Magical Realism and Writing Place: A Novel and Exegesis

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to interrogate, in the exegesis, and amplify, in the creative work, the conjunctions of literary magical realism and writing place. The exegesis is presented in four chapters that examine some aspects of magical realism, with the main focus on the Latin American strand that has as a main influence Alejo Carpentier’s concept of lo real maravilloso americano (the marvellous place of America). The accompanying novel, Siddon Rock, takes the concept of mythology- and place-centred magical realism and places it in the Australian landscape of a small country town just after world war 2. Each chapter of the exegesis is self-contained, and while they have several common references they do not follow one from the other but, rather, are four specific sites of discussion that commence with the historical world view of magical realism in chapter one. This chapter begins with tracking the term into literature from its conception by Franz Roh in 1925 as a descriptor of an emerging style of painting. It includes various definitions and arguments by writers and critics such as the Latin Americans Carpentier, Angel Flores and Luis Leal, all of whom had considerably different opinions as to what constituted the mode of magical realism, even before it became a world literature. Discussions by contemporary critics such as Lois Parkinson Zamora, Geoff Hancock, Amaryll Chanady, Jeanne Delbaere-Garant and others are also included. Chapter two discusses Canadian and Australian magical realism and its confluence with writing place. It examines the similarities and differences in each country’s history and sociological development since British settlement, and discusses why there are different attitudes to place and how the magical realist literature reflects these attitudes. Chapter three interrogates two novels by Australian Aboriginal writers through the concept of border-writing, and finds important similarities between border-writing, Mudrooroo’s concept of maban realism, and magical realism. Chapter four is a reflection on the influences that informed my writing of the creative project accompanying this exegesis which include re-visiting the place of my childhood, an experience that confirmed for me that stories in a relatively closed community weave together into the fabric of the place: the place exists because of the stories that can only exist in that place; an inter-dependency. The creative project is a novel set in a small inland town in Australia in 1950. Through the microcosm of the town the macrocosm of Australia is investigated, using interlinking stories that flow backwards to the beginning of the town and forwards with intimations of history that is to come. Two influences of change are central: Macha Connor who returns from war where she had taken the role of a soldier, and the immigrant woman Catalin whose arrival in the town affects the balance of the place. The novel is about memory and storytelling, and how the past and the present are indivisible. The narrative shape is that of a series of interlocking stories, some of which are well-known in the community, some are partly known, and some known only to one person. The stories are of various townspeople, from Sybil the butcher-baker woman, to Young George Aberline who loses his farm in a venture to harvest the salt lake. The stories come together at the Spring Ball when the immigrant woman Catalin plays a lament for the death of her mother on her cello—they weave together into a fabric that floats out of the town hall and covers the town. But while this is happening Catalin’s son Jos goes missing. The exegetical concerns about local mythologies, histories and stylistics informing a work of magical realism that is written in a particular place (e.g. the particulars of Latin America that underpin the writing of Márquez, or the strong sense of place of Canadian prairie towns in the work of Robert Kroetsch) are reflected in Siddon Rock with the incorporation of specifically Australian mythologies: e.g. the child lost in the bush, the child taken by dingoes, the ‘magical’ qualities of Aboriginal trackers who can read the land. In both the exegesis and the creative work the major impetus was of a broad spectrum of writerly investigation into magical realism and how it is specific to place.