Magical Realism recommendations

[gingerninja]

I'm reading 100 yrs of Solitude and I've read other Gabriel Garcia Marquez and bit of Salmon Rushdie and while I quite like the writing style I'm finding GGM a bit hard going. I think it's because I'm not familiar with South American culture or spanish so get lost with names and cultural / political references.

Can anyone recommend anyone else? Are there any Brits writing in this genre? I'm not familiar with it outside these few books.

Not sure if this quite fits... Ursula le Guin's "Alwyas coming home" and "Four ways to forgiveness".

Can't remember the author... Life of Pi.

Time traveller's wife

(Vikram Seth - An equal music. Not the genre but such a beautiful book I just had to recommend it)

omg Robertson Davies love him all his trilogies and Ghost stories, Marchbanks etc love love love him

Ooh, I want to read 'Blindness'. It sounds quite harrowing, but good.

What about Calvino? Probably closest to what you're looking for is the trilogy published as 'Our Ancestors' (Baron in the Trees, The Cloven Viscount, The Invisible Knight).

Thank you sfx (about Saramago) - I feel comforted! I'll try 'Blindness' if I come across it.

The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith or other books by Peter Carey

What about Neil Gaiman - American Gods and Anansi Boys. Quite American though.

Another vote for Nights at the Circus.

LaComtesse - was that Irish one The New Policeman (Kate Thompson)? Certainly fits your description.

++ votes for Beloved and Paradise. Never understood why the latter got slated when it was published (but then, I wrote one of my finals dissertations on Toni Morrison so am somewhat biased! Paradise was published in the US 6 weeks before my deadline so I had rather an 'intense' relationship with it....)

Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma has a MR feel to it - strange and improbable things happening in a realistic sort of way.

Kevin Brockmeier - A Brief History of the Dead

Time-Traveller's Wife could arguably be put in this box too. Bit of a love-it-or-hate-it book though.

I love Gabriel Garcia marquez but think you have to read 100 years of solitude in a one-er or you get v confused. Angela carter was brilliant too - the magic toyshop and wise children are my other favourites by her. Not sure you would describe them as magic realism but Haruki Murakami's books are fantastic. Would recommend wind up bird chronicle or Kafka on the shore.

Oh and another vote for Robertson Davies!

Another vote for Robertson Davis (cried when he died!). Also Jasper Fforde -again not sure he counts as MR, but give him a go - start with The Eyre Affair. Some Charles Stross could be defined as MR but it's more science fiction, still, it's good stuff.

If anyone on this thread can recommend someone like Robertson Davis I would be immensely grateful; there is a big hole in my literary life, which needs to be filled.

I cried too barnstaple.

I remember seeing him give a reading at the ICA SO vividly. He was in life as on the page - magnetic.

I can't think of anyone else quite like him unfortunately

Although The Virgin in the Garden by A S Byatt has curious echoes of Tempest Tost

Isabel Allende - Eva Luna. Like Water For Chocolate. The aforementioned Louis De Bernieres trilogy (if you've read them first you can look on Correlli in a more kindly light). It's not magical realism but I love 'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter' by Mario Vargas Llosa (wellllll, it's Latin American innit? )

barnstable not quite the same as Roberston Davies, as in not fiction but Stephen Jay Gould always reminded me of him with his meandering erudite style, always so entertaining

have your tried Marguerite Yourcenar her autobiography reads like a novel.
maybe try Memoirs of Adrian it is a short book and will give you a flavour

Hey flossie, I have a question for you about Paradise

Alice Hoffman uses it a bit and is an easy read.

pw, have you sent via CAT..? Will look out for it.

Lord no, too tight-fisted to pay for CAT. Thread here

Don't get too excited though, if you've done it for your thesis I suspect my question will seem very basic indeed!

Ben Okri. Toni Morrison (although she hates the term 'magical realism'!). Helen Oyeyemi is British and has a bit of a magic realist style going on in 'The Icarus Girl' - lovely first novel from very young, bright writer. Haven't read her more recent stuff yet, though.

I liked Like Water For Chocolate too.

Have to recommend Little, Big by John Crowley. A friend I consider one of the most insightful people I know recommended it to me and, as a writer myself, I think it one of the best-written things I've ever read.

Flossie - that sounds like the book I had in mind (great read). I must have a flash of associations with the name 'Kate' .

Joanne Harris's Chocolat (or any of her books really) is another type of MR-similar genre you might want to try.

Jostein Gardner - Sophie's world as well .

Here you are! Try Angela Carter. (i'm sure someone must have mentioned her already, i haven't read whol thread_)

have copied and pasted:

Carter was a notable exponent of magic realism, adding into it Gothic themes, postmodernist eclecticism, violence, and eroticism. Throughout her career, Carter utilized the language and characteristic motifs of the fantasy genre.

ahem yes well virtually everyone has already mentioned her
(note to self: read threads b4 posting)

sfxmum, I'll try Marguerite Yourcenar - never heard of her. Thanks.

Marina, yes I love A S Byatt too, but not the same!

Sorry for hijack, gingerninja. Do try Robertson Davis, though, he really is fab. Go for one of the trilogies first, before the Marchbanks - they seem to be more of an acquired taste. My fave is The Deptford Trilogy, but that was the first one I read.

Of the Frederica quartet, the most 'magical' (?) is Babel Tower because of the (slightly odd) story-within-a-story. (I read that one first - for the slightly spurious reason that I'm interested in the idea of Babel - and it made a lot more sense when I'd read the previous two!)

I know I'm a bit like a stuck record, banging on about Primo Levi, but you might like his short stories (selection published in English as The Sixth Day^). They are sometimes 'billed' as 'science fiction', but they are actually (in my view) much closer to fantasy or even (in some cases) myth.