Realism, Magical Realism, and Others

I've been thinking about the discussion in class regarding Satanic verses, specifically, whether it's realism or magical realism.

It kind of bugged me that we were discussing it as if "realism" and "magical realism" were the only options. I wanted to say more because I've made a point of studying different genre, subgenres, and groupings of fiction, and I'm really interested in the interplay between them. I like to debate what defines a genre (here I'm using "genre" to mean "type of fiction/thematic category", not "cliched fiction") and ways to blend genres, extend their limits, or confound expectations.

I tend to go on a bit in class, but heck, this is a blog, so I can ramble to my heart's content.
I feel that magical realism has frequently been used to mean "non-realistic fiction in a contemporary setting", especially when considering literary fiction. I feel that this strays from the very specific meaning coined by Marquez, fiction that strives for realism while acknowledging the subjective multiplicity of reality. I think a pristine example of magical realism would be "Calvin and Hobbes." The creator explained that Hobbes isn't a doll that comes to life only when Calvin's around, nor is he a figment of Calvin's imagination. In Calvin's perception of reality, Hobbes is an anthropomorphic tiger. In the perceived reality of his parents, Hobbes is a stuffed toy. Each person's perspective makes perfect sense to them, and they can't understand why the other party doesn't see it that way.
When strange things happen in magical realism, the narrator treats them as mundane events. This seems to fit with Gibreel's face disappearing from all images after he vanished and with pictures in the room crawling away from the exile's glare, but the degree of wonderment and acknowledgement of disbelieve the narrator shows at, for example, the mid-air metamorphosis, flying by flapping arms, etc. goes beyond magical realism.

Irrealism is a rare and confusing subgenre. Outside of scattered individual works, such as a few stories by Kafka, I've only encountered it in a single literary magazine, and that particular zine recently died. Irrealism is a world where the reality is being constantly undermined. If a carpet flies, there will be no other flying carpets, and it cannot be expected to fly again. The protagonist may order coffee and get a pot of ink, meeting all efforts to correct it with angry silence from the cafe staff. He might get a paper pad instead of a sandwich, or he might get the sandwich he ordered, or he might get the top of his head unscrewed. The only constant is inconstancy.
There may be some stretches where this seems to be the case, but then we have too many constants. An irrealist writer would not tolerate Gibreel maintaining his angel experiences for so many repeated episodes.

Fantasy is set in a world with different laws of possibility than our own. It does not have to have a faux-medieval setting with prophecies, magic swords, a destined hero, good elves and evil dragons, any more than contemporary mainstream fiction has to have coming of age, political commentary, and Christ allegories. It's a genre of possibilities, and many subgenres would fall under it, and most of them would protest. The key note is that this constructed world, the subcreation, whether it's unrecognizable or one superficially identical to our own with supernatural elements hidden from the general populace, has a system of coherent internal logic, consistency in what can and can't happen. Rushdie's consistency with the appearances of Gibreel's lover, with the halo, with the transmutation by definition of immigrants into human-animal hybrids, suggests a system of internal logic, but then why are the protagonists the only ones to metamorphose after the fall? The realistic backdrop for the fantastic elements is sometimes impossible to seperate from them.

Scifi focuses on a scientific principle and extrapolating its possibilities. Doesn't the "Lamarck was write" comment push it in this direction, albeit a very soft scifi rather than hard scifi?

Surrealism is a genre that's even harder to pin down. The best I can do is illustrate with a joke.
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: To get to the other side



Satanic Verses defies classification in so many more ways than the realism-magical realism dichotomy.

I will close with this quote:

"I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since (publishing 'Player Piano'), and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critijavascript:void(0)cs regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
—Kurt Vonnegut