What is the point of magical realism?

Answer 1

Here's a reason from the Master:

"Magic Realism

"My most important problem was destroying
the lines of demarcation that separates what
seems real from what seems fantastic"
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Garcia Marquez maintains that realism is a kind of premeditated literature that offers too static and exclusive a vision of reality. However good or bad they may be, they are books which finish on the last page. Disproportion is part of our reality too. Our reality is in itself all out of proportion. In other words, Garcia Marquez suggests that the magic text is, paradoxically, more realistic than the realist text.

The Philosophy behind the style:

In literature, Magic Realism often combines the external factors of human existence with the internal ones: it is a fusion between scientific physical reality and psychological human reality; it incorporates aspects of human existence such as thoughts, emotions, dreams and imagination. Through this amalgamation, Magic Realism can be more exact in depicting human reality. Nonetheless, a certain person's or group's perception of reality may differ from another's: to the insider, a given magical-realist text can be a relatively accurate depiction of her or his reality; the same text, however, may appear rather unreal to the outsider, whose perception of reality may differ greatly from the insider's. Despite this, the reader (often the outsider) can bridge the gap by momentarily suppressing her or his perception of reality and adopting the reality presented in the text. This, in turn, equips the reader with the necessary tools required to decode the text. This can be described as the 'evolved duties' of the reader. In their works, magical-realists describe a specific concept of reality: to them, culture, history and geography are thus of great concern. In fact, Magical Realism can be considered as one of the literary manifestations of 'the other great tradition'. In the twentieth century, the ideal of homogenisation caused societal dissonances within the world's communities and social groups and between them to reach fever pitch: thus the blood-stained history of the twentieth century. In the aftermath of conflict, some have tried to assimilate history in order to aid the healing process of a particular community or social group and to re-define their identity. In literature, this manifested itself as Magic Realism, a dissident and dialectical discourse strategy which that can provide a more accurate representation of human reality as a whole. Indeed, Magic Realism can also be seen as the story of the 'other'.
Magic Realism is a world-wide phenomenon and, because of this very fact, the geographical, historical and cultural contexts in which it has evolved are extremely diverse. This has given rise to an abundance in discourse strategies. Nevertheless, six features of the many that have been associated with Magic Realism tend to be found in all magical-realist texts: the perspective is that of 'the Other'; the duties of the readers, in decoding the texts, have 'evolved'; the setting has a relatively specific historical, geographical and cultural context; reality is presented as the human experience of the universe, and elements such as dream and imagination are consequently present; a free, post-structuralist style of writing; and, finally, the inexplicable, in its many shapes and forms, plays a major role in all magical-realist texts.

Magical Realism--We recognize the world, although now--not only because we have emerged from a dream--we look on it with new eyes. We are offered a new style that is thoroughly of this world, that celebrates the mundane. This new world of objects is still alien to the current idea of Realism. It employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things. This [art offers a] calm admiration of the magic of being, of the discovery that things already have their own faces, [this] means that the ground in which the most diverse ideas in the world can take root has been reconquered--albeit in new ways. For the new art it is a question of representing before our eyes, in an intuitive way, the fact, the interior figure, of the exterior world.
In magical realism we find the transformation of the common and the everyday into the awesome and the unreal. It is predominantly an art of surprises. Time exists in a kind of timeless fluidity and the unreal happens as part of reality. Once the reader accepts the fait accompli, the rest follows with logical precision
Magical realism's most basic concern [is]--the nature and limits of the knowable. Magical realist texts ask us to look beyond the limits of the knowable. Magical realism is truly postmodern in its rejection of the binarisms, rationalisms, and reductive materialisms of Western modernity.

Answer 2

well, the most realistic magic book i've read were written by Gregory Maguire. He wrote Wicked, Confession's of an Ugly Step Sister, Mirror Mirror, ect. His books are very real, they involve a lot of things like politics and sex. They're also really good andfascinatingg. also, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. These books have alot to do with society and how woman were expected to behave during the 1800s in england, but they are very fantasy. Harry Potter books, these book have loss and growth andfriendshipp, all very realistic things.