I'm guessing that this is a topic that will come up in later readings so I though it might be helpful to have a discussion about what we mean when speaking of magical realism. Certainly I don't intend to pin down an exact definition, but if we can speak to what does or does not constitute such style in Heartbreak Soup, perhaps future conversations on the matter can be more pointed.
So very generally speaking, magical realism entails the intrusion of something fantastical into an otherwise realistic narrative. Wolk cites some of the early Palomar stories as employing magical realism reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude. Both works focus on tiny, isolated, fictional, Latin-American towns for a span of generations. Beto even pays express homage to Marquez by using 100 Years of Solitude as a catalyst for the argument between Heraclio and Carmen in "Love Bites." (213-223). Marquez's text is often cited as the "go-to" source for a primer on magical realism, because it contains so many different forms of it. For our purposes here, I'd like to focus on three of them as the apply to Heartbreak Soup.
Returning to my overly simplistic assesment that we have magical realism when the fantastic intrudes into the ordinary, but what constitutes the fantastic? Wolk contends that Beto's first few stories are grounded most in the magical realist tradition (for more on this see Kmurph's post, but for my money Duck Feet contains the broadest use of two major strategies):
1. Psychological conditions externally manifested. For example Guadalupe's fever induced hallucinations (262).
2. Phenomena for which no scientific/psychological explanation is implicit. For example the plague itself. We are only to assume that it is the result of a bruja's curse. This intrusion of the fantastical is perhaps most extreme because we are to take it at face value.
Obviously there are plenty of other examples throughout Heartbreak Soup. I'd like to know which ones the class found most effective.
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One of the stories I still find most confusing in Heartbreak is "Holidays in the Sun." We learn a lot about Jesus in a short time, but some things go unexplained when the piece ends. Someone (perhaps Laura) interupts frames 204.4, 205.2, and 212.1-3 with text bubbles singing Jesus' name. Jesus visits a busted place called "Twitch City" and imagines having sex with Luba, who then turns into Laura. And, on the last page (212), two scantily dressed woman are supposedly talking to Jesus as he works in the sun. None of these images/text are fully explained; there is a sense that we, the reader, are trapped inside Jesus' head for the duration of "Holidays in the Sun," but other clues suggest that these images/text are very real to Jesus. Are these examples of magical realism weaving into a hard realism so easily and seemlessly that it loses me as a reader? Or should I read this story as more of a dream-sequence that recounts how Jesus ended up in prison? Do dream sequences make for magical realism or not? And if they don't specifically, what about sun-induced dreams?
I think "Duck Feet" dips deepest into the magical realist realm, because of the reasons mentioned, and I think "Holidays in the Sun" dabbles with it (although I wonder about connecting memory or a man's daydreams to magical realism unless they take true form). For instance, if another character notices Jesus's fantasies, then it would leap into that realm. What happens in "Duck Feet" is much more community-based.
I also see hints of it with the stone idols in the river and the ghosts/voices associated with them (everyone is aware of these), and of course, with the dancing ghosts in the beginning of the book (a shared phenomenon).
Other than that, I seemed to sense Beto forging his own way through Palomar, paying homage to this magical realist world while all the while being much more interested in the very physical interplay of culture, sex, male/female relations, and small community of Palomar vs. the outside "modern" world.
Perhaps there's more magical realism in the sequel to "Heartbreak Soup."
Jesus is the only one experiencing the more fantastic elements in "Holidays in the Sun" . . . except for the reader that is. Since we are also experiencing his ineriority and questioning where the borders to that interiority begin and end), I'm comfortable placing this particular story within the MR tradition.
There is also a suggestion of interiority by the manner in which the ghosts under the tree and the voices from the idols are portrayed. Certainly there seems to be a mythology of which everyone is aware, but only a few people have actually seen ghosts and devils, or heard voices.
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