thomas

Réalisme fantastique? The most important genre you've never heard of? A Christmas thread 🧵

Aviator, diver, Etherean, nexialist, PhD in aviation and climate science, host of /diving /ethfinance /forteantimes /geopolitics /science /singapore /thomas

"Fantastique", on the other hand, has no equivalent in the English lexicon. It pertains to the subtle intrusion of supernatural elements into reality, but also, and very importantly, to the uncertainty that surrounds them. 4/17

In fact, I struggle to even offer an adequate translation of "réalisme fantastique".

The first part seems obvious enough; in the arts, realism spawned in the 1840s with a goal to represent subjects truthfully, devoid of any speculative or supernatural elements, as a reaction against the idealization and dramatization of the then-prevalent romanticism movement. 3/17

Isn't it Magical Realism? 

Quite rapidly growing and fun genre too!

They are indeed so closely related that we are likely to start splitting semantical hairs at this depth of categorization.

That said, I had come across magical realism while preparing this thread, and saw it as slightly adjacent to réalisme fantastique, in that it accepts the supernatural (semantically, they swap the order of precedence between magic/fantastique and realism). From the wiki:

"Chanady distinguishes magical realist literature [...] based on differences between three shared dimensions: the use of antinomy (the simultaneous presence of two conflicting codes), the inclusion of events that cannot be integrated into a logical framework, and the use of authorial reticence. [...] in magical realism, the presence of the supernatural is accepted."

Isn't it Magical Realism? 

Quite rapidly growing and fun genre too!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_realism

Let me introduce you to an obscure countercultural movement from the 1960s that I deem both underrated and perenially relevant.

It originated from France under the name "réalisme fantastique" and is recondite enough that its French Wikipedia article does not have an English equivalent (though I'm thinking of creating one). 2/17