Description
Book SynopsisMagic realism has long been treated as a phenomenon restricted to postcolonial literature. Drawing on works from Britain, Lies that Tell the Truth compellingly shows how magic realist fiction can be produced also at what is usually considered to be the cultural centre without forfeiting the mode’s postcolonial attitude and aims. A close analysis of works by Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson, Robert Nye and others reveals how the techniques of magic realism generate a complex critique of the West’s rational-empirical worldview from within a Western context itself. Understanding magic realism as a fictional analogue of anthropology and sociology, Lies that Tell the Truth reads the mode as a frequently humorous but at the same time critical investigation into people’s attempts to make sense of their world. By laying bare the manifold strategies employed to make meaning, magic realist fiction indicates that knowledge and reality cannot be reduced to hard facts, but that people’s dreams and fears, ideas, stories and beliefs must equally be taken into account.
Table of ContentsIntroduction Part One: The Problem of Definition Chapter 1 The Critical Debate: an Overview Chapter 2 A Working Definition Part Two: Literary Techniques Chapter 3: Magic “Mongrel” Realism: The Adaptation of Other Genres and Modes Chapter 4: Through AnOther’s Eyes: Magic Realist Focalizers Chapter 5: Mythos Meets Logos: Paradigms of Knowledge in Magic Realist Fiction Chapter 6: Making the Real Fantastic and the Fantastic Real: Strategies of Destabilization Chapter 7: Making the Immaterial Matter: Techniques of Literalization Part Three: Magic or Mimesis? Reading the Mode Chapter 8: Mimicking the Mind: Magic Realism as an Inquiry into Human Thought Chapter 9: “The only real ism of these back-to-front and jabberwocky days”: Mimicking a fantastic reality Bibliography Index
