The Magic of Childhood in Black Swan Green
One of my favorite aspects of Black Swan Green is the role of “magic” in the story, where magic is anything out of the ordinary. It occurs most frequently in nature, as seen in chapters 1, 4, and 10, but can also occur outside it, as seen in Chapters 6 and 11. To set a very loose definition, let magic be when the “mundane” world and the world through the eyes of the child diverge. There’s this trope in media where you can see things that exist, but that aren’t viewed as real by adults, when you are young, but that you can no longer see when you are older, and I feel like that’s sort of what I think of when I talk about magic in the book. We can consider “magic” in Black Swan Green as being a heterocosmic intrusion into otherwise realistic fiction. However, we can also consider the act of writing to generally be reflective of a heterocosmic intrusion, because one invents a reality with one’s words. Note for people who weren’...