A Note on Magic Realism

From Misterioso by Gilbert Sorrentino:

Leticia Snap, a woman of impure thoughts and proclivities, remarks that “magic realism is like when ghosts and animals, like clams, put on clothes and dance and eat bananas and stuff and talk with real people, isn’t that it? It sort of kind of makes you wonder about the meaning of reality in a big way and see like sort of under the surface? I’ve known a lot of men like that—ghosts, I mean.” Miss Snap raises her skirt, and in the best tradition of meat-and-potatoes realism, unnecessarily adjusts her garters, showing a lot of leg while gazing at the traffic far below as if for the first time. “Now, for instance, if an exotic cassowary like walked out from under my skirt and started telling me the amazing history of the area in which I presently find myself,” Leticia sighs, “that would be magic realism, is that about it?”