The Little Weird: Self and Consciousness in Contemporary, Small-press, Speculative Fiction Page: 4
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face of the oppressive real. The characters who typically appear as agents in magical realist texts
are often disenfranchised and removed from the oppression's centers of power. In the little
weird, juxtaposing the magic and the real is not simply a way of demonstrating how the "magic"
(and who it represents) can negotiate with the "real"; it is also a model for demonstrating how
the oppressive, rational "real" can approach and apprehend the "magic." The characters in works
of little weird fiction need not be disenfranchised, under-represented, or oppressed: indeed, they
can be painfully mired in the "totalitarian regime" as generic citizens with generic jobs.
However, these "real" characters can still find, in the struggle to apprehend the "self," that the
magic (or weird) defines their problems far more clearly than the rational real, for as I will argue,
the nature of "self' is weird. Furthermore, if the dual narrative modes of magical realism both
characterize the respective people each embodies, then both the magic and the real are
representationally recursive narratives. The people are the manner of their stories-for example,
a story presenting the "magic" as it is conceived within the cultural ideology of colonized people
represents how they conceive of existence not only narratively but in the "real" world as well. Ill
defining as this is, it demonstrates that there has been a narrative anxiety about the importance of
understanding the self before understanding the landscape and whatever events occur there
beyond the scope of a people's worldview (and therefore "magic"). The little weird simply
brings this anxiety into narrative primacy, often unconcerned about what has been culturally
suppressed in favor of examining the uncertain cultural roles characters are thrust into, even if
their culture is the "totalitarian regime."
Furthermore, stories in the little weird typically occur in the "real" world and not in
alternative worlds as pure science fiction and fantasy sometimes do. However, the mimetic
nature of the little weird ends there. Time and reality can flow in any direction in this literature;4
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Bradley, Darin Colbert. The Little Weird: Self and Consciousness in Contemporary, Small-press, Speculative Fiction, dissertation, May 2007; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc3703/m1/8/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .