Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction

Author(s): Angel Flores

Source: Hispania , May, 1955, Vol. 38, No. 2 (May, 1955), pp. 187-192
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/335812

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese is collaborating with JSTOR to

digitize, preserve and extend access to Hispania

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 MAGICAL REALISM IN SPANISH AMERICAN FICTION

ANGEL FLORES

Queens College, Flushing, N. Y.

Spanish American literature has been Gallegos and Jos6 Eustasio Rivera" and
studied mostly through the thematic or "El romanticismo esencial del realista
biographical approach. The thematic Jos6 Rivera." Had the line of analysis
approach has dwelt on geographical followed a more rigorous examination
settings, classifying the works of fictioninto the emotional and stylistic pecu-
as "novels of the pampa," "novels of the liarities, it could have been ascertained
sierra," and "novels of the selva." The that, at least in Latin American prose
biographical approach, on the other hand, fiction, it is difficult if not impossible to
has surveyed the literary production categorize faithfully each movement.
chronologically-"novel of the Colonial Even in those works which are taken as
period," "novel of the Period of Inde- typical of certain schools or movements,
pendence," "novel of the Mexican Revo- classification fails. Jorge Isaacs' Maria
lution," etc.-supplementing historical cannot be dismissed as a Romantic
considerations with biographical notes on novel pure and simple: the novel ends, as
the writers of each of the periods. How- a matter of fact, with such detailed,
ever interesting these approaches may be concretely realistic pictures as the Salom6
in relating literature to ecological pat- episode and the homeward travelogue.
terns or to history, they have contributed In these penultimate and final sections
but little to literary criticism. They have there is almost as much realism as there
not been very helpful, for instance, in is romanticism. The romantic and realistic
evaluating the intrinsically aesthetic persist side by side too in Giiiraldes, in
merits of a work and have paid little orLynch, in Payr6, in Quiroga. Perhaps
no attention to the complex problems ofduring one rather fleeting moment, with
form, composition, and stylistic trends.no significant consequences, one influence,
Such classificatory terms as "Romantic," in this case Zola's, seemed preponderant:
"Realistic," "Naturalistic," "Existen- Antonio Argerich's Inocentes o culpables
tialist" do circulate in their writings but (1884), Lucio V. L6pez' La gran aldea
in rather superficial, desultory, or indis- (1884), Eugenio Cambaceres' Sin rumbo
criminating ways. We are told, for (1885), JuliAn Martel's La Bolsa (1890).
instance, that Echeverria was a "Ro- But even here one need only read care-
mantic" poet, disregarding completely fully Sin rumbo, for instance, to observe
his El Matadero, a precursory master-that the author is leaning on the theories
piece of Naturalism; or that Dofia of Naturalism, its Achilles' heel, rather
Bdrbara and La vordgine were robust
than imitating Zola's epic art. Cam-
specimens of Realism, overlooking their baceres' Zolaism is surface veneer. His
romantic tirades and psychological dis- style moves towards a somewhat lyrical
tortions. Hence the frequency with which staccato-precursory, one may say, of
one meets in university theses such titles Vargas Vila's.' Another man whose name
as "Romantic, Realistic and Naturalistic has been associated with Zola's is Baldo-
Elements in the Novels of R6mulo mero Lillo. Obviously there is some
similarity due to the thematic affinity
A paper read at the Spanish 4 Group Meeting
of the 69th Annual Meeting of the MLA, New between Sub terra and Germinal, both
York, December 27-29, 1954. dealing with the plight of the coal
187

