THE AVATAR IN PANAMA - Theses - Flinders University

2.2 Modernismo and its Masters: Darío and Quiroga The Avatar in Panamachoice but to repeat them. […] Just as in themost realistic story the narrator’s fantasyintervenes, in the most unrealistic narrationthere will always be a minimum of reality (99).Thus, it is the intervention of each author’s subjectivelymoulded fantasy life which alters the level of traditional elements thatmakes the narrative original; the creator contributes psychologically andthis resonates in originality and uniqueness. Jaramillo Levi’s repeatedscenarios, characters, and physical images are evidence ofautobiography inserted into the fantastic and although he claims “se meha censurado el ponerme tanto en lo que escribo, unas veces trasmáscaras y artificios de fácil o difícil develación”, biographical facts areeverywhere; in settings, relationships, situations and circumstances. 14Even the most absurd, fantastic, and postmodern retain amodicum of realism, nevertheless, the “temptation, then, to arrangestories along a probability scale should be resisted”. Comparing realisticelements in fiction with reality is not a valid exercise as this scientificclassification is incompatible with fiction. This ‘measurement’ removesthem from the confines of literature into the evaluating mind of the text’srecipient. Anderson Imbert advises the reader to aim to remain in “pureliterary mode”. 15 Due to the rapid development and increase of writersand number of works in the genre, there is no definition whichencompasses everything classified as fantastic literature, nor shouldthere be. Like Todorov, Anderson Imbert insists the genre should becategorised based on the response of, and the effect on, the readerwhose reactions and events are determined by their own readinghistory and the subsequent intertextual links they are able to make.Ultimately the responsibility for that classification is handed over to therecipient of the narrative.Anderson Imbert asserts: “To the extent it replaces a realityalready moved aside, all literature is fantastic” (97). Latin Americanfantasy comprises several sub genres like magic realism, lo realmaravilloso and the neofantastic. Julia G. Cruz sees magic realism as avariant of the fantastic and states that between 1835 and 1935, thefantastic story showed signs of an evolution from the traditional fantasticto the neofantastic. Oscar Hahn’s study of the fantastic of nineteenthcentury Latin America was the equivalent in significance of Todorov’sstudy of nineteenth century Europe. 16 The characteristics of LatinAmerica, according to Alejo Carpentier, include “the persistence of the14Jaramillo Levi, “Autorreflexión y epifanía de la escritura”, 419-420. This aspect ofJaramillo Levi's fiction is dealt with in 3.2 Double Whammy: Mixed Doubles, 181.15 Anderson Imbert, “Ruben Darío” 100.16 Cruz, Lo neofantástico en Julio Cortázar 40-41.96