#magic realism
‘Firmament’, 2015, miniature drawing, 9cm Ø, pencil on paper
A drawing I made three years back. Making figures with entire worlds on their heads or bodies is a recurring theme in my work. It expresses the idea that every person is an entire world, carrying with him or her the experiences of a lifetime, the places visited, the people met. In a sense each person is much more than meets the eye, a chronicle of life and a chapter of the universe.
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Oil paintings by Giovanni Sanesi (Italy, 1992):
I love contemporary figurative art in general, but his paintings just have something more to them that resonates so much with how I feel. In his series inspired by the events of the russo-ukrainian war, he documents this dramatic event through youth’s dreamy eyes, as if it was almost a dream, something that could never truly happen.
(3/3)
Oil paintings by Giovanni Sanesi (Italy, 1992):
I love contemporary figurative art in general, but his paintings just have something more to them that resonates so much with how I feel. Giovanni manages to capture the instant, the feeling, the sensation of a moment better than photographs do, he gives us a quick, rough, imprecise but bright glimpse inside contemporary youth’s daily emotions.
The artist himself, looking just like one of this artworks:
(2/3)
“You’re back. It’s a ruin…but you’re back. You’re home, Master”
Dedicated to ill treated pets.
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Male and female nudes by Paul Cadmus, 1904-1999.
I remember the only sexual advice my mother ever gave me. She said, “Don’t ever accept a ride if anybody offers you a ride because they’ll take you home and strap you to a bed and abuse you.”…I thought it sounded rather interesting, I guess.
(Source)
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Magical Realism:“A primarily realistic view of the real world while also adding or revealing magical elements… [Characterized by the use of] magic or the supernatural in an otherwise real-world or mundane setting.”
For the lovely anon who asked for book recommendations <3 All descriptions taken from Goodreads. Please note that some of these books may contain mature topics or content. Reader discretion is advised.
An asterisk (*) denotes one of my all-time favorite books!
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Japan’s most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.
Plain Kate(*) by Erin Bow (Note: This is more fantasy rather than magical realism, but I don’t have enough fantasy favorites to make a separate list so…)
Plain Kate lives in a world of superstitions and curses, where a song can heal a wound and a shadow can work deep magic. As the wood-carver’s daughter, Kate held a carving knife before a spoon, and her wooden charms are so fine that some even call her “witch-blade” – a dangerous nickname in a town where witches are hunted and burned in the square.
Kafka on the Shore (*) by Haruki Murakami
Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura […] and an aging simpleton called Nakata […]. As their paths converge, and the reasons for that convergence become clear, Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder.
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(*) by Leslye Walton
Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.
The Ocean at the End of the Laneby Neil Gaiman
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. […] [He] is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. […] [As] he sits by the pond […], the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison, viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits. […] Two outsiders venture here: a fallen priest, and the Lady, an investigator who searches for buried information from prisoners’ pasts that can save those soon-to-be-executed. Digging into the background of a killer named York, she uncovers wrenching truths that challenge familiar notions of victim and criminal, innocence and guilt, honour and corruption-ultimately revealing shocking secrets of her own.
The Little Prince (*) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (It could be arguable if this is magical realism or not… but I like it too much to not put it on this list, haha.)
[The Little Prince] tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.
I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them
Currently reading; Her Body and Other Parties, a collection of short stories by Carmen Maria Machado.
I am three stories in, and so far I am loving it. There is something so enchanting about the way Machado writes these stories…they almost wrap around you as you read them, and nothing else matters during that time…
At this stage, I would highly recommend this book
The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
I finally read Piranesi! I first started reading this book in 2021, but I just could not get into it. It just felt like I was forcing myself to get past the first few pages, and so I decided to leave it to one side for a bit.
I recently re-visited it again, after being encouraged by my friend to do so, and I am so glad I did, because this time, I loved it! I took my time with the story, letting Piranesi guide me through the house, as he discovers more about its inhabitants, and how they came to be there. It is truly a strange but fascinating tale of one man and his relationship with the place he inhabits.
The prose is charming, and while I initially found it to meander quite a bit, as I got comfortable with the writing style, I did find that it suited the story it was a part of. It reminded me a bit of Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun both in terms of the way the writing flowed, and in the way Klara and Piranesi viewed the world around them. There is a marriage of joy and melencoly to both their stories, which I found to be quite beautifully done.
The character of Piranesi is so easy to fall in love with. He sweet, curious, and so at peace with himself, and so open to learning and discovering the world around him. There is a lot we could learn from him.
NOW PLAYING
Amelie (Jean-PIerre Jeunet, 2001)
Amelie, an innocent and naive girl in Paris, with her own sense of justice, decides to help those around her and along the way, discovers love.
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