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 188 HISPANIA

miners, but tinians

the Jorge multiple
Luis Borges and Eduardo ro
Mallea, however: their fiction can
(pathetic overtones, hold
fatef
its own with
etc.) hovering the best."' However
over caustic
Lillo's
and iconoclastic, Fitts's remarks doOne
belie his Naturalism. have
works of one novelist after another with a disconcertingly truthful ring, for in the
the same result: that in Latin America field of fiction Latin America is unable to
Romanticism and Realism seem bound boast of any titans. His exceptions,
Borges and Mallea, may sound strange to
together in one afflatus. "Costumbrismo,"
flowering as constantly in Spain more
as inthan one specialist in Latin Ameri-
Latin America, reveals over and again
can affairs, but they are the choice of an
the mixture of romantic-realistic ele- extremely sensitive poet, a perceptive
ments. From the clumsy Periquillo critic equally versed in ancient and con-
Sarniento, the earliest full-blown Ameri-temporary literatures, a talented trans-
can novel, to El machete, a seminal lator of the Greek classics and compiler
moment in Colombian fiction, the am-of an anthology of contemporary Latin
biguiity persists. Posada, like Lizardi, American poetry. On proposing Borges
seems to hesitate between tough "ma- and Mallea as exceptions, he is relieving
chismo" and bland tearfulness: the term those writers of his charges of "ineptitude,
romantic realist or realistic romanticist,uncertainty, imitativeness, and senti-
either way, fits either one of them. Evi- mental histrionics" for, emphatically,
dently the roots of this ambivalence they are are not second-raters. The occasion
psychological, and they lead all the did not force Fitts to explain Borges' and
way back to the great Spanish tradition, Mallea's uniqueness. Since, independently
to writers and painters of the past, like of Fitts, I reached, years ago, similar con-
Fernando de Rojas, Lope, Quevedo, El clusions, I shall endeavor to suggest the
Greco, Cervantes, Goya, P6rez Gald6s. general trend in which these and other
And then again, much of it can be brilliant contemporary Latin American
ascribed to the unstable economic and novelists and short story writers are
social milieu of the writers of Spain and located. This trend I term "magical
Latin America which forces them to realism."
Finding in photographic realism a
improvisation. The conditions of life are
blind alley, all the arts-particularly
so difficult that they are unable to devote
the time and travail required forpainting
all and literature-reacted against
it and many notable writers of the First
memorable achievements, with the result
World War period came to re-discover
that their output is heterogeneous, often
careless. symbolism and magical realism. Among
Recently Dudley Fitts told us how them were geniuses of the stature of
"depressed" he felt by the "ineptitude, Marcel Proust and Franz Kafka and the
uncertainty, imitativeness, sentimental latter's counterpart in painting, Giorgio
histrionics" ("all add up to tedium") of di Chirico. Theirs was to a large extent a
Spanish and Latin American fiction. He re-discovery, because some of the stylistic
recalled "the amused despair of the late and expressive utterances found in Kafka,
John Peale Bishop, who had spent... for instance, were writ large in numerous
months plowing through Latin American nineteenth-century figures: in the Rus-
novels and short stories: he found them sians (especially the Gogol of "The
invincibly second-rate, and noted that Nose," "Shponka and his Aunt," and
the Spanish genius, at least in this hemi- other short stories, and of course Dosto-
sphere, spoke convincingly only in verse evsky), in the German Romantics (Hoff-
and the essay." And then Fitts added: mann, Arnim, Kleist, the Grimm broth-
"He should have excepted the Argen- ers), and in Strindberg, Stifter, and to

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SPANISH AMERICAN FICTION 189

