As a reader, I have as much chance of becoming a billionaire (Sidney Sheldon) or a Hollywood superstar (Jacqueline Susann), as I do of coming across a tree with a mouth that eats things (Müller). It’s only that, as a product of a free society, I believe the possibility of fame and fortune is still held out to me, even if the likelihood is low. For Müller’s characters, living under a harsh dictatorship, those kinds of fantasies have absolutely no meaning whatsoever. No, better to fall back on myth and folklore, on the superstitious belief that a particular owl landing on the roof of a house will mean imminent death for its inhabitant.
Whomp, here it is. The missing link between magic realism and cheesy romance. While the blogger here looks at it as a way to explain magic-realistic plot turns, I am more interested in turning the lantern around and using it to illuminate in the other direction, viz:
What is it about those kinds of scary Jungian-archetype tales that can be carried over into the world of trashy literature (Susann)? How can you conceptualize the trashy lit ideas in terms of scary Jungian archetypes?