The Rememberer

Fabulism and magical realism are literary concepts that refer to narratives that input the fantastic within an otherwise realistic plot and setting. Magical realism is a somewhat contested term in that it is often associated with a group of Latin American writers of the 20th century who used fantastic elements to examine and critique the politics of the time. Fabulism is a far more general term that can apply widely across a variety of literary genres, including postmodernism, slipstream, and speculative fiction. The use of the fantastic—characters who “reverse evolve” from human to animal, for example—varies across cultures and time periods, but ultimately Aimee Bender’s fiction sits within a rich literary history of storytelling that combines the real with the explicitly unreal or fabulous.

Unlike traditional fantasy literature, in which the entire world of the story is imagined, fabulist stories do not establish such boundaries. The story, inclusive of its fabulist elements, is told as if depicting the reality of the reader. Within “The Rememberer,” Bender does not create a setting in which the transformation of Ben into an animal is logical, as such a transformation might be understood in the world of Harry Potter. The world of Harry Potter is one in which the human transformation into an animal makes sense and is not especially surprising. The world of “The Remember” does not provide any world building or other logical explanation for Ben’s transformation.

Another hallmark of fabulism is that the characters, without question, accept the amazing events that occur to and around them. Despite her boyfriend turning into an ape, Annie isn’t shocked. She doesn’t even seem particularly surprised. While she does cry over the loss of human Ben, she neither screams at the sight of him, nor does she call anyone to come take him away, or even to witness what has happened. She simply hugs him and goes into caretaking mode, as one would with a sick or injured loved one. Although she does consult a biology professor at the local community college to try to understand the approximate timeline of evolution, she does this to simply understand Ben’s (and her) circumstances. Ben’s transformation is a spectacle, but in the Fabulist world, Annie does not respond to him in the ways spectacles usually elicit; she does create an audience, nor does she try to hide his change. While she wants to understand what’s happening to him, never once does she ask why he’s experiencing reverse evolution. Ben-the-Ape quickly becomes a part of Annie’s day-to-day life.

This juxtaposition between the spectacular and the mundane treatment of the spectacular offers challenges to readers and their expectations for narrative. In this way, fabulist literature offers complex and rich themes as well as insights into the nature of storytelling itself.