Magic Fiction

Nemonymous

Nemonymous

Grimscribe
Magic Realism: A settled term: Fiction that creates fiction from reality, e.g. Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie.

Magic Fiction: I define this as Fiction that creates reality from fiction e.g. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

I intend to write an essay about this but not before receiving feedback from others here or elsewhere.

My earlier brainstorming about this:
http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2006/04/fiction.html
which I intend to take further with the dichotomy I've just formed above between Magic Realism and Magic Fiction.
 
Shouldn't it have an "-ism" on it?

Magical realism. Borges seems to have founded it, and Ligotti is part of it, although not by moniker but by concept: His horrors are both absurd (rejecting our current notion of reality) and, by extention, unnerving. They violate the real, then kill it and mutilate it, all without laying a hand once.
 
Magic(al) Realism is described here:
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism[/ame]

I think it very appropriate to the literature discussed here, as you suggest.

I think my division (briefly stabbed at in my first post here) between this and Magic(al) Fiction has not been stated before. Please put me right, if this is otherwise.

I intend to write an essay about this divison - concentrating on the work of Ligotti, Rushdie, Susanna Clarke, HPL, Elizabeth Bowen, Anita Brookner, Rhys Hughes, Mark Samuels, Jonathan Swift, Marcel Proust, William Blake...

But I need some brainstorming feedback first.
des
 
Hey Des. This is a subject I'm extremely interested in, and magic(k) in general. When you say,
Magic Fiction: I define this as Fiction that creates reality from fiction
Click to expand...
do you mean the fiction is inherently magical independent of the reader or rather the reader can use the text as a magical tool to alter reality? If it is the later, it is very similar to the concept of "personal paradigms", one of the basic tenets of Chaos Magic (one of the leading schools of contemporary occultism), where anything through belief and WILL may become imbued with magic. Any book may become one's Bible or Necronomicon. The later is a perfect example of how something that was once a fictitious creation is now a physical reality and can be found at your local bookstore (for better or worse). Did Lovecraft's words alter reality? I'd wager they did and are. In other words, magical fiction is not fiction about magic, it IS magic.
William S. Burroughs (a practicing magician) used his "cut-up" method as a tool for divination. He would physically cut up texts and randomly re-arrange them. He believed he was able to interpret hidden messages contained within the newly formed sentences and phrases. By doing so he created his own magical texts. He did the same thing with audio recordings.
 
Has anyone read the novel Perdo Paramo by Juan Rulfo? He was a mexican writer who published this one novel and a collection of short stories in the 1950's and very little else. However, his small body of work heavily influenced what came to be known as magical realism throughout the Spanish speaking world.
It is the story of a young man who makes a promise to his mother as she lay dying. He would travel to the town of Comala and search for his father, Perdo Paramo. However, though the town is fully inhabited, it is a ghost town. The ghosts are more lively than the young man. Eventually the young man isn't sure if he is alive or if he has become a ghost himself.
it might be of interest to Des for his essay since it was so influential, but it is a fine story on it's own.
Mr. D.
 
Mr. D.";p="4781 said:
Has anyone read the novel Perdo Paramo by Juan Rulfo? He was a mexican writer who published this one novel and a collection of short stories in the 1950's and very little else. However, his small body of work heavily influenced what came to be known as magical realism throughout the Spanish speaking world.
It is the story of a young man who makes a promise to his mother as she lay dying. He would travel to the town of Comala and search for his father, Perdo Paramo. However, though the town is fully inhabited, it is a ghost town. The ghosts are more lively than the young man. Eventually the young man isn't sure if he is alive or if he has become a ghost himself.
it might be of interest to Des for his essay since it was so influential, but it is a fine story on it's own.
Mr. D.
Click to expand...
I'm reading that right now, as it turns out. I discovered it from Jonathan Dunne's excellent Bartleby & Co. (another mystifying figure in literature). Pretty enjoyable.
 
The New Nonsense";p="4780 said:
When you say,
Magic Fiction: I define this as Fiction that creates reality from fiction
Click to expand...
do you mean the fiction is inherently magical independent of the reader or rather the reader can use the text as a magical tool to alter reality?
Click to expand...

How far is it possible to see fiction as fiction that is magic rather than fiction about magic or fiction like magic?

