Magical realism literature occupies a considerable proportion in the literary explosion. The formation and development of magical realism literature has its important social and historical background. The emergence of magical realism literature is also inseparable from the special natural environment of Latin America. Some famous contemporary Latin American writers believe that the reason why magical realism literature flourishes in Latin America is because "it adapts to and is rooted in the real world we live in." The famous contemporary Colombian writer García Márquez once said: "Daily life in Latin America tells us that reality is full of strange things. For this reason, I am always willing to cite the American explorer F.W. Earp. Graf's example. At the beginning of the last century, he took an incredible trip to the Amazon River Basin. He saw many things with his own eyes, such as: there was a boiling river, and eggs could be put into it in five minutes. Cooked; there is a place where it rains heavily when someone speaks; in Commodore Rivadavia at the southern tip of Argentina, extreme winds blew a circus into the sky, and the next day fishermen used nets to catch dead lions and giraffes." Marquez emphasized that everything he describes in his works is based on "magical reality." “Every step we take, we encounter things that may seem magical to readers of other cultures, but are everyday realities for us.” He once summarized the magical Latin America: “Life in Latin America That’s it, even daily life is bizarre. This is a land of wild and imaginative nature, a land addicted to hallucinations and all kinds of delusions due to loneliness.”
The formation of the magical realism literary genre. It is also inseparable from the influence and stimulation of Western modernist literature. Latin American literary tradition comes from two sources. One aspect is Indian folk literature and ancient Mayan literature, especially the fantastic and grotesque elements in ancient myths, folklore and witchcraft, which have become creative nourishment for Latin American writers. On the other hand, there is the European literary tradition. Latin American writers who speak Latin-based Portuguese (Brazil), French (Haiti), and Spanish (most Latin American countries) all have profound European and American literary accomplishments, such as Rabelais and Cervantes. Exaggeration, strangeness, satire, criticism, exposure, delicacy, and profundity of Balzac, Zola, and Dostoevsky were all absorbed by Latin American writers. Since the 20th century, under the impact of the powerful trend of Western modernist literature, the Latin American literary world has also undergone tremendous changes. Latin American writers realize that only by absorbing the spirit of modern Western art, constantly innovating in artistic techniques, and using modern artistic techniques to express the real life of Latin America in the 20th century can Latin American literature gain a place in the world literary world. Some outstanding writers from Latin America have traveled to Europe for further study. Angel Asturias from Guatemala and Alejo Carpentier from Cuba joined the French Surrealist literary group while living in Paris. Colombia's García Márquez was deeply influenced by European and American modern writers such as Joyce, Kafka and Faulkner. Of course, the influence of Western modernist literature, especially Surrealism, on Latin American writers is not to "teach them what to write and how to write" as some people say, but to inspire them to look at the "magical reality" of Latin America with new eyes. , stimulating them to describe the "magic reality" of Latin America in new ways.
Generally speaking, magical realism has two major characteristics: First, the ideological content of the work reflects the political awakening of the Latin American people to varying degrees, and their response to colonialism, military dictatorship, religious rule, Expose and criticize feudal ignorance. The second is that the artistic techniques of the works are deeply influenced by modern European and American literature. In many works, we can clearly see the surrealist techniques, such as focusing on expressing the subconscious, dreams, and hallucinations, and boldly using surprising metaphors, bizarre imagination, and mystery. symbol. However, these works do not simply follow the creative techniques of European and American modernists, but combine them with Latin American local culture, especially primitive Indian myths and folklore, to enrich and develop the above creative techniques, thus forming a unique "magic technique". In magical realist literary works, realistic scenes and plots are intertwined with completely fictitious situations, giving people a sense of paradox and paradox. According to the creative method of magical realism, the writer combines shocking reality with confusing illusions, and uses extremely exaggerated and interweaving artistic strokes to gather people and events and weave plots to achieve the purpose of criticizing the darkness, filth and chaos of society. . They skillfully combine reality and fantasy, make things that seem unreal seem very realistic, and make things that seem impossible seem completely possible. In other words, let the real life content and the illusory artistic situation coexist without compromising the authenticity of reality.
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" is García Márquez's most famous novel. By describing the rise and fall of seven generations of the Buendia family in the small town of Macondo, the novel shows readers the political upheaval and social life of Colombia in the past century, and lashes out at the brutality of the dictatorship and the political slavery and economic enslavement of US imperialism. Neo-colonial policies that exploit Latin American countries. Macondo was originally a primitive village and gradually developed into a small town. Over the past century, this small town has experienced many disasters: a brutal civil war, U.S. economic aggression, and workers' resistance that was brutally suppressed.
