Reading (for) Magical Gaps: The Novice Reader's Aesthetic Response to Magical Realism

138 Pages·2013·0.96 MB·English

by  Carl Ponzio

UC Merced
UC Merced Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Reading (for) Magical Gaps: The Novice Reader's Aesthetic Response to Magical Realism
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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/49j4d21b
Author
Ponzio, Carl Joseph
Publication Date
2013

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

Reading (for) Magical Gaps:
The Novice Reader’s Aesthetic Response to Magical Realism

A Thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for
the degree of Master of Arts

in

World Cultures

by

Carl Joseph Ponzio

Committee in charge:

Professor Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez, Chair
Professor Virginia Adan-Lifante
Professor Ignacio López-Calvo
Professor Teenie Matlock

2013
Copyright

Carl Joseph Ponzio, 2013

All rights reserved
The Thesis of Carl Joseph Ponzio is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for
publication on microfilm and electronically:

________________________________________________________________________
Virginia Adan-Lifante

________________________________________________________________________
Ignacio López-Calvo

________________________________________________________________________
Teenie Matlock

________________________________________________________________________
Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez, Chair

University of California, Merced
2013

iii
Dedication
This work would not be possible without the students that I have had the pleasure
of training while at UC Merced. Each group taught me something about myself as an
instructor, and I must continue to enhance my pedagogical skills in order to prepare my
students for their next step – whatever that step may be.
To the two people I could not prosper without – Robyn McCreight and Anthony
Paramo. My travels and study have kept me away for far too long, but, as we continue to
become improved, talented individuals, we will each undergo periods when we must
sacrifice our most valued possession, time. Hours of strenuous training lie ahead;
nevertheless, I know I can always depend on each of you to alleviate the stress I feel
when I cannot fulfill my responsibilities as a partner to you, Robyn, or a brother to you,
Anthony. Forgiving is not forgetting: it is remembering with the promise for a better
tomorrow. Better days await us as we remain dedicated to improving ourselves and
others. Now, let us step outside of our respective caves and get some sunlight!
To the rest of my family and friends, my analyses fail without you. You each lend
me your eyes while I traverse literary and tangible worlds. Joseph Conrad once asserted
that it was his duty to help the world see: I cannot help but wonder how his closest
friends and family first provided him with the very talent he wanted to gift to his readers.
While I would like to thank each of my formal and informal teachers individually,
it is simply not feasible. However, to withhold certain names would be absolutely
criminal. Richard Ferrie, your dedication to helping every student succeed in a way that
best suits him or her still inspires me to send budding learners to college. Katherine D.
Harris, without the OCE, the ICE, and your fervor for making me a better writer through
the bumps and bruises, I would not have been ready for graduate school. Manuel M.
Martín-Rodríguez, your figurative couch served me best through the many moments of
exasperation. More importantly, your dedication to a life in search of readers has
transformed this former literary enthusiast into a scholar capable of appreciating what,
how, and why people read as they do. I would also like to thank committee members
Virginia Adan-Lifante, Ignacio López-Calvo, Teenie Matlock for their insight and praise
through what has been the most rewarding project of my academic career.
Finally, to my mother and my father. Without the both of you, my life of books
would not be possible.

iv
Table of Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………….vi

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………..vii

Introduction: Introduction: The Novice Reader, Magical Realism, and the Potential of
Ambiguity…………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter One: “Who Wants to Share?”: Relations Between the Novice Reader and the
Intent of the Perceived Author(ity)………………………………………………………17

Chapter Two: The Mechanics of Magic in Like Water for Chocolate…………………..43

Chapter Three: Occidental Fit: Merging Zones as Paradoxical Centers in The House of
the Spirits………………………………………………………………………………...69

Chapter Four: “Everything is Known”: Synthesizing Macondo’s Vacant Memories…...93

Conclusion: Maturing as a Community……………………………………………...…119

Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….…125

v
Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge and thank the University of California, Merced for
the opportunity to work as a teacher’s assistant while researching and writing this work.

vi
ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Reading (for) Magical Gaps:
The Novice Reader’s Aesthetic Response to Magical Realism

by

Carl Joseph Ponzio
Master of Arts, Emphasis in World Cultures
University of California, Merced, 2013
Professor Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez, Chair

