Want to read my thesis about magical realism and comics?

[Aaron Kashtan]

I wrote a senior honors thesis about magical realism and comics, specifically focusing on Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, and Gilbert Hernandez. This was the requirement for honors in comparative literature. I finished the thesis in mid-April. Today I received a letter informing me that I am being recommended for honors, i.e. the thesis was accepted.

I don't know if this will interest anyone else, but there is a lot of stuff in it about Palomar, and also about comics theory and comics scholarship in general. The acknowledgements page might be interesting as well. :) And if I didn't acknowledge you by name, it's only because I had limited space and memory. I'm indebted to all of you in one way or another, both for your friendship and for encouraging my interest in comics. I want to thank you all again for having helped me accomplish this goal.

The link is:

http://members.fortunecity.com/sirtimdrake/My.Thesis.doc

I hope that link works. If not, try cutting and pasting it into your browser.

[Nate C.]

It sent me to a blank page, Aaron.

[Aaron Kashtan]

Try copying and pasting it. I don't know what's going on with that link; sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn't.

[Nate C.]

hmmmm. still a no-go.

[Aaron Kashtan]

Confusing. Are you seeing a page with a little FortuneCity logo, or just a completely blank page? When I click on that link, I sometimes see a page with a logo, and sometimes get a download window. I guess with free webhosting, you get what you pay for.

Could I e-mail you the file instead?

[Paul McEnery]

You have to wait a while, and then you get a word doc.

(BTW, Aristotle is wrong, and for once, Descartes is right.)

[Aaron Kashtan]

You have to wait a while, and then you get a word doc.

(BTW, Aristotle is wrong, and for once, Descartes is right.)

So it actually works? Cool.

What's this about Aristotle and Descartes?

[Nate C.]

Aaron, I'll try again tommorrow.

[Paul McEnery]

Nate's sig.

Which he will probably change to confuse, er, somebody.

BTW, at 27K words, I might take some time with this... :o

[howyadoin]

You have to wait a while, and then you get a word doc.Not me. I got re-directed here (http://www.stopnshoppoutlet.com).

[Aaron Kashtan]

I'm sorry-- I tried to upload it to my Angelfire webpage (the one with the CBR History site) but kept getting error messages. Does anyone know of a more reliable web hosting service?

[jackalope]

I got redirected to some INS site.

I want to read it. Email it to madness237 @ hotmail . com and I will host it on my site, and post a link to it here.

[Aaron Kashtan]

I got redirected to some INS site.

I want to read it. Email it to madness237 @ hotmail . com and I will host it on my site, and post a link to it here.

E-mailed. Thank you very much for the offer!

[jackalope]

Here's Sir Drake's thesis (http://www.madness237.com/MyThesis.doc).

[howyadoin]

Don't have time to read it now, but I will say that you did a fine job of the acknowledgements.

[Nate C.]

Okay, Aaron, I read all 94 pages, so here goes.

#1. Congratufrickinlations. If it were utter drivel, I would still say good job on finishing such a monumental work. People who have not pursued higher education often have no idea the work, effort, sweat that goes into critical thinking. I get so weary of people without degrees blowing them off with so much as a diminution of other's efforts. One of my favorite qoutes is by Alexander Dumas. "Thinking is work". Oh, and the work is not drivel, so that much the better.

#2. It is very well written, both in an academic style, and in the sense of your critical thinking. You laid out your thesis, followed it and within your parameters, succeeded admirably. Again, anyone who would criticise can happily read Rushdie, the other writer and Hernendez, compile for six+ months and then hammer out a 100 page text. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

#3. Any negative comments I make are to be considered in light of numbers one and two of my comments. If they offend, re-read 1 and 2 and stop there, because I am enamored with this piece, sincerely. (I'm a critical person by nature, so I would rather discuss the diagreements, disparagments than just prattle on and on in agreement)

Sidenote: I have begun Midnight's Children three times and have failed miserably. I studied the text in college as well and despised it. I saw my college professor years later out and about and in the course of talking, he admitted that he himself was unable to finish the novel and yet he had taught it multiple times. Take that as you will. I have read The Satanic Verses by Rushdie, and it shares much with MC, and of course I have read the first quarter of MC three times. :p Cien Anos de soledad, I am completely unfamiliar with. I know Hernandez, but have not read Polomar either.