Finally, "heavy rain continued for four years, eleven months and two days," and a hurricane swept away the town, leaving "a vast expanse of white land." "One Hundred Years of Solitude" follows the creative principle of magical realism of "turning reality into fantasy without losing its truth", thereby achieving a "magical" artistic effect of "paradox, paradox". For example, the government killed a large number of strikers, loaded them on trains, transported them to the sea, and threw them away. The monster train had two hundred carriages and was pulled by three locomotives: front, middle, and rear; another example was about the silence of the night. , people can actually hear "the clamor of ants in the moonlight, the loud noise when moths eat, and the continuous and clear screams when weeds grow"; in "One Hundred Years of Solitude", sometimes the dead are resurrected, the living ascend to heaven, ghosts and Living people talk, sometimes the carpet rises into the air, and flowers rain from the sky. These bizarre and wonderful ideas make the plot scenes of this work like a kaleidoscope, which is both real and illusory, and confusing. However, as John Womax, Jr., a professor at Harvard University in the United States, pointed out: "Latin American readers see a true portrayal of themselves and society in his works. People regard his works as magical literature, but in fact most of what he describes is Latin America." Real life. ”
Magic realism writers attach great importance to artistic techniques and language, and the richness of techniques and language is often dazzling. In fact, they regard skills and language as a tool, a tool to introduce people to "another reality". And "this reality, we all agree to call it mythical reality or magical reality." However, as the famous Argentinian literary critic and writer Andersen Imbert said: "In magical realist novels, the author's fundamental purpose is to use magic to express reality, rather than to express magic as reality. The characters in the novel , things and events are originally knowable, but in order to make readers feel weird, the author deliberately writes them to be unrecognizable, unreasonable, without giving reasonable explanations, and conjures or changes them like a magician. As a result, reality disappears in the author's illusory imagination... Between the disappearance of reality (that is, magic) and the expression of reality (that is, realism), the effect of magical realism is like watching a new style. The repertoire is generally awe-inspiring, and it's like seeing the world with new eyes in the sunshine of a new morning: the sights of the world are rarely, if not magically, grotesque, and in this novel, the events are even if they are real. , can also give people a sense of illusion. The author's intention is to create an atmosphere that is both supernatural and yet not deviating from nature; his method is to change reality into the illusion produced by a neurotic patient." The discussion has important reference value for us to deeply interpret the artistic text of magical realism and explore its mysteries.
Latin America is a multi-racial melting pot. It is mainly inhabited by the Indians, the owners of this continent, the Spanish invaders, and the black Africans who were trafficked here. They represent three coexisting cultures. , namely Indian culture, European culture and African culture. Intermarriage of different races eliminates ethnic barriers, and cultural identity bridges cultural differences, forming a unique multicultural structure. Therefore, in this land, modern metropolises, primitive tribes in a state of ignorance in the mountains and forests, Catholic churches, and ancient religious customs of Indians and blacks coexist. Magical realism, like other literary genres in Latin America, is rooted in the reality of the Latin American continent. It reflects real life more deeply, nakedly exposing the soul, subconscious, irrationality and unique way of thinking of the Indians, making reality bizarre and bizarre. America becomes even more mysterious. And this mystery is also reflected in its political reality. Latin American writers are not only immersed in reflections of magical reality, but also reflect profound explorations of reality. Latin American writers began to pay attention to the future of the country and the fate of the nation. They used their pens as a weapon to expose and criticize social evils, or directly participated in politics and devoted themselves to political activities, striving to free the Latin American people from colonial rule and eliminate social injustice. Overthrow military dictatorships and accelerate Latin America’s progress. This special environment in Latin America provides a large amount of material and a sense of continuous innovation for writers to discuss and think about reality and power. It also gives writers a cultural mission and political responsibility.
Magic realism strengthens national cultural consciousness and breaks through the traditional norms of the concept of "reality". The origins of "magical realism" mainly come from two aspects: one is the magical reality of nature and people in Latin America, and the other is the traditional concepts and beliefs of local residents (Indians or blacks). The traditional concepts and beliefs of the Latin American people are mainly contained in myths and legends. “For most Spanish-American peoples—Indians and Mestizos—myths are an integral part of their daily reality, the product of an essential relationship between man and his surroundings and their A cultural field that is different from other nations.” This national cultural consciousness is deeply rooted in the hearts of Latin American magical realism writers. For them, reality includes not only the endless life of nature, life and death of people, and turmoil. Uneasy social life, but also myths and legends. Therefore, "magical realism" essentially means Latin American writers' "mastery of typical Latin American cultural treasures" and "a belief in turning myths and legends into reality." With the awakening of "Latin American consciousness" throughout the Latin American continent, the national cultural awareness of Latin American writers has also been strengthened.