The purpose of the following work is to propose a theoretically supported understanding
of a methodology used by actual readers who exhibit apprehension when asked to
respond to a text with an imaginative interpretation. I argue that once an author’s vision is
considered to be absolute, those people I deem novice readers will primarily search a text
for fundamental textual clues – or important moments in the plot – that appear indicative
of the author’s intentions. Basing the detective-like method used by novice readers in
reader response theory, the same reading models of Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish are
later considered in order to explore how the ambiguity of works written in the magical
realist mode can benefit readers who formerly sought to uncover a single reading. In
particular, selected works from Laura Esquivel, Isabel Allende, and Gabriel García
Márquez are each analyzed for their potential to enhance aesthetic reading strategies.
vii
Introduction: The Novice Reader, Magical Realism, and the Potential of Ambiguity
The purpose of the following work is to propose a theoretically supported
understanding of a methodology used by actual readers who, based on my observations,
exhibit apprehension when asked to respond to a text with an imaginative interpretation. I
propose that these individuals – who I deem novice readers – primarily search for
authorial intent rather than formulate their own textual analysis, such behavior spawning
from standardized interpretive strategies implemented predominantly in high school.
Feeling a need to obtain a “correct” reading, students making the transition from
secondary institutions to college with little confidence in their analytical skills most often
exemplify the characteristics of the novice reader. To scour a text for the plotline or
“close reading” moments – major textual events that the novice may deem indicative of
the author’s intent – signifies the novice reader’s methodology. Thus, anyone can be a
novice reader if they withhold their own imaginative response in favor of extracting an
objective meaning.1 After further highlighting the novice reader, I will argue that magical
realism can provide novice readers with a frame that can enhance their interpretative
skills through the mode’s ability to subtly and explicitly blend the real and the fantastic.2
The frame acts as a catalyst for the novice reader’s initiation into an imagined space
where subtle nuances do not need the absolute or rational explanations expected of them
from other genres rooted predominantly in realism. Specifically, the ambivalence found
in magical realist works exemplifies multiple possibilities for explanations regarding
fantastic occurrences. With magic originating from multiple sources and from various
perceptions, the novice can arrive at the realization that his partisanship or view enables
new takes on magic’s surreptitious manifestations and functionality. Though data
collected from focus groups is pending, I would nevertheless like to suggest that a
consistent use of aesthetic reading practices will best suit the novice reader’s maturity—
their will to engage with the text.3
Uttered with a sense of taboo, magical realist texts, almost inexplicably, became
one of the most highly recognized modes in literature after Gabriel García Márquez’s
novel One Hundred Years of Solitude was translated into English in 1970. Prior to
international success, the mode endured a lengthy tenure of amalgamation and
transformation before featuring recognizable figures such as Father Nicanor, the floating
priest who enjoys an enchanting cup of chocolate or Clara, the clairvoyant mute who

1 It should be noted that the term is not intended to signify gender. Though I predominantly use a masculine
pronoun, I do not link the novice reader’s skills to a particular gender. Most magical realist and Latin
American literature scholars are familiar with the resistance to Julio Cortázar’s gendered reading strategies.
See Simpkins, 61.
2 The term “mode” is used to suggest that magical realism is not its own genre, but a technique that
traverses the boundaries of proper genres. See Schroeder, 13.
3 Though an outline of how the suggested focus groups will function does not exist anywhere in this work, I
would like to stress that factor’s shaping novice readers’ identity will undoubtedly influence their readings.
I do not intend to skirt the issue. However, as my focus in this work centers on highlighting the general
methods exercised by novice readers and developing a schematic for improving their analytical skills, I
leave considerations for focus groups and their procedures for observing and aiding various types of novice
readers for a later work.
1
2

envisions her own fettered marriage outfitted with an abusive spouse. Scholars and
readers can point to such characters and deem them exemplary figures of magical
realism. Considering the mode’s disputed history, this is precarious given magical
realism’s various definitions. The earliest definition, formulated by Franz Roh in his
description of Germanic art of the early twentieth century, was either bypassed or faced
resistance from scholars beginning with Angel Flores and Luis Leal, but notions now
spanning nearly one hundred years continue to undergo reconsideration. However, one
constant is the necessity to willingly suspend disbelief while reading those works that
fluctuate between the real, the fantastic, and the subsequent world formed as an
intermediary plane of existence. It is the eventual acceptance of the magical for the sake
of the narrative that allows the imagination to thrive. To specify, the imagination is not
hampered by the absolute requirements of practical reason otherwise mandated by a
relationship with literary realism; on the other hand, imagination cannot run wild in the
magical realist tradition. Reality bends, but does not break. It is guided by the messages
pertaining to the story’s realist ties; a co-dependence forms between the worlds that
spawn ambiguous possibilities through reader participation – as it is the reader who
manages the limitations of his or her own imagination.
The desirable mimetic experience perpetuated by realist literature and the totally
foreign environments constructed through pure fantasy can encourage the lackadaisical
habits exhibited by novice readers. Such readers can best grow comfortable with a text
when they begin to re-evaluate the circumstance of the prescribed environments. To
clarify, the novice reader does not cultivate his skills by depending on the guidance of
sources outside of the text itself, mirroring the passive reader who reads for entertainment
or to make an attempt at storing textual details without a need or desire to produce
analysis. Works of magical realism illuminate a path towards a community of engaged
readers; the mode being a potential pedagogical tool to help novice readers cultivate their
analytical skills. However, the metaphorical path towards a community of readers will
remain unrefined unless new reading strategies can be implemented by instructors or
mentors and adopted by novice readers.
Reading García Márquez’s canonical One Hundred Years of Solitude sparked my
interest in the alchemic-like reading process I associate with the novice reader. Students
who do not commit to reading in an aesthetic manner seek worth from their often times
leaden or stodgy analyses, generally comprised of textual summary and the instructor’s
analysis. In a discussion about its use as a repository of imaginative capabilities, Ana
María Manzanas explains that magical realism showcases the “dehierarchization” of the
text’s social makeup (58). In other words, the paradoxical essence of the mode has the
ability to bring the people and thoughts on the socially constructed fringes to the center.
Emphasizing the reader’s role in the creation of the text’s omitted details incites new
conversations in a similar discourse. Karin Littau suggests that some scholars are simply
interested in the literary or textual consumption of the flesh and blood reader with the
intention to understand how they make sense of a story (60). Rather, a goal of this work
is to suggest how readers make sense of the nonsensical. Anyone who has ever read a
work of magical realism possesses undoubted acumen, an ability to identify that what
occurs within such a text does not make sense in the way that people engaged solely in
empirical or practical reality would expect. Rational sense-making would discredit the