I have always super hated the term “magical realism” when-and-only-when it comes along with disparagement of other fantasy genres. Here in Sweden there’s, among literature critics, such unawareness and disparagement of fantasy that it’s mindboggling to me that they then drop their jaws with amazement at something like Gabriel García Márquez or Knut Hamsun.
Sure, I think the argument “once you’re writing in a genre or vein or idiom you’ve compromised your originality” is a reasonable one but fantastic elements like magic, space, super powers or time travel should not be enough to disqualify something on the grounds of being mere “genre”. A relationship drama doesn’t become less interesting because the characters can laminate the stasis or distim the doshes or cast hexes and spells. One li’l ghost shouldn’t send a piece of literature straight to the trash can. Frankly it makes it even more interesting.
One of the big appeals of books to me is to get to think what hasn’t been thunk before and explore modes of being that are beyond.
Nebulos adds:
I think western society has a pathological obsession with “realism”, which is the root cause of this. As soon as you deviate from “reality” we simply can’t consider anything else about your book because it’s not real anymore. Mother fuckers, we’re all just making stuff up, none of this is real lmao.