They no longer view and grasp the reality of Latin America from the perspective of Europeans, but feel and comprehend the reality of Latin America with the mentality unique to Latin Americans. "Reality as understood by magical realist writers" is a reality that is permeated with the life and death beliefs and mythological blood of the Latin American people. It is a mixture of nature, society and myth, and this "reality" itself has magical meaning and magical color. When people often ask how "magic" is created, the representative writers of magical realism, Alejo Carpentier and García Márquez, have repeatedly emphasized that they are absolutely loyal to "reality" and have neither created anything. Nothing has changed. Magical realism’s new understanding of “reality” cannot but be said to be a major breakthrough in traditional realism. In Latin America, this concept was earlier. It was proposed by literary critic José Luis Martin and applied to the field of literature. Structural realism novel is one of the genres of contemporary novel creation in Latin America, also known as "total novel" and "total novel" in Peru. The writer Vargas Llosa and others transplanted the cubist painting method into the creation of novels, while maintaining the tradition of realism, advocating the re-creation of reality without distorting the material of reality, that is, re-structuring. The seemingly chaotic structure gives the work a completely different look from traditional realism, achieving a significant "three-dimensional" artistic effect.
The concept of "structuralism" originated from the pursuit of industrialization in Europe and the United States at the end of the 19th century. Against the background of production efficiency and social division of labor, it uses an anti-individualistic way of thinking to emphasize the systematic and holistic characteristics of things. The initial application of structuralism in linguistics gave rise to Saussure's language symbol system; as a Involving cultural concepts in the anthropological category, structuralism affects many fields of art, from theory to creation, from drama, novels, poetry to film, television and other fields. Structuralism and realism are combined to form a cultural concept. Structural realism literature. Limited by linguistics, traditional literature is accustomed to flattening the originally "three-dimensional" social life and using a specific "narrator" to create a single-line "narrative" from an "omniscient perspective." Structural realism literature changes the narrative techniques and styles of traditional literature and strives to make real social life "stand up" through "diverse" and "rich" three-dimensional structures and creative techniques. Its main feature is that it is the basis of literary creation. Three-dimensionality, therefore, structural realism novels are also called "three-dimensional novels". As the master of "three-dimensional novels", Llosa ignored the creative norms of "graphic novels" in order to achieve novel literary structure and rely on "establishment". The creative ambition of "a purely inner world of time and space", skillfully uses structuralist narrative techniques in his literary works, three-dimensionally demonstrates the complexity and diversity of social life reflected in his literature, and creates One after another, Borges's "The Garden of Forking Paths"
The basic feature of structural realism is to break the traditional structural form of novels and use various novel and unique structural patterns to arrange plots and tell stories. , artistically reflects social reality. For example, the novel "Green House" is composed of five stories. According to the traditional method, the author can narrate the five stories one by one and tell the stories in a normal sequence. But Llosa refused to stick to the rules. He believes that real life is colorful, complex and changeable, and literary works should also be colorful and poetic works of art. Otherwise, they will not be able to reflect the complexity and diversity of reality, and the works will become mediocre and dull. Lacks charm. He advocates reproducing reality artistically and creating a kind of artistic novel. Therefore, he adopted a new structural form different from the traditional one in "Green House", that is, dividing the five stories into several fragments and telling them in turn. For example, in the first and third parts, each chapter includes five fragments, that is, five scenes, telling five stories separately. The second and fourth parts, each chapter includes four fragments, that is, four scenes, telling four stories, because the story of Hum disappears, and the stories of Bonifacia and the Solitaire merge into one.
Due to this structural arrangement, the order of time and space is disrupted, and the narrative methods become diverse: jumping, inversion, independence, crossover, dispersion, and merger, the use of these forms , making the narrative colorful. In addition, the author also uses the "boxing technique" to include stories within stories and dialogue within dialogues. The narrative method of this structural form is novel and unique, and its effect is like a kaleidoscope, making real life appear in front of readers with a new look, so that readers will have a certain curiosity when reading, and generate interest in finishing the book. .
