Fiction for an Unnatural Era – The Case for Magical Realism

June 17, 2015 · by Eve Shulmister | in Craft | tagged Definition of Magic Realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, Kate Atkinson and Magic Realism, Life After Life, Love in the Time of Cholera, Magic Realism and Latin American fiction, Magic Realism and social commentary, Magic Realism and the everyday world, Magic Realism and the laws of time, Magic Realism vs. Science Fiction, The House of Spirits, What If novels, Why we read fiction | 7 Comments

Times are strange: our government can spy on us and say it’s for our protection. The folks who hold that abortion is murder also claim the right to carry guns. And a white woman (who claimed that she was black) gets elected local president for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Strange times […]

A Brief History of the Novel – Part Four

April 16, 2014 · by Eve Shulmister | in The Story of Books | tagged A Visit from the Goon Squad, Carl Jung and man's collective wisdom, Dr. Fritz Perls, Eugene Ionesco, Gestalt Therapy, Jennifer Egan, Kate Atkinson, Kurt Vonnegut, Life After Life, Magical Realism, Margaret Atwood, Metafiction, myth and 21st century literature, Pastiche, Postmodernsim, Tea Obreht, Technoculture and confusion, The Absurd, The Handmaid's Tale, The Name of the Rose, The Tiger's Wife, Tristram Shandy, Umberto Eco | 6 Comments

Change. Change. Change. Change … change. Change. Chaaange. When you say words a lot they don’t mean anything. Or maybe they don’t mean anything anyway, and we just think they do. ― Neil Gaiman Late Twentieth Century (1950-2000) – Postmodern In the first three parts of this series I offered a working definition of the novel […]