some extent in Poe and Melville. In hisNovela en forma de nube (1928), and in
laboriously precisionist way Kafka had Salvador Novo's Return ticket (1928); in
Peru, in Abraham Valdelomar's novels
mastered from his earliest short-stories--
"The Judgment" (1912), "Metamorpho- and in El caballero Carmelo y otros cuentos
(1918), and in Martin Adin's La casa de
sis" (1916)-the difficult art of mingling
his drab reality with the phantasmal cartdn (1929); in Argentina, most es-
pecially in those nightmares of anarchy
world of his nightmares. In his Journal,
Andr6 Gide saw this peculiar fusion ofand tumult entitled El juguete rabioso
dream and reality in Kafka: "I could not(1926), Los siete locos (1929), and Los
say what I admire the more: the 'natu-lanzallamas (1931) by Roberto Arlt.
ralistic' notation of a fantastic universe, However, all these productions, which
but which the detailed exactitude of the depend so utterly on atmosphere, mood,
depiction makes real in our eyes, or the and sentiment, and which often look
unerring audacity of the lurches into thetowards the rococo figurations of the
strange. There is much to be learnedFrench Jean Giraudoux and the Spanish
from it."' Benjamin Jarn6s, differ from the cold
The novelty therefore consisted in the and cerebral and often erudite story-
amalgamation of realism and fantasy. telling which concerns us here. For the
Each of these, separately and by devious sake of convenience I shall use the year
ways, made its appearance in Latin 1935 as the point of departure of this
America: realism, since the Colonial new phase of Latin American literature,
Period but especially during the 1880's; of magical realism. It was in 1935 that
the magical, writ large from the earliest-- Jorge Luis Borges' collection Historia
in the letters of Columbus, in the chroni- universal de la infamia made its appear-
clers, in the sagas of Cabeza de Vaca-- ance in Buenos Aires, at least two years
entered the literary mainstream during after he had completed a masterly
Modernism. An exciting note of wonder- translation into Spanish of Franz Kafka's
ment and exoticism filled as much the shorter fiction. Not that we intend to
tales of Rub6n Dario (many of them
limit his extremely complex genius to one
published in Chilean newspapers in 1889)influence; he the most literate writer in
the whole of America, whose works re-
as the Relatos argentinos of Paul Groussac
written between 1886 and 1921, the flect so many and so divergent person-
Cuentos malkvolos (1904) of Clemente alities: Chesterton, H. G. Wells, Arthur
Palma, the truly fabulous narratives of Machen, Marcel Schwob, Ellery Queen,
Leopoldo Lugones' Las fuerzas extrafas plus the erudite army unearthed so
(1906), and the variegated production of facetiously by Maria Rosa Lida de
Horacio Quiroga. Obviously the most Malkiel, but Kafka's impact on him has
persistent influence then was Edgar Allan been the most profound and revealing.
Poe, either directly or via his admirers, With Borges as pathfinder and moving
especially the French decadents grouped spirit, a group of brilliant stylists de-
as "Los raros" by Dario: Baudelaire, veloped around him. Although each
Barbey d'Aurevilly, Villiers de l'Isle evidenced a distinct personality and
Adam, etc. This imaginative writing proceeded in his own way, the general
found its way into the twentieth century direction was that of magical realism.
and is discernible in the prose experi- Stimulated by Borges, the Chilean
ments of many gifted poets: in Mexico, Maria Luisa Bombal began publishing
in Jaime Torres Bodet's Margarita de about this time her oneiric stories in
niebla (1927) and Proserpina rescatada Buenos Aires: La ?zltima niebla (1935),
(1931), in Xavier Villaurrutia's Dama de and the same year as her La amortajada
corazones (1928), in Gilberto Owen's (1937), Silvina Ocampo published Viaje

