Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America

In this seminal work Arellano reevaluates the history and transmission of wonder in Latin American literature. His treatment is chronological: he starts with early chronicles of the New World, which he classifies as the first manifestations of wonder, and concludes with the relevance of wonder in contemporary magical realist narratives. Throughout the book, Arellano provides alternative readings of canonical texts, looking at them through the lens of affectivity and emotion, and he examines the cultural history of wonder and the practice of collecting, which he connects to the 16th-century Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities). Challenging the notion that postcolonial magical realist writers simply reproduce the discourse and motifs of colonial chronicles, the author demonstrates how texts dialogue with one another through time and space, reconceptualizing the motif of what he calls 'the marvelous-as-ordinary.' Through this exploration, Arellano delves into the discrepancies surrounding the definition, analysis, and evolution of magical realism in the literary history of Latin America. Overall, this is an excellent scholarly contribution that does not limit itself to regional contexts and instead traces transcultural and transnational connections in the study and reevaluation of the Latin American chronicle and magical realist narratives. Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. * CHOICE *
This study sheds a novel light on an already extensively researched topic. The argument is daring, subtle and remains engaging throughout the book. * Forum For Modern Language Studies *
Contiene, por un lado, una clarificadora discusión de la difícil y, a menudo, abstrusa literatura sobre el binario emoción/afecto. Es en mi opinión, además, una de las más convincentes demostraciones de la productividad del llamdo 'giro afectivo' en el pensamiento crítico latinoamericano contemporáneo. Su tratamiento de las transformaciones epocales pre-modernas, modernas y post-modernas de la maravilla como estructura de sentimiento es extraordinariamente valioso. . . .un acercamiento pionero a la maravilla en el marco de la cuestión del afecto y las emociones en la historia de América Latina. [[Magical Realism in the History of the Emotions] includes, among other features, an illuminating discussion of the challenging, often abstruse, literature on the binary affect/emotion. In my view, this book is also one of the most convincing demonstrations of the productivity of the so-called 'affective turn' in Latin Americanist critical thought. Its examination of the pre-modern, modern, and post-modern epochal transformations of the marvelous as a structure of feeling is extraordinarily valuable. . . A ground-breaking approach to the marvelous in the context of the question of affect and emotion in the history of Latin America.] * Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana *
Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America makes a valuable contribution to a crowded area of research by approaching magical realism through affect studies, the history of the emotions, and new materialist studies ( Jane Bennett, Bill Brown). Jerónimo Arellano’s opposing perspectives elicit surprising new insights about works that have been analyzed extensively, such as Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) and Alejo Carpentier’s Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps)…. Indeed, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America has critical ambitions that far surpass those of a new study on magical realism; it is more aptly characterized as a sketch toward a new transatlantic literary and cultural history of wonder in modernity from the discovery and invasion of the New World to the present…. Impeccably researched in all areas of expertise, Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America is a sophisticated study that models the kinds of innovative readings that new emotions-based and object-oriented theories may facilitate in Latin American literary and cultural studies. * Modern Language Quarterly *
Arellano’s brilliant study recasts the genealogy of the marvelous ordinary in Latin American literature. It provides a fresh, new look at a seemingly overanalyzed literary mode, Magical Realism, by contextualizing it with contemporary theories of affect, the cultural history of wonder, the sociality of emotions, as well as the changing structures of feeling and material practices. This book reveals a new history of wonder from the margins of the colonial/modern world-system, by revisiting the historical relationship—in both temporal and spatial terms—among magical realist narratives’ expression of wonder and those of the early modern Wunderkammer (cabinet of wonder) and the chronicles of the New World. -- Ignacio López-Calvo, University of California, Merced, editor of Magical Realism (Critical Insights)
Jerónimo Arellano’s refreshing study is a subtle, thoughtful and stimulating reassessment of Latin American literary history. Using notions of both affectivity and emotion, Arellano sheds new light on the wonder discourse of the ‘New World’ and comprehensively punctures and problematizes the common assumption that modern Magical Realist writing is essentially rooted in traditional versions of such a discourse. -- Philip Swanson, Hughes Professor of Spanish, University of Sheffield