At the beginning of this semester, one of my teachers introduced me to the genre of magical realism . When I first heard of it, my reaction was something like, "That sounds stupid, fiction has been adding crazy elements to literature for centuries while maintaining some semblance of reality." (okay maybe not worded like that, but you get my point)

Basically, it sounded like a waste of time to create a genre that was sounded exactly like normal fiction. What I discovered was that this sub-genre was quite special, and in some ways relatable.

One of the books that I read from that genre was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao . The story starts out quite normally, someone posting a story about a friend on a web forum; nothing weird about the person writing, no evil computer, just someone doing a regular thing that any of us could do today. The narrative takes on a slightly supernatural flavor when the narrator explains what he is talking about. The story he shares is one passed on to him from a deceased friend, tracing a curse's effects upon that friend's family. Now, in this day and age, it is not considered logical or worthwhile to research family curses because that would be stupid right? However, the book does not waste time detailing the specifics of said curse, or the unnatural forces that bring it about; instead, the focus is on that family throughout different generations, and following the strange incidents that happen to each person. There's one catch. Nothing happens that could not happen in our "real" world. There are a couple oddities granted, but other than those few discrepancies, there is no distinction between our world and Oscar's.

I struggled to understand the purpose of this for some time. I love books, but this genre had puzzled me with its relatability. I came to understand that if the author had written the story without any theme connecting the events, it would have been a dark...but altogether bland novel.

Have you ever tried to tell someone about your day without connecting the events with the events of other days? Without that context, jokes will go un-laughed at, and heartache will be shrugged off. However, if we DO connect some events to a larger story, do we not make a little magic? Magic being the fact that every day means a little more than itself because it is part of something bigger, something that (dare I say it?) has meaning. In modern society, we are encouraged to act like everything is matter while being taught that nothing matters. Magical realism is strange, but it helps remind us that there can be more to a story than the details and more to a life than the moments.