Chapter 11:

Summary

Making it Strange: This chapter focuses on the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and how his fiction became the a pillar for the movement known as magical realism.

Portals Into Stories: This section focuses on the introduction into written pieces and how those introductions effect the overall feelings in the text. The focus of this chapter is on Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. The initial few lines of this text set up an odd introduction that plays with the timeline of the text.

Circles and Lines of Time: Here there is more close "X-ray" reading of the opening paragraph. This section provides evidence of the de-familiarization that Marquez is known for in his writing.

Making the Familiar Strange: The making of the common things in Marquez's writing strange is something that he is known for. Clark explains that this literary device is something that journalist often do, but reverse, making the strange familiar.

Writing Lessons

1. Think of a writing strategy as a form of ophthalmology. You are working on sharpening the vision of the reader. In joseph Conrad's phrase you will make the reader "see".
2. For narrative and investigative purposes, develop a time line. Plot events or scene in chronological order, then examine the opportunities for time inversions.
3. In a civic sense, your job as a writer is to make the strange familiar- to uproot corruption, translate jargon, show us how it works. In a literary sense, look for ways to make the familiar strange. What does the bottom of your shoe look like? What does it look like to a shoe salesman or a lover? What does it look like to a fire ant?
4. Try Garcia Marquez's trick: imagine you are seeing a familiar thing for the first time, not knowing its function. For Garcia Marquez it was a block of ice. How might you describe a hat, a cell phone, a banana, a cactus plant, your left ear?

Critique

Clark's ideas for the civic sense of writing are a guide backed by theorist. The demystification of a community is how David Bartholomae believes writing should be taught is his article "Inventing the University". Writers should work to make their text accessible to others, thus allowing a greater discourse to be made.