#4. I took notes as I read, but they are not systematic and it is 11:30 p.m. so any of my thoughts are likely to be non-helpful and possibly inane.

Here we go:(and I'm just going to keep numbering, since I'm not the one who wrote an academic thesis!!! Aaron, a grand acheivement, Sir.)

1. Your thesis: "That magical realism is an appropriate theoretical paradigm for the analysis of comics." And the relationship between Comics and Literature.

I probably wouldn't have been so grand. Maybe, "For the analysis of MR (magical realism) Literature and MR comics". Because you stuck to that theme consistently.

2. MR: earmarked by a) modes of connection (which is a standard plot device in comics- you could have broadened that connection considerably)
b) resolved antimony (again, large ground throughout all comics) c) exaggeration (Concrete and Cerebus immediately sprang to my mind) and d) national allegory (this one's tougher, but Supes could have been forced a little and Cap America certainly fits the bill, as does the "everyman", Peter Parker.) You made the point that MR has these attributes, but a comics connection would have sealed the deal, for me.

3. Did you look outside the field of MR for comparitive literature? The two that immediately spring to my mind are Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Both have MR moments, an unreliable narrator (Conrad's Marlowe is an enigma, a pebble of truth surrounded by an enigma, a buddha among savages, and I mean the Europeans, not the Africans. Faulkner's narrator is an idiot. Literally. Bengy is mentally challenged and the first half of the novel is told through his eyes). Both are anti-colonial. Conrad is explicitly, and Faulkner, by virtue of being a disenfranchised Southern Writer. Both use the form of the colonial model (Conrad in his "seamen's tale" and Faulkner in his familial story) and both attack the structure they narrate. Further, both display wildly disconnected literary styles. I always thought that Rushdie was India's Faulkner. I'm just not convinced that MR is a distinct literary style, though it is new to me. James Joyce and T.S. Eliot come to mind as well, representing the Green Isle.

to be continued.....

[Aaron Kashtan]

Here's Sir Drake's thesis (http://www.madness237.com/MyThesis.doc).

Thank you very much for hosting it.

[Aaron Kashtan]

Nate, thank you very much for the comments; I will get to them tomorrow. Cien anos de soledad is the Spanish title of One Hundred Years of Solitude, if anyone was confused.

[Nate C.]

4. The earmarks of MR-parody, hyperbole, a sense of the exotic, and colonial assumptions that are to be undermined all seem like devices that fit other writers and other areas of the world. I have already mentioned the Polish Conrad, the Southern Faulkner, and the Irish Joyce, both narratively and politically. It just seems that to look at MR as the tool of the Colonized (Latin America, Africa and India primarily) seems to segregate it apart from the larger canon that could contain it as well. because...

5. Another hallmark- "A belief in the supernatural" marked by a familiarness or lack of surprise, could just about describe ANY supernatural culture, including most of Folk Roman Catholocism. Heck, any familiarty with the supernatural could be described as MR, in this way.

Here's my definition of MR, for what it's worth: Surrealism and Existentialism with a touch of non-causation.

6. Quoting sources in Spanish is nice, but translations are nicer.

7. "My ultimate goal is to suggest that comics and magical realism can each contribute to the resolutions of the theoretical problems posed by the other".

I don't know if I'm satisfied with that conclusion. Again, Palomar is a very distinct comic (and you did a wonderful job suggesting and defending it as MR Literature), but it's not "comics" and I don't know that the resolutions were reached for me. (but again, it's now midnight)

8. "MR helps to lend academic legitimacy to comics, whereas comics provides a way of creating MR narratives without innadvertantly justifying colonialist sterotypes". Well, again, Palomar isn't "comics", and American Comics avoid colonialist stereotypes pretty easily, as that aint their bag, so you won that argument because it wasn't really one.