I don't literally mean anything occult or a book of spells, so not really either of your alternatives. People talk of the strength of literature - but then hold back from crossing a certain barrier when describing/interpreting/evaluating (in that order) this very 'strength'. Wasn't there an article about HPL (by Edmund Wilson, Colin Wilson?): "The Strength To Dream'? Does literature possess a non-occult, non-magical (magical as normally defined) 'strength' which is beyond anything imagined before. A quality that needs to be defined, appreciated, trapped, tapped? A competing force to magic as we understand it? An ambition for fiction that exceeds our current ambitions? Why leave fiction as a close-ended conduit for imaginative non-reality? If a so-called magic Realist can create fiction from reality, why can't a Magic Fictionist create reality from fiction: a concept which is in itself a fiction, twirling round in a virtuous circle, till it becomes true in an as yet ungraspable (unmentionable, for fear of being called mad?) arabesque for reality & non-reality which actually is neither?

I feel some writers are doing this - have done this - without realising it.
 
I first got interested in magic realism when I started reading Graham Joyce a few years ago. The relationship between fiction and reality was always one of my favorite subject.

Magic Fiction? Sounds great. I am looking forward to reading your essay, Des. I am even intending to delve into my copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke to see exactly what you mean.
 
Thanks everyone, so far.


"Names should be charms - I used to hope that, by saying some of them often enough, I might evoke reality." - Patrick White, `Voss'.

"Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what's going on." - Anonymous.

"I'll be your mirror." - Lou Reed.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - HP Lovecraft.

"One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it." - Elizabeth Bowen.

"'Secret Way!' said Anne, her eyes shining. 'Oh, I hope it's that! Secret Way! How exciting. What sort of secret way would it be, Julian?'
'How do I know, Anne, silly?' said Julian. 'I don't even know that the words are meant to mean "Secret Way." It's really a guess on my part.'"
-- Enid Blyton (Five Go Adventuring Again).
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Any more quotes as part of this brainstorming exercise??

Des


PS: Talking about an 'arabesque' and loosely coming over to a dance: what is the dance? The people dancing? Or something more intangible?

The Silver Saraband by DFL and MBS (written mid-nineties):
http://weirdmonger.livejournal.com/2004/09/06/
 
DF Lewis";p="4801 said:
"I'll be your mirror." - Lou Reed.
Click to expand...
Interesting you use a quote from that particular song. Becoming the reflection of who a person truely is as opposed to what they appear to be. Also, becoming the world around a person, absorbing them and loosing yourself. We'll...

"It's just like Sister Ray said..."
 
hey DF Lewis. you seem to have a conflicted idea of magic and what you want this new literary movement to acheive.

you say you want it to be magic, for fiction to create a sort of reality. but you also say that you don't want it to have any sort of occultism aspect. i can't see how you can divorce the two. if you want fiction, art, or anything to have its own weight, substance, and "reality"; then it must be tied to magic(k), the occult, sorcery, alchemy, esotericism, and so forth because this is exactly what magic does... it creates reality from words, images, and gestures. all it takes is the desire, the knowledge, and the Will.

seems to me that The New Nonsense is on the right track...

i have had experiences where the stories i've written, more like vignettes / prose poems, have come true.

feel free to check out my latest prose:

http://blog.myspace.com/vengersatanis

any serious magician can make Magic Fiction, but few serious writers can do the same. therefore, i would suggest that hopeful practicioners of Magic Fiction study the occult.

D
 
Hi, Darrick
I intended 'Magic Fiction' (has this expression been used before this thread?) as the obverse side of the coin to the more usual expression 'Magic Realism', within the general semantic coin-field of 'fiction, not of 'occult'. I don't believe in the occult.
I do however believe in the potential of brainstorming 'Magic Fiction' to see if this can be the New Magic, without the necessity of anything occult or ultra-fiction.
That was what I was getting at here:
http://weirdmonger.blogspot.com/2006/04/fiction.html
I think!

But if this discussion enters realms of the occult as such, I shall have to leave it to others who know more about it than I do.
des
 
all occult means is 'hidden'. as long as something is not on the surface, but is behind the curtain, so to speak, it could be called occult.

i guess i'm confused... you want Magic Fiction (or whatever one calls it) to be like magic, to be magic itself... but you don't want it to do magical or "occult" things...? i must be missing something.

D
 
Thanks, Darrick. Yes, 'occult' literally means 'hidden',and perhaps what I mean is 'hidden', too. I'll have a go at explaining...

The meaning of a word is its use, I feel. Occult has gained meanings of spells, black magic etc. I know nothing about that. I'm interested in fiction. And that includes fiction that deals with 'occult' in all its meanings. And fiction like Jane Austen, just as an example. Dreams (loved Yellowish Haze's separate thread here about 'lucid dreaming'), music of language, ghosts, social interaction, vexed texture of text and I could go on... 'Occult' is just one tiny corner of fiction and of life, imho.

