Is the Very Old Man With Enormous Wings a Flaming Rooster?

So I taught Marquez! I would like to go on record that Ryan is a liar. And he informed his group to “not do it like Jennifer’s group did” so that they partake in the preparation of the discussion. However, I did meet with David, and he said if they wanted to prep with visuals and the like they were welcome though not required. Moving onward!

I read this short story on my own and wasn’t entirely sure what angle to take when teaching it. It’s hard because in my world, Marquez can do no wrong. I had a long list of things I wanted to talk about, but I managed to fill the hour with relative ease so all’s well that ends well. I attempted to give the class a basis in magical realism, or specifically that it has a backdrop of realistic elements with instance of the magical for the sake of an unconventional reality. Most of the story is grounded in reality but it is punctuated by the fantastical in a matter of fact tone. I will say that on the whole they seemed to hold back as a group, there were only a few who had something to say about it. And while it makes me giddy with delight, perhaps it’s not everyone’s bag. Still, I’m curious about how the ambiguities of story are generative, and at what point is the reader put off. Are readers satisfied with not knowing? When is the writer/ reader contract violated?

I am curious about how it differs from the surreal, from science fiction and I had hoped there would be more engagement with that distinction. There was hesitancy with identifying oneself as a sci-fi geek, but maybe that’s because I totally put people on the spot. I think of science fiction as prescribing an alternate reality for the reader. It’s a vested creation in another world, its specific, and it outlines the rules explicitly. Magical realism tends to leave greater gaps and ambiguities, it requires that the reader makes decisions and fills in the gaps. I think that’s why I love Marquez. I wholeheartedly accept the magical elements, and they work on a subconscious level for inserting one’s interpretations into the work.

I will say I felt like I dominated the conversation a bit, though I had resigned myself to the awkwardness. It felt a bit like a performance because I very clearly am not the instructor, but I enjoyed the practice of generating that discussion. Even though I did not in fact do it wrong (cough bateman cough) if I had to do it again, I would have been specific with group expectations so there were other jumping off points. The visual art opening is working really well in the class, so I wish I had used that method for starting the discussion so that I wasn’t solely responsible for generating topics of discussion. Anyway, long live the flaming rooster!