How does Updike use magical realism in the novel, Toward the End of Time?

Related to surrealism, magical realism enriches reality by incorporating dimensions of the imagination. Realistic and fantastic parts are presented as equally real, though these disparate parts may fit together quite illogically. For example, Ben imagines making love to a deer and the action is presented as though it literally occurs or as if the animal morphs into a woman. Gloria wants Ben to shoot the deer, and his feelings extend beyond the ordinary; the deer enters his house, turns into a human being who maintains some deer-like characteristics; and Ben makes love to her. "She becomes," Ben relates, "a young lean-bodied whore, whom I invite into the house." Later, Deirdre is described as "heavily furred." When Deirdre leaves, Ben describes how she "bound[ed] down through the woods with her lifted tail showing more white than anyone could expect." Magical realism allows Updike to probe the boundaries of reality and to suggest that fantasy and thought are as real as matter, and they shape the nature of what people take as the external world.