Now 'magic' also has many meanings distinct from 'occult'. Fiction, too, can be about magic. I am wondering on this thread if fiction can *be* magic with methods that are truly 'occult' or 'hidden'. The more I think about it, having read many many fictions over several decades, the more it becomes less 'hidden' for me. I'm just trying to tease it out further with brainstorming. And eventually I will write at length about this - an essay that will be both a non-fiction treatment of fiction as well as a fiction treatment of non-fiction.

Hope that doesn't sound pretentious! :-)
des
 
ok, i'm getting the picture now. and yes, i totally understand what you mean about a word's connotation and denotation. that's just another thing that makes language interesting and sometimes a little frustrating.

this thread reminds me of... is it Vastarien where the book IS the magic rather than the book being only ABOUT magic.

also Sutter Cain in the movie In The Mouth Of Madness. where this Lovecraftian / Ligottian book is supposed to... bring about the change.

i've always loved that sort of thing, so i would enjoy reading your essay. let me know when it's finished. or if you want someone to bounce ideas off of. thanks.

D
 
Des,


Interesting stuff. I expect Thelemites would prefer the term "Magick Fiction", especially to distinguish it from stage conjuring, but let's not go there. Best to steer clear of most Crowleyites I think :-)

I wonder whether the term "mystical fiction" might be more appropriate. I certainly think Machen had something going on along those lines in "A Fragment of Life" with its transforming sense of wonder. Ligotti, I believe, goes the other way---creating a palpable sense of despair-mysticism, a chilling beauty of bleakness that's equally as awe-inspiring.

Actually, talking of Machen, what of "The White People"? Does that come close to what you have in mind?

All best
Mark
 
Hi, Mark,
Thanks. “Fragment of Life’ by Machen is a *very* good example of what I mean. I recall reading this in the nineteen-sixties and it really came to life with a mystic, semi-disturbing, firewall of beauty. I actually read it aloud to someone as my first acquaintance with it. Some works by Ligotti do this for me, too. I first read TL in 1988, I think. And has always been a very good ingredient in my fiction life

I used the expression ‘Magic Fiction’ as a sort of obverse of a more common expression: Magic Realism. I think the greatest exponent of the latter is Salman Rushdie. Giving real events a magic quality that only fiction can accomplish.

But then, having recently read ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell’ which I consider to be a major work of something quite different from Magic Realism and from, even, Machen and Ligotti. Somewhere in this massive book (a passage I can never re-find!) is a section about fiction being used as magic in a war. And I saw magic not as the usual ‘occult’ or ‘mysticism’ or ‘fantastical’ or a book of spells like anything ending –nomicon. It was fiction magic … magic fiction. This is what I’m trying to tease out as a discrete and new element in fiction.

This was coupled with my own work on ‘dream sickness’ in my 2005/6 novels, and all the paradoxes that that created reinforced my desire to use fiction as battle against ‘bird flew’.

It’s worked so far! :-)
 
Eureka! It's been staring me in the face, during these attempted initiations of a new literary term: Magic Fiction (as an obverse of Magic Realism). I just needed to sleep on it for a while. A book I have - on and off - been obsessed with since the early 70s: 'Remembrance of Things Past' by Marcel Proust. I've read this enormous book twice (the second time about 5 years go) and it took me about two years to read it on each occasion. If you've read it, I hope you can see what I mean. More later.
 
As this thread is accessed from other portals, I should note here my phrase of:
the parthenogenesis of reality - as a concept regarding artifice and 'magic fiction' as broached on the fiction as religion thread:
http://www.ligotti.net/viewtopic.php?p=5533
des

PS: Please tell me if you think 'Yesterfang' is now finished:
http://www.weirdmonger.com
Like 'Weirdtongue', this is an attempt at magic fiction.
=======


"Wrzesmian wasn't too popular. The works of this strange man, saturated with rampant fantasy and imbued with strong individualism, gave a most unfavourable impression by inverting accepted aesthetic-literary theories and by mocking established pseudo-truths. His output was eventually acknowledged as the product of a sick imagination, the bizarre work of an eccentric, maybe even a madman. Wrzesmian was an inconvenience for a variety of reasons and he disturbed unnecessarily, stirring peaceful waters. Thus his premature eclipse was received with a secret sigh of relief."
from 'The Area' by Stefan Grabinski.
 
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