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Review Of: Galdos Beyond Realism: Reading And The Creation Of Magical Worlds, Joan M. Hoffman

Modern & Classical Languages

Timothy McGovern's latest offering, Galdós Beyond Realism: Reading and the Creation of Magical Worlds, may prove surprising, if not a bit unsettling, for the die-hard, skeptical fan of Spanish High Realism who can not imagine the words "Galdós" and "magical worlds" in the same sentence. Nonetheless, McGovern presents a fascinating examination of what he terms Don Benito's "magical fictions" (7). He jostles us out of our comfort zone, examining "post-realist, non-realist, or magical" Galdosian works that push the limits of traditional realism through the employment of metafictional and magical frames, supernatural interventions, and a very conscious lack of verisimilitude (29). …