9. I remain unconvinced that "mathematical precision lends plausability to assertions". You made your arguments well, but I'm not sure that simply quantifying the absurd lends credence. The more I think about it, though, the more I get it. I am no longer unconvinced. Steadily waivering.

10. You certainly proved that CADS (Cien Anos de Soledad), MC (Midnight's Children) and Palomar share the same attributes and that they are representative of MR. I just don't know that MR deserves its own classification and that it is not just a hybrid of, say, hyperbolic commentary. Parody. Satire from a Latin and Indian perspective. (most of these critiques aren't about your paper, Aaron, but the larger ideas themselves. I am arguing with "MR" now, not you.)

11. Resolved antimony. Exaggeration. National Allegory. Wonderful. Again, in the larger schema of "comics", you could of had a field day.

12. Slenson's thoughts on MR-"Cultures situated at the fringes of mainstream literary traditions" brought to my mind the other writers I mentioned as well as the larger comics medium.

13. One of my main problems with MR (the study, not your paper,) is that it seems to have replaced the "noble savage" with the "magical native". Unhealthy stereotypes compounded at a lesser rate. Yes, I understand that Rushdie and the others are attempting to undermine colonial assumptions and that they use the same tools to do so, but they create their own, unhealthy assumptions about themselves and perpetuate a false impression for the less savvy reader. Also, I don't know how much of this is unconcious in the author's mind. I know it's in vogue to read authorial intent into the writing, but when discussing what is unorthodox writing, the difficulty is compounded.

I have completely lost my train of thought. :o

.....

[Nate C.]

My thought, It seems that MR might be an overanalysis of an unconscious way of life.

14. Comics- a basterdization of an art form and the hybridity of MR. I would have liked more of that.

15. "Readers of comics could easily find themselves reading Magical Realism". A point well made and thorough.


What you convinced me of:
1. To re-read and finish MC.
2. To read the other two works also.
3. The connection between Magical Realism and Palomar.
4. The connection between post colonial MR texts and Graphic Novel symbolization in the three sources.
5. That the hybridity of comics is underappreciated and unique.
6. That MR is a very specific genre of Literature that I should further investigate.

I would have pulled back from "comics" and stopped at Hernendez. And I would have made the larger connections outside the field of MR, but really, that's just me having initial qualms with MR, not your paper.

Beautiful, beautiful work, Aaron.

You have a lot to be proud of.

And disregard most of this crap. It's 12:30 and I'm just jealous.

Nate. :)

EDIT: P.S. Aaron, I could have swore you asked for our feedback in your original post. I see upon re-reading that you didn't ask for that, and by posting my unasked for opinions, I feel just awful. It's one of my cardinal rules, and I broke it big time. Please forgive me. And I'll remove all my comments if you want me to.

[howyadoin]

Here's my definition of MR, for what it's worth: Surrealism and Existentialism with a touch of non-causation.I quite like that one.

[Typo Lad]

I... I was acnowledged in a Thesis.

Wow.

Tim, I promise I'll make the time to read this.

It might be a week or two though.

[Nate C.]

You have to wait a while, and then you get a word doc.

(BTW, Aristotle is wrong, and for once, Descartes is right.)

Well of course, Aristotle wasn't talking math and computers, so yeah.

But flat out wrong? Nah.

"But I thought you told me Darth Vader killed my father?"

"And what I told you was true-from a certain point of view. You'll often find, Luke, that the truths we hold depend largely upon our point of view."

[Lone Ranger]

Aaron

My printer is a little overheated, but I now have it all printed off :D

Wow! At the very least - it certainly looks impressive, and I am sure I will be just as impressed with the contents.

I will try to plow through over the next few days - really looking forward to it.

I too am very proud to have helped you maintain your love of comics - very honoured to be in the acknowledgments.

Congratulations!

[Aaron Kashtan]

Here we go. Unfortunately I'm feeling sick today, so forgive me if my comments are incoherent.


Okay, Aaron, I read all 94 pages, so here goes.

#1. Congratufrickinlations. If it were utter drivel, I would still say good job on finishing such a monumental work. People who have not pursued higher education often have no idea the work, effort, sweat that goes into critical thinking. I get so weary of people without degrees blowing them off with so much as a diminution of other's efforts. One of my favorite qoutes is by Alexander Dumas. "Thinking is work". Oh, and the work is not drivel, so that much the better.

Wow... thanks for the congratulations, and also for reading the whole thing! :) Finishing this thesis required a lot of hard work, although it also required a lot of procrastination and worrying.


#2. It is very well written, both in an academic style, and in the sense of your critical thinking. You laid out your thesis, followed it and within your parameters, succeeded admirably. Again, anyone who would criticise can happily read Rushdie, the other writer and Hernendez, compile for six+ months and then hammer out a 100 page text. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

Thank you very, very much. The structure was one thing I was proud of; I believe there's not much in there that's irrelevant or tangential to the conclusion.


Sidenote: I have begun Midnight's Children three times and have failed miserably. I studied the text in college as well and despised it. I saw my college professor years later out and about and in the course of talking, he admitted that he himself was unable to finish the novel and yet he had taught it multiple times. Take that as you will. I have read The Satanic Verses by Rushdie, and it shares much with MC, and of course I have read the first quarter of MC three times. :p Cien Anos de soledad, I am completely unfamiliar with. I know Hernandez, but have not read Polomar either.

As I said, Cien anos de soledad is just the Spanish title of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I read it in English before I read it in Spanish, and even then it was very impressive. Midnight's Children is an amazing book, although I've read that the first half is better than the second, and I personally would agree. It is a tough read, though, forcing you to remember lots of stuff.


1. Your thesis: "That magical realism is an appropriate theoretical paradigm for the analysis of comics." And the relationship between Comics and Literature.

I probably wouldn't have been so grand. Maybe, "For the analysis of MR (magical realism) Literature and MR comics". Because you stuck to that theme consistently.

Yeah, possibly. The trouble was that it's surprisingly hard to think of comics other than Palomar that fit my definition of MR. :) Marvels and Astro City probably qualify. Maybe Usagi Yojimbo. There's a lot of other stuff that could be made to fit the definition.

This sort of contradicts what I said above about everything contributing to the conclusion, but the ultimate conclusion, about the theoretical paradigm, was one of the last things I thought of. This is a common experience for me: I assemble a lot of evidence and then have to figure out what it proves.


2. MR: earmarked by a) modes of connection (which is a standard plot device in comics- you could have broadened that connection considerably)
b) resolved antimony (again, large ground throughout all comics) c) exaggeration (Concrete and Cerebus immediately sprang to my mind) and d) national allegory (this one's tougher, but Supes could have been forced a little and Cap America certainly fits the bill, as does the "everyman", Peter Parker.) You made the point that MR has these attributes, but a comics connection would have sealed the deal, for me.

Modes of connection-- between the character and the nation? I can't think of many comics that are explicit national allegories... but Concrete is another good example of MR. Maybe I could have made the connection stronger.


3. Did you look outside the field of MR for comparitive literature? The two that immediately spring to my mind are Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. Both have MR moments, an unreliable narrator (Conrad's Marlowe is an enigma, a pebble of truth surrounded by an enigma, a buddha among savages, and I mean the Europeans, not the Africans. Faulkner's narrator is an idiot. Literally. Bengy is mentally challenged and the first half of the novel is told through his eyes). Both are anti-colonial. Conrad is explicitly, and Faulkner, by virtue of being a disenfranchised Southern Writer. Both use the form of the colonial model (Conrad in his "seamen's tale" and Faulkner in his familial story) and both attack the structure they narrate. Further, both display wildly disconnected literary styles. I always thought that Rushdie was India's Faulkner. I'm just not convinced that MR is a distinct literary style, though it is new to me. James Joyce and T.S. Eliot come to mind as well, representing the Green Isle.

This is a good idea. I think it goes beyond the scope of a 100-page thesis, but I also think that the comparative study of comics and literature could be very productive. At this point it's what I want to focus on in graduate school.

