While reading Douglas Wolk's essay Gilbert Hernandez: Spiraling into the System, I was interested by a comment he tosses out before quickly moving on, "The first few Palomar stories were pretty clearly written under the magical realist influence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude" (Wolk 183). He claims that Hernandez then moves out from under this influence and instead embraces the "extended family" of the town. I would argue that, although the "mystical" aspect of the text bows at times to more realistic character development, magical realism remains an important aspect of Hernandez's exploration of Latino culture, as described by Charles Hatfield in Alternative Comics.
As Wolk describes, the circumstances of many of the events of the first few stories have an air of the fantastic about them. The obscure position of "banadora," Tipin Tipin hiding under the house until his broken heart is cured by the story's all-important soup, Israel's twin who disappears during an eclipse, Vicente's disfiguration, and the boys nonchalant acceptance of Pintor, and later, Toco and Manuel's ghosts hanging out around a bench--all create a sense of "other," of a place that is exotic and removed from our lives by far more than geography and the dramatic sexuality and tumultuous relationships.
Once Hernandez sets this aspect of Palomar in place, he can move on and explore other aspects of the story-rich town, reminding us in other ways of its unique nature. Hatfield mentions his fascination with space and time, devices that also speak to a nature of "magical realism."
Moving from panel to panel I notice his methodical control of chronology, his symbolic use of names, his creation of a "mythical" place, occasions of the fantastic--in short, something resembling a magical realism checklist.
So was Wolk right to downplay Hernandez's magical realism leanings? Or are the devices evident in Hatfield's analysis--and the text itself--enough to suggest the importance of the genre to Herenandez's themes? He is, after all, exploring a Latin American town, and magical realism is classically a Latin American genre. What other intentions might he have had? Should we be examining other texts--such as 100 Years of Solitude--to further unwrap the mysteries of Palomar? Or is it just an effective story-telling technique, with the cultural significance as a built-in bonus?
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2 comments:
For me, the most interesting and memorable stories in the series are those in which Hernandez employs magical realism. Using magical realism not only recalls Garcia Marquez, but ties the work into a rich tradition of Latin story telling. While Palomar is a somewhat isolated town, the use of magic realism connects it to the larger realm of Latin literature.
Wolk's assessment that Beto abandons the magical realism aspect in his later works seems a little inaccurate. As you mention, some of the earlier parts are peppered with the fantastic, but these elements don't appear to be integral to the story as a whole. With a few of the later stories (I'm thinking particularly of "Holiday in the Sun" and "Duck Feet" More on this in my own post) however, these aspects are magnified and actually drive the narrative.
My only question is this: When Wolk referred to Beto's later stories was he looking past the selections contained in Heartbreak Soup. In the grand scheme of the epic of Palomar, maybe all of these are considered his early stories.
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