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3. In your experience, has using the term "magical realism" in a discussion ever been problematic? If so, why?

M. ELIZA HAMILTON ABEGUNDE, Writer/Healing Facilitator, Chicago, IL

Not problematic. Revelatory, particularly in reference to my own work. However, I am confused with the term 'speculative fiction.'

KELLI RUSSELL AGODON, Poet/Mother/Editor, Washington State/USA

First, many people equate Magical Realism with Science Fiction, or (and this is most problematic), unicorns and fairies.

FORREST AGUIRRE, inventory analyst and managing editor for Ministry of Whimsy press, Madison, WI

Absolutely. The term has never been defined. Personally, I tend to view LMR as a shade of fantasy. One might produce a scale that, on the one end, is labeled LMR, and on the other, high fantasy (ie, fantasy in which the action takes place on an entirely different world, or not on a world at all). Surreality might appear somewhere on that scale, though I'm not sure exactly where. I'm sure someone with more time than me could make a rather sophisticated graphic representation, but suffice it to say that I view LMR as a shade of fantasy. Others would argue that it is not at all fantasy, but mainstream work injected with some very slight supernatural element.

DOUG ANDERSON, Editor, KLANG, Seattle, WA

In discussions with myself I wonder how useful it is. Sometimes straight-on description of every day things can seem magical. I think of some of Saul Bellow's descriptions in Herzog, of crickets, trees. In one passage he makes a mini novel of a tree's changing appearance during a season. Magical.

ANONYMOUS, translator, Spain

Because so little has been mentioned about magical realism using this term, now it is hard to manage to encapsulate what is purely magical realism in magical realism. Magical realism has grown like weeds in a garden and it is difficult to name exactly what the term covers.

JOE BENEVENTO, Professor of English, Truman State University and writer (fiction and poetry), Kirksville, MO
jbeneven@truman.edu

Well, I teach Latin American literature in translation, usually at the graduate level, and we just spent a whole semester trying to define and classify what it might be. So, yes, often problematic, but in a positive way -- that's what magical realism is like -- it seeks out the problematic -- wants to keep you in the problematic, rather than ever settling for a numbing complacency.

DARIO CIRIELLO, decorative painter, US

It occasionally needs to be defined

ELLEN DATLOW, fiction editor, US

Yes, because it's become meaningless in reference to the original meaning. As a result, someone referring to the narrower term can no longer communicate as easily with someone using it as it seems to be used today.

GLENDA GUEST, writer/academic, Australia
glendaguest@ozemail.com.au

Yes -- for those who are not fairly widely read in a variety of literature the term is either unfamiliar or conjures up the thought of fairies and elves! To try to define the mode for these people often tends to make it even more confusing, considering the nebulousness and flexibility of it all.

JAY MISKOWIEC, publisher & professor of English, Mpls. Community and Technical College, Minneapolis, MN
information@aliformgroup.com

No. With clear examples, it's easy enough to explain.

DON MUCHOW, sales, Dallas, TX
muchow@earthlink.net

Only to the extent that some individuals appear to be inveterate hair-splitters. But dialogue with such people is invariably problematic regardless of the topic.

DORENE O'BRIEN, writing teacher

Are you asking if people take exception to it or if they are unfamiliar with the term? The only confusion I've encountered is from people asking the difference between magical realism and magic realism.

JOHN PROHASKA, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
muchow@earthlink.net

No. I have had to explain the term and/or cite examples, but it's never been a problem.

SARAH WEBB QUEST, freelance writer, South Yarmouth, MA

No. The definition is easy to understand: Magical elements in a realistic setting.

KEN RAND, "semi-fulltime writer;" dayjob: part-time library shelver, West Jordan, UT
KRand27577@aol.com

I live in Utah, where conformity to a macroculture is standard. It's a homogenized society. Standard. Like Joseph Campbell said, you have to leave the city to find new material. This culture epitomizes the need for the city fathers to accentuate the status quo and de-emphasize radical thinking -- thinking very much at all. The topic seldom comes up, and when it does, the discussion is about evil and sin and other tropes of the True Believer. I have to go to Wyoming or Washington to get Serious Questions and Discussion.

JUSTINA ROBSON, writer, UK

No. But then I am a middle class chatterer with a lengthy education and so are most of my friends. Most people I know seem a touch nervous about it, because they don't know a lot and they're the type of conscientious persons who fear exposure of their lack of knowledge! It's a term bandied loosely about in literary circles I've been to, mostly when someone wants to distance themselves from the fantasy genre. Like the term Speculative Fiction is used to distance oneself from Science Fiction.

MARJORIE ROMMEL, Publicist/Media Relations Consultant, City of Auburn, Washington; Teacher, Pacific Lutheran University (Poetry), Pierce College (Fiction/Biography), Highline College (Creative Writing), Auburn, WA
mrommel@qwest.net

Yes. The term magical realism seems a misnomer in that the term magic indicates a belief in human power over the real world, and realism indicates acquiesance to the belief that humans have little if any power over even their own lives, let alone the rest of it. Realism indicates reliance on quantification, qualification -- on acceptance of the existence only of things you can walk up and touch, or hold in your hand.

There's a serious cognitive disjunction at work here. In truth, magical realism is much more inclined to point out that we humans are connected to each other and all things, and that this unseen and therefore magical or spiritual connection yields a kind of communication the so-called rational mind is unwilling to accept.

Magical realism is not an easy term to come to terms with or explain to the uninitiated; still, I can't think of a better.

GARRETT ROWLAN, substitute teacher, US
growlan@jps.net

I haven't discussed magic realism deeply enough, if at all, to make the discussion problematic.

ANDY SAWYER, librarian and lecturer, Liverpool, England
a.p.sawyer@liverpool.ac.uk

Well, I've described a writer as magical realist and he's told me he doesn't like the term (preferring visionary realist). As I see it, magical realism is a term which may be best applied to certain Latin American writers writing within their particular tradition of the fantastic, so as I was referring to an English writer I may well have been wrong. If magical realism is a particular kind of fantasy, which I also believe, I may have been right.

TAMARA KAYE SELLMAN, editor and publisher/MARGIN

This question resides at the core of MARGIN's purpose. We hope to change the contentious environment a little -- but not by boiling the form down to a single, one-size-fits-all definition. I am comfortable with providing a harbor for continuous dialog, knowing that there will never be a time when everyone will agree. (Some of us do better with negative capability than others.)

BARBARA STEINHAUSER, writer, Parker, CO

Sure. Few lay people know what it means much less other writers I know.

ISAAC SWEENEY, full-time journalist, full-time grad student (English, creative writing concentration), Harrisburg, VA
lovefaithhopedreams@hotmail.com

Yes. Sometimes there is a thin line between other forms of writing and magic realism. Peter Pan is a good example. When the characters are in England and Pan first shows up, chasing his shadow, that could be considered magic realism. When the setting changes to Neverland, however, that's pretty much fantasy. How do you categorize the work as a whole? Fantasy? Magic realism? Children's fable, so who cares?

Go To POLL QUESTION #4

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