Arturo Pérez-Reverte siempre ha mostrado gusto por los escritores clásicos para seguir su modelo de historias bien contadas por medio de una narración rápida y precisa y diversidad de referencias ...intertextuales. Durante décadas, ha explorado la novela histórica, el género de aventuras con un toque de misterio y el género bélico, en donde muestra una visión de la guerra bastante sucia y nada romántica. Si bien se ha escrito mucho acerca de sus héroes cansados y del carácter existencialista y bélico de los mismos, aún no está muy explorada la vena del género del espionaje que recorre algunas de sus obras hasta legar a la trilogía de Falcó y las similitudes que presenta respecto a algunas de las obras más significativas del género. El objetivo del presente trabajo es analizar cómo se integran los rasgos de la ficción de espías de Pérez-Reverte en el género de la novela de espías a nivel internacional y presentar algunas de las características y tópicos que comparte con algunos de los principales nombres del género como Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler y John Le Carré en el marco de los parámetros que proponen Boltanski, Corcuff, Mandel, Tadié, Magris y Wolfe para definir el subgénero de la novela de espías.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte has always shown a preference for classic writers to tell stories with a fast pace, precise details and a diversity of intertextual references. For decades, he explored the historical narrative, the adventure novels with a hint of mystery and the war genre. Detached from any hint of idealism or heroic ideals. Even though much has been said about the military and existentialist character of his tired heroes, not much has been explored about his spies, who following the steps of the main authors in the international scenario, went from being amateur detectives to turn into professional agents. The purpose of this essay is to show how Pérez-Reverte follows the legacy of writers such as Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, Somerset Maugham, Eric Ambler and John Le Carré in order to recover the historical past from a sceptic perspective. In doing so, Pérez-Reverte presents the reader with a skeptical portrait of a recognizable the past which falls into the parameters of the spy novel according to Boltanski, Corcuff, Mandel, Tadié, Magris and Wolfe.
The article deals with analysis of typological similarities of the English social-criminal novel and Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection. Its relevance is conditioned by the opportunity to extend the ...background of Russian-English literary cross-cultural relationships in order to specify the points of attraction and repulsion between the English criminal novels and that by Tolstoy as well as their different national traditions and literary epochs. The similarities of English and Russian novel models are obvious at various levels: focus on a fact, social determinism of the heroes, criticism of unjust social system, trial scenes, origin of hero-criminal, system of characters, oppositions in time and space depiction, descriptions of prison. However, taking into account the differences in historical periods, conditions of literary evolution and individual development, one could say that these features were incorporated into a new context of the Russian classical novel with great modifications. (1) Key words William Godwin; Caleb Williams; Leo Tolstoy; Resurrection; English crime fiction; social-criminal novel
This article presents the game Olga Tokarczuk plays with criminal narration as based on her novel, Plough Through the Bones of the Dead (2009). The main problem is that this famous writer, recipient ...of numerous prestigious awards, here disregards a series of “iron” rules that have guided detective novels for ages to write a pastiche of a criminal novel. The analysis reveals that Tokarczuk retreats from common frameworks of criminal novels, only making a delicate reference to the problem of an “island.” The writer also discards the rule that a murder has to be the starting point for the criminal plot. She not only delays the moment of introduction of the criminal motive, but also, contrary to the abovementioned “iron” rules, avoids presenting the prerequisites necessary to unmask the criminal. She is far more interested in the daily life of the protagonist/narrator than in the circumstances surrounding the four murders. In the world created by Tokarczuk, there is no detective who conducts an investigation. At the end of this quasi-criminal novel, the very perpetrator discloses the secret of the mysterious deaths. Tokarczuk’s rather free attitude toward the rules of the criminal novel is also manifested in her choice to leave the murderer unpunished. Moreover, the author introduces an improbable method of crime. In Plough Through the Bones of the Dead—a title which also provides proof that this is a pastiche of a criminal novel—one will not find any references to classical criminal novels, but quotations from William Blake’s mystic poetry.
Artykuł przedstawia grę Olgi Tokarczuk z narracją kryminalną na podstawie jej powieści Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych (w dalszej części opracowania zastosowano skróconą nazwę powieści: Pług), wydanej w 2009 roku. Znana i uhonorowana wieloma prestiżowymi nagrodami pisarka zlekceważyła szereg „żelaznych” reguł, od wieków obowiązujących w powieści detektywistycznej, i stworzyła pastisz kryminału. W trakcie analizy zwrócono uwagę na to, że Tokarczuk odchodzi od frekwentywnych schematów fabularnych kryminału, delikatnie nawiązuje jedynie do problemu „wyspy”. Pisarka niweczy zasadę głoszącą, że punktem wyjścia kryminalnej fabuły musi być morderstwo. Autorka nie tylko zwleka z wprowadzeniem motywu zbrodni, ale również – znów wbrew wspomnianym „żelaznym” zasadom – rezygnuje z prezentacji przesłanek niezbędnych do zdemaskowania przestępcy. Daleko bardziej zajmuje ją codzienność bohaterki (a zarazem narratorki) niż okoliczności czterech morderstw. W świecie wykreowanym przez Tokarczuk brakuje detektywa prowadzącego śledztwo. W finale niby-kryminału sama sprawczyni zbrodni wyjawia tajemnicę zagadkowych śmierci. Dość swobodny stosunek Tokarczuk do reguł kryminału objawia się również tym, że pozostawia morderczynię bezkarną, ponadto wprowadza pozbawiony prawdopodobieństwa życiowego sposób zbrodni. W Pługu – co świadczy o pastiszowym charakterze utworu – nie znajdziemy odwołań do klasyków kryminału, są natomiast cytaty z mistycznej poezji angielskiego twórcy – Williama Blake’a.
This article presents the game Olga Tokarczuk plays with criminal narration as based on her novel, "Plough Through the Bones of the Dead" (2009). The main problem is that this famous writer, ...recipient of numerous prestigious awards, here disregards a series of “iron” rules that have guided detective novels for ages to write a pastiche of a criminal novel. The analysis reveals that Tokarczuk retreats from common frameworks of criminal novels, only making a delicate reference to the problem of an “island.” The writer also discards the rule that a murder has to be the starting point for the criminal plot. She not only delays the moment of introduction of the criminal motive, but also, contrary to the abovementioned “iron” rules, avoids presenting the prerequisites necessary to unmask the criminal. She is far more interested in the daily life of the protagonist/narrator than in the circumstances surrounding the four murders. In the world created by Tokarczuk, there is no detective who conducts an investigation. At the end of this quasi-criminal novel, the very perpetrator discloses the secret of the mysterious deaths. Tokarczuk’s rather free attitