Editing Magical realism (section)

===Postmodernism===
Some have argued that connecting magical realism to postmodernism is a logical next step. To further connect the two concepts, there are descriptive commonalities between the two that Belgian critic Theo D'haen addresses in his essay, "Magical Realism and Postmodernism". While authors such as [[Günter Grass]], [[Thomas Bernhard]], [[Peter Handke]], [[Italo Calvino]], [[John Fowles]], [[Angela Carter]], [[John Banville]], [[Michel Tournier]], [[Willem Brakman]], and [[Louis Ferron]] might be widely considered postmodernist, they can "just as easily be categorized&nbsp;... magic realist".<ref>D'haen, Theo L. "Magical realism and postmodernism". In ''MR: Theory, History, Community''. pp. 193</ref> A list has been compiled of characteristics one might typically attribute to postmodernism, but that also could describe literary magic realism: "[[self-reflexive]]ness, metafiction, [[eclecticism]], redundancy, multiplicity, discontinuity, [[intertextuality]], [[parody]], the dissolution of character and narrative instance, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the reader".<ref>D'haen, Theo L. "Magical realism and postmodernism". In ''MR: Theory, History, Community''. pp. 192–93. D'haen references many texts that attest to these qualities.</ref> To further connect the two, magical realism and postmodernism share the themes of post-colonial discourse, in which jumps in time and focus cannot really be explained with scientific but rather with magical reasoning; textualization (of the reader); and metafiction.

Concerning attitude toward audience, the two have, some argue, a lot in common. Magical realist works do not seek to primarily satisfy a popular audience, but instead, a sophisticated audience that must be attuned to noticing textual "subtleties".<ref name="jstor.org"/> While the postmodern writer condemns escapist literature (like fantasy, crime, ghost fiction), he/she is inextricably related to it concerning readership. There are two modes in [[postmodern literature]]: one, commercially successful pop fiction, and the other, philosophy, better suited to intellectuals. A singular reading of the first mode will render a distorted or reductive understanding of the text. The fictitious reader&mdash;such as Aureliano from ''100 Years of Solitude''&mdash;is the hostage used to express the writer's anxiety on this issue of who is reading the work and to what ends, and of how the writer is forever reliant upon the needs and desires of readers (the market).<ref name=":3" /> The magic realist writer with difficulty must reach a balance between saleability and intellectual integrity. Wendy Faris, talking about magic realism as a contemporary phenomenon that leaves modernism for postmodernism, says, "Magic realist fictions do seem more youthful and popular than their modernist predecessors, in that they often (though not always) cater with unidirectional story lines to our basic desire to hear what happens next. Thus they may be more clearly designed for the entertainment of readers."<ref>Faris, Wendy. "Scheherezade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction". In ''MR: Theory, History, Community''. p. 163.</ref>