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 190 HISPANIA

olvidado and Enrique

ticed Albam
Ultraism); Uruguay (Felisberto Her-
al amanecer. From
nindez, Amorim, Onetti).then
And in Argen- m
has grown tina
in an
a galaxy exciting
flourished: Alberto Girri,
Suffice it here to declare that the decade Norah Lange, Estela Canto, Manuel
1940-50 saw its most magnificent flower- Peyrou, Enrique Anderson Imbert, Santi-
ing. During these ten fruitful yearsago Dabove, Carmen Gandara, Mario
Latin America produced prose fiction Lancelotti, Julio Cortizar. Astonishing
comparable to the best in contemporary were the varieties of utterance, the
Italy, France, or England. 1940 saw the magnificent originality. For instance, El
appearance of Adolfo Bioy Casares' La estruendo de las rosas by Manuel Peyrou
invencidn de Morel, the first full-length and El tzinel by Ernesto Sabato appeared
novel of fantasy in Latin American the same year, 1948, as Nadie encendia las
letters. Reminiscent of the early H. G.ldmparas by the Uruguayan Felisberto
Wells, its style has the hard, translucentHernandez and Varia invenci6n by the
quality of Kafka. At the same momentMexican Juan Jos6 Arreola. The publi-
Albamonte published his most ambitious cation of this brilliant story-teller's Con-
novel, La paloma de la puf~alada; Enriquefabulario (1952) coincided with that of
Wernicke, a collection of short stories,Francisco Tario's Tapioca Inn and
Hans Grillo, and a novel, Funcidn y Ram6n Ferreira's Tiburdn.
muerte en el cine A.B.C.; the Mexican Meticulous craftsmen all, one finds in
Andres Henestrosa, the charming Retrato them the same preoccupation with style
de mi madre; and Borges, Silvina Ocampo, and also the same transformation of the
and Bioy Casares compiled the timely common and the everyday into the awe-
and broadly influential Antologia de la some and the unreal. They all will sub-
literatura fantdstica. In the following scribe to Chirico's dictum: "What is most
year Borges gave us his memorable El of all necessary is to rid art of everything
jardin de los senderos que se bifurcan, of the known which it has held until now:
which imposed magical realism in many every subject, idea, thought and symbol
corners throughout Latin America. That must be put aside.... Thought must
year Jos6 Bianco made his debut with a draw so far away from human fetters that
brilliant tour de force, Sombras suele vestir, things may appear to it under a new
in the style of Henry James, and Eduardo aspect, as though they are illuminated by
Mallea published one of his outstanding a constellation now appearing for the
achievements, Todo verdor perecerd, in first time."4 It is predominantly an art of
which a rural tragedy is lifted to new surprises. From the very first line the
artistic levels. Soon thereafter Alfredo reader is thrown into a timeless flux and/
Pippig gave us his amazingetales Laor the unconceivable, freighted with
resurrecci6n de XX, and Bianco, hisdramatic suspense: Bioy Casares' La
intense novel Las ratas (1943), quite invenci6n de Morel: "Hoy, en esta isla, ha
Gidean in penetration and stylistic ocurrido un milagro. El verano se ade-
virtuosity. With Borges, Mallea, Bianco, lant6"; Borges' "La loteria en Babilonia":
Silvina Ocampo, and Bioy Casares, the "Como todos los hombres de Babilonia,
nucleus felt strong. The momentum he sido proc6nsul; como todos, esclavo;
reached Cuba (Novas Calvo, Ram6n tambi6n he conocido la omnipotencia, el
Ferreira, Labrador Ruiz); Mexico (Juan oprobio, las circeles. Miren: a mi mano
Jos6 Arreola, Francisco Tario, Mariaderecha le falta el indice. Miren: por este
Luisa Hidalgo, Juan Rulfo); Ecuadordesgarr6n de la capa se ve en mi est6mago
(Vera, Adalberto Ortiz); Chile (Suber- un tatuaje bermejo: es el segundo simbolo
caseaux, Chela Reyes, Mariyan, thede Beth"; and his "Las ruinas circulares":
Huidobro who in the '20's had prac- "Nadie lo vi6 desembarcar en la unknime

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 SPANISH AMERICAN FICTION 191