Vargas Llosa once said: The angles from which to observe reality are infinite. Although it is impossible to cover all angles, the more angles that represent reality, the better the novel will be. This is true of War and Peace, and also of certain chivalric novels. The realities included in chivalric novels include mystical, religious, historical, social, instinctive and so on. But today's novels always try to use one channel and one angle to express reality. On the contrary, I advocate the creation of overall novels, that is, ambitiously reflecting reality in all its aspects and manifestations.
This is the theoretical basis for Vargas Llosa’s structural realism creation method. He believes that people observe reality from multiple angles and levels. The more angles and levels a novel expresses reality from, the more successful it will be.
In order to fully express reality and write great novels, writers should grasp reality and express reality from as many angles and levels as possible. Therefore, in his novels, Llosa used many techniques in order to achieve multiple angles and levels, such as various forms of dialogue, the division and combination of storylines, the full use of official documents or letters, and the expression techniques of film and television. Perspective in painting, frequent transitions of time and space, etc. Its artistic effect can enable readers to have a comprehensive feeling or understanding of the real world displayed in the work, or a three-dimensional and overall sense. During the Latin American literary explosion, fantasy novels also occupied a certain share. The representative writer of fantasy novels is the Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, who was deeply influenced by Borges. Borges recognized the role of imagination in literary creation, but did not place literature in empty imagination. He expressed his thoughts on time and space, life and death, dreams, etc. through his fictitious dreams, labyrinths, eternal cities, mirrors, etc. Borges's treatment of imagination skillfully avoids the shortcomings of generalizations in fantasy novels. The imagination is implemented into specific objects, and the selection of objects is also unique. The mazes, dreams, mirrors, and tigers he chose all have rich meanings. It is through the unique use of this imagination technique that Borges established the style and status of literary creation and became a flourishing force in the field of Latin American literature. A strange flower.
Cortázar’s fantasy novels were deeply influenced by Borges. He said, “Borges left a deep mark on the writers of our generation. It was he who pointed out to us the “strangeness”. "Infinite possibilities." Both writers prefer magical themes, use simple language and carefully construct novel plots, but their works are very different, both in their views of the world and in their treatment of stories. Big difference. Most of Borges's fantasies come from philosophical thinking, but Cortázar experiences magic from reality, or disassembles reality, reassembles and reassembles it, or adds fantasy elements to the overall reality. , the purpose is not to escape reality but to find the door to reality from a different path. This is a new kind of magical literature. In the words of the writer: "Almost all the stories I write belong to the category of "magical literature" and are opposed to the false realism that believes that anything can be described... Of course in a world governed by some kind of "harmonious" system - a system of laws, causality, explicit psychology, mapped geography - I thought of another, more secret, less expressible process. ..." Take "The Occupied Room", one of Cortázar's two earliest published stories, as an example. This is a novel with a bizarre plot. Two brothers and a sister live together in a spacious house inherited from their ancestors. Neither of them is married, and they spend their days quietly guarding the house together. The younger sister does endless menial work, while the elder brother kills time with French literature or collecting stamps. The peaceful life was suddenly broken: one night, half of the ancestral house was suddenly occupied. The brother and sister did not know who the occupier was and did not have the courage to go and take a look. They continued to live in the remaining half of the house, and then occupied the other half of the house. As the pause continued, the space that the brothers and sisters had became smaller and smaller, and in the end they had no choice but to throw down the keys and abandon the home and run away. The strange thing about the story is that the other half of the protagonist, the person who occupied the house, never showed up, nor did he explain the reason for occupying the room. Just like in Kafka's "The Trial", the protagonist never understood why he was being tortured. The trial, and in the end not death but having to leave, is this an allegory for the living conditions of modern people, or is it an allusion to Argentine society at that time? The work provides no answers. This is very different from the structure in which Borges often explains the mystery and weirdness of the story at the end of the novel. The deliberate rendering of the atmosphere of terror in Cortázar's story is also obviously different from Borges's.
The shadow of Borges' "fantasy novels" can be seen in his initial short stories, but they are different from them. If Borges's novels are mostly the result of logical thinking, Cortázar's fantasy novels are of another type: the works are full of fantasy, magic and absurdity, but they maintain close ties with reality. The real transformation of his creation from "fantasy" to "reality" began with his novella "The Chaser". The novel shows readers the confusion of the "Beat Generation" and reflects the author's concern for human survival issues. It is a work with existentialist tendencies.