Rushdie is pretty Faulknerian, I think. A lot of postcolonial authors count Faulkner as an influence. Brown even has a course (which I didn't take) called "Postcolonial Faulkner," studying his work alongside the other stuff that it influenced. He also has his semimagical moments-- one famous one is the chapter in As I Lay Dying that consists only of the line "My mother is a fish."

TBC

[Cei-U!]

I downloaded it to my hard drive for later but *first* I'm going to the library and check out One Hundred Years of Solitude so I know what the hell you're talking about! And thanks for the mention in your acknowledgements!

Cei-U!
I summon the reflected glory!

[Aaron Kashtan]

My thought, It seems that MR might be an overanalysis of an unconscious way of life.

That seems pretty close to what some of the authors I've read are arguing. MR is perhaps an exaggeration of ways of thinking in postcolonial countries-- or of the authors' possibly skewed ideas of those ways of thinking. (Sorry for the labyrinthine sentence.)


14. Comics- a basterdization of an art form and the hybridity of MR. I would have liked more of that.

Me too. Hybridity appears to be a pretty important concept in postcolonial theory. In my sophomore year I wrote a paper about different versions of hybridity in The Sun Also Rises, Rushdie's East, West and the movie My Beautiful Launderette, using some theory from Homi Bhabha. The professor for that class was my second thesis advisor, in fact. I could have used some of that theory, and maybe I'll return to it someday.


15. "Readers of comics could easily find themselves reading Magical Realism". A point well made and thorough.

Did I make that point? :) I think most people do read comics whether they realize it or not-- they read the comics in the newspaper, or look at the safety instruction card on an airplane. Also, magical realism is not that far from fantasy, which a lot of comics readers enjoy.


What you convinced me of:
1. To re-read and finish MC.
2. To read the other two works also.
3. The connection between Magical Realism and Palomar.
4. The connection between post colonial MR texts and Graphic Novel symbolization in the three sources.
5. That the hybridity of comics is underappreciated and unique.
6. That MR is a very specific genre of Literature that I should further investigate.

Wow... thanks! :) #6 is actually a matter of some dispute. Some writers complain that the term "magical realism" has been stretched so far, used to describe so many different things, that it's in danger of becoming useless. But I personally agree that it does describe a distinct category of literature, even if the boundaries of that category are not clear.


I would have pulled back from "comics" and stopped at Hernendez. And I would have made the larger connections outside the field of MR, but really, that's just me having initial qualms with MR, not your paper.

The trouble with that is neither of my advisors have read Hernandez, or at least they hadn't when I proposed the project to them. :) Also, I didn't think that I should stop at connecting Rushdie, Garcia Marquez and Hernandez. My first advisor told me I should have a broader "research purpose," so I tried to find one.


Beautiful, beautiful work, Aaron.

You have a lot to be proud of.

And disregard most of this crap. It's 12:30 and I'm just jealous.

Nate. :)

I am very gratified by your praise, Nate. I'm glad that someone else found this interesting. Thanks again for reading it, and for your comments.


EDIT: P.S. Aaron, I could have swore you asked for our feedback in your original post. I see upon re-reading that you didn't ask for that, and by posting my unasked for opinions, I feel just awful. It's one of my cardinal rules, and I broke it big time. Please forgive me. And I'll remove all my comments if you want me to.

Oh, no problem. I'm very grateful for the feedback, and I should have asked for it in my initial post.

I'll say it now, though: I would welcome any feedback that anyone is willing to offer.

[Nate C.]

Aaron,

Nice to know I wasn't talking out of my butt. You see, I left the field of academia for good, and now consider myself a "common reader" alongside Woolf, etc. so I don't get the dialoggue that you do. It's nice to know that some of my thoughts were some of your's and your Proff's. I envy you, in case you haven't picked up on that, which is why I wish you the absolute best. You have a very bright future ahead, my friend.

Once again, fine work. And thanks for engaging me. Now go get some much deserved rest and recouperation.

Nate.

[khorie]

Hi sir drake..im doing a thesis with a similar nature. I'd like to read your work but i cant seem to access it..can you email them to me? rastakhorie@yahoo.com

i will give credit your work of course.thank you so much!:)