toward end of the first part of One Hundred Years of Solitude, [it] feels like a veering descent from the rational because the atmosphere of the entire book is irrational, illogical, and unreal, if you get my drift.Second comment from GARRETT ROWLAN ~ November 17, 2005Secondly, how to represent the external world as participating in a character's madness in any novel of magic realism? I've been reading Mark Cousin's The Story of Film and came across this question in relation to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Which is, citing the bizarre imagery in the film, "Whose point of view does the imagery …represent? If it is that of the audience, the behavior of the characters may continue to be dreamlike or insane, but the setting will be naturalistic, because the audience is not insane. If it represents some kind of objective, all-seeing storyteller …then this storyteller will not see the whole world as distorted." My point being that the representation of madness in magic realism will straddle questions such as these.
[I] briefly re-read your column on madness and magic realism. I was thinking of the book I am currently reading, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The question is the same as regards The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; which is, on what side of a character's madness does the audience stand? It seems a question that is a lot more critical when a story is told visually. Reading James' story I can accept that the "ghosts" that the governess sees may, or may not, be in her head. However, I was talking to a friend of mine who saw the story turned into a play who said that in the play the "ghost" can be seen by the audience at the window, which I guess would ruin the entire point upon which the novella rests, the uncertainty as to whether she is crazy or not.Third comment from GARRETT ROWLAN ~ December 1, 2005Anyway, keep up the good work.
I was reading Art: A New History by Paul Johnson and I came to some of the fantastical sketches by Piranesi, and it got me thinking some more about your article on madness and magic realism. I'm beginning to think that magic realism, in the fullest sense of the word, is more a literary or written matter than a visual one. I'm going to try and say what I mean.Tamara Sellman responds ~An artist, such as Piranesi can be "imaginary" or even "mad" and paint pictures which are reflective of that condition, and yet it isn't magic realism, which I feel needs an intervening consciousness, more than which drawing or painting allows, to stand between his or her audience and the work in question. Matters such as narration, voice, and other appurtenances of writing are necessary.
In pictures, the fantastic nature of the work is presented to us immediately. We, as perceivers, are thrust into the artist's world with little opportunity to appreciate what is real about the work. Piranesi's drawing, for example, do have elements of realism—he drew prisons, and what could be more realistic than that?—and yet what we see is nothing like we've really seen before, We move straightaway into the unreal nature of his work.
Motion pictures occupy an intermediate position. A movie like Fantastic Creatures, for example, gives us an idea of magic realism through the imaginative world of the protagonists. But it seems to me that film must soon resort to the "language" with things like point-of-view shots, close-ups, and so forth to show us what's going on in a character's mind. These techniques pull us out of the world and into the characters' minds. Otherwise, we are likely to see a world that is neither real nor magical but simply insane. I mentioned The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in an earlier letter. If the fantastic things we see aren't part of the character's imagination, then we have no basis for determining how what we see is real.
Fiction, it seems to be, offers the fullest opportunity to enter the domain of magic realism. There are two reasons for this. The first is that through fiction the world the writer depicts is developed in a more nuanced and convincing manner, instead of film's shorthand way of "establishing" time and place. The second is that we trust, in a good writer, his or her "voice," and the way we witness events through an intervening consciousness rather than see them projected, as we do in film. Though this consciousness may be unreliable, as in The Turn of the Screw, we are still grounded in their world.
I keep coming back to One Hundred Years of Solitude, It seems to me to fulfill the literary conditions that I find nearest to the ideal of magic realism.
Anyway, thanks for everything, including publishing my musings, and keep up the good work.
This is a subject I'm still wrapping my mind around, Garrett. Thanks so much for your insights. I hope to address your points in a separate follow-up to the initial column some time in the future. I'll let you know when that happens.CLICK HERE to send your response to Tamara Sellman's essay or to the comments posted above. All comments are subject to publication. Join the fun! Tell us what you think!
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