MAGICAL REALIST FICTION

Texts:

Magical Realist Fiction, ed. Hollaman and Young (Buy this in Rice 17 immediately; you need it right away)

Borges, Ficciones (Grove Press)

Carpentier, The Lost Steps (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Harper)

Calvino, Invisible Cities (Harcourt Brace)

Morrison, Song of Solomon (Plume)

Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Penguin)

Rushdie, Shame (Holt)

Magical realist fiction both pre-dates and post-dates "realistic" fiction, the mode with which we are most familiar. It reaches back to earlier narrative traditions -- the folktale, the romance, the epic -- and it constitutes a challenge to some of the norms, especially materialist and positivist assumptions, that underlie literary realism. This challenge became especially vigorous in the second half of the twentieth century, and it came most notably from literary cultures that had a sense of being marginal: South America and Eastern Europe, in particular.

We'll be studying this fictional mode, more or less chronologically, through the course of the semester. We'll read six novels and two collections of short stories in the process. When we're through, I think you'll have a good sense of what this fiction is like, how it developed and changed, and why it has such a strong appeal to today's readers. You'll also have written two substantial papers on texts and topics associated with magical realism, taking them through several stages in order to improve your writing skills and your ability to write successful college-level papers.

Your success in all this depends on keeping up with the reading, attending class faithfully in order to be part of the ongoing discussion, and making a conscientious effort on your papers. Failure to do any of those tasks risks failure in the course. You should take note now of the fact that some of the reading assignments will be lengthy; if you think that will be a problem for you, you may want to reconsider taking the course. We won't, often, cover all the reading in our class discussions, but I will expect you to be fully prepared at each class meeting to discuss any and all of the material assigned for that day. If you haven't done the reading you can miss class, but more than three unexcused absences will keep you from passing the course, so that's no solution.

In addition to the reading, I will ask you, over the course of the first three weeks, and again for two weeks after Spring Break, for "response paragraphs." These will help me get acquainted with you as writers, get you used to responding thoughtfully and in writing to the assigned reading, and help produce ideas that will both facilitate our discussion and lead to your papers. Whenever there is an RP next to an assignment, that means you should bring a response paragraph to that class, to hand in at the end. These should be typed or printed, not hand-written, and they should contain one thoughtful response to the reading, shaped into a paragraph.

Further into the semester, we will begin work on the longer papers. I will ask you first for a topic, then an outline, then a rough draft. We will work together on the rough drafts in class before you take them to their final form, This will happen twice, and the papers in question will be 6-8 pages each.

Since we're a small group, we can use discussion as our main tool of learning. I will give background information and set out lines of inquiry, but I expect you to come to class prepared to raise and respond to issues that we will then discuss as a group. Remember that successful discussion depends on good preparation of the material, open-mindedness, and the ability to listen carefully and then respond.

SCHEDULE OF ASSIGNMENTS:

Mon. Feb. 7:	Introductory
Wed. Feb. 9:	Gogol and Tolstoy in Magical Realist Fiction (hereafter MRF) RP
Fri. Feb. 11:	Mann and von Hofmannsthal in MRF RP
Mon. Feb. 14:	Rilke and Kafka in MRF RP
Wed. Feb. 16:	Olesha and Woolf in MRF RP
Fri. Feb. 18:	The D.H. Lawrence stories in MRF RP
Mon. Feb. 21:	Schulz and Nabokov in MRF RP
Wed. Feb. 23:	Faulkner in MRF RP
Fri. Feb. 25:	Welty in MRF RP
Mon. Feb. 28:	Borges, "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" in Ficciones
Wed. March 1:	Borges, "The Circular Ruins," "The Babylon Lottery"
Fri. March 3:	Borges, "The Library of Babel," "The Garden of Forking Paths"
Mon. March 6:	Borges, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
Wed. March 8:	Borges, "Pierre Menard," "Funes the Memorious"
Fri. March 10:	Borges, "The South" Paper topic statement due.
Mon. March 13:	Lispector, "The Smallest Woman in the World" MRF Class work on paper topics and outlines.
Wed. March 15:	Cortázar in MRF Paper outline due.
Fri. March 17:	Carpentier, "Journey to the Seed" Paper draft due. Class work on paper drafts.
Mon. March 20:	Carpentier, The Lost Steps, chapters 1 and 2. Paper due.
Wed. March 22:	The Lost Steps, chapters 3 and 4.
Fri. March 24:	The Lost Steps, chapters 5 and 6.

Mon. April 3:	Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, First 2 chapters.
Wed. April 5:	One Hundred Years, next three chapters. RP
Fri. April 7:	Next four chapters. RP
Mon. April 10:	Next four chapters. RP
Wed. April 12:	Next four chapters. RP
Fri. April 14:	Last three chapters. RP
Mon. April 17:	Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1-3
Wed. April 19:	Cities, 4-6
Fri. April 21:	Cities, 7-9
Mon. April 24:	Morrison, Song of Solomon, chapters 1-4
Wed. April 26:	Song, 5-10
Fri. April 28:	Song, 11-14 Paper topic statement due.
Mon. May 1:	Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, parts 1 and 2. Class work on topics and outlines.
Wed. May 3:	Laughter and Forgetting, parts 3,4,5. Paper outline due.
Fri. May 5:	Laughter and Forgetting, 6,7 Paper draft due.
Mon. May 8:	Rushdie, Shame, I and II. Paper due.
Wed. May 10:	Shame, III and IV
Fri. May 12:	Shame, V