noche, nadie vi6 la canoa de bamb

happened i accepted by the
and it was
sumidndose en el fango other sagrado,characters as an almost
pero a normal
los pocos dias nadie ignoraba que el event. Once the reader accepts the fait
hombre taciturno venia del Sur y que su accompli, the rest follows with logical
patria era una de las infinitas aldeas que precision. Nowhere is the story weighed
estan aguas arriba, en el flanco violento down with lyrical effusions, needlessly
de la montafia, donde el idioma zend no baroque descriptions or "cuadros de
esta contaminado de griego y donde es costumbres," all of which mar the com-
infrecuente la lepra"; Arreola's "El position of Doria Bdrbara and La vordgine,
guardagujas"; "El forastero lleg6 sin for instance. The practitioners of magical
aliento a la estaci6n desierta. Su gran realism cling to reality as if to prevent
valija, que nadie quiso conducir, le "literature" from getting in their way,
habia fatigado en extremo"; and Sabato's as if to prevent their myth from flying off,
El t?inel: "Bastara decir que soy Juanas in fairy tales, to supernatural realms.
Pablo Castel, el pintor que mat6 a The narrative proceeds in well-prepared,
Maria Iribarne; supongo que el proceso increasingly intense steps, which ulti-
esta en el recuerdo de todos y que nomately se may lead to one great ambiguity
necesitan mayores explicaciones sobreor miconfusion, "Verwirrung innherhalb
persona"; and, finally, Mallea's Salader de Klarheit," to a confusion within
espera: "Con las ventanillas a oscuras y
clarity, to borrow a term used by the
la maquina a todo vapor, el tren expreso Austrian novelist Joseph Roth in a
de las once y cuarenta pas6 pitandoslightly y different context.5 All the magical
rugiendo por la estaci6n rural en tinie- realists have this in common, as well as
blas." Notice the affinity of all these their repudiation of that mawkish senti-
opening sentences with those of The mentalism which pervades so many of
Trial by Franz Kafka: "Someone must the Latin American classics: Maria,
have been telling lies about Joseph K., Cumandd, Aves sin nido. The magical
for without having done anything wrong realists do not cater to a popular taste,
he was arrested one fine morning"; or rather they address themselves to the
that of The Stranger by Albert Camus: sophisticated, those not merely initiated
"Mother died today. Or, maybe, yester- in aesthetic mysteries but versed in
day; I can't be sure"; or that galvanizing subtleties. Often their writings approach
one of Kafka's The Metamorphosis: "As closely that art characterized by Ortega
Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a y Gasset as "dehumanized." Their style
troubled dream, he found himself changed seeks precision and leanness, a healthy
in his bed to some monstrous kind of
innovation, to be sure, considering the
vermin." From then on the narrative
flatulence of so many reputed writers in
moves smoothly, translucently, bound Latin American fiction (Larreta, Domi-
for an infinite, timeless perspective-
nici, Reyles). Besides, their plots are
timeless because despite the noun morning
logically conceived, either well-rounded
in The Trial and The Metamorphosis there
or projected against an infinite perspec-
stands the modifier, one-one morning-
tive as in Kafka's "Wall of China" or
just as in The Stranger the today becomes
Chirico's Melancholy and Mystery of a
today or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.
Street.
Time exists in a kind of timeless fluidity This, too, is a healthy innovation,
since
and the unreal happens as part of reality. Latin American plots have usually
The transformation of Gregor Samsa beeninto either elephantine and sprawling, as
a cockroach or bedbug (Kafka uses in theEl mundo es ancho y ajeno, or unwieldy
imprecise "monstrous vermin") is not anda clumsily assembled, as in Periquillo
matter of conjecture or discussion:Sarniento.
it This concern of the magical

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 192 HISPANIA

realists for the NOTES well-knit p

stems from 1After
their familiari
this was written I was pleased to dis-
tive stories,cover the following statement
which by the poet and
Borges,
Peyrou, and critic Arturo Camboursmagical
other Ocampo in his recent
vol. Indagaciones sobre literatura argentina
written, translated, or
(Buenos Aires: Albatros, 1952, p. 76): "La a
Their mathematical
posici6n espiritual de algunos de precisi
los escritores
picacity may account
de la generaci6n for
literaria del 80 no fu6 absoluta
aversion to ni
allpuede tenerse como definitiva. Creemos que
flabbiness, e
or emotional. sobre este problema se ha exagerado un poco.
Las obras de los mAs rebeldes nos estin di-
Never before have so many sensitive ciendo, a cada paso, que un suave romanticismo
and talented writers lived at the same se mantenia latente en sus corazones....

time in Latin America-never have they Romanticismo se confirma en las pigina

biogrtficas, altas y po6ticas, de los libr
worked so unanimously to overhaul and Eduardo Wilde, Aguas abajo y Tiempo p
polish the craft of fiction. In fact their
en la descripci6n sencilla y melanc6lica de
slim but weighty output may well mark La gran aldea de L6pez; y hasta en los mo-
mentos ims naturalista8 de Eugenio Camba-
the inception of a genuinely Latin ceres, vemos una luz de optimismo espiritual
American fiction. We may claim, withoutque no estA de acuerdo, de ninguna manera, con
apologies, that Latin America is no la etiqueta positivista con que aparecen seflala-
dos los escritores de esta generaci6n."
longer in search of its expression, to use
2 Hudson Review, Autumn 1954, vii, iii, 454-
Henriquez Urefia's felicitous phrase--we 459.
may claim that Latin America now aJournal (New York: Knopf, 1951), Iv, 42,
entry
possesses an authentic expression, one for August 28, 1940.
' James Thorp Selby: The Early Chirico. New
that is uniquely civilized, exciting and,
York: Dodd, Mead, 1941, p. 21.
let us hope, perennial. 6 The Antichrist, p. 23.

This content downloaded from

132.174.254.159 on Thu, 08 Sep 2022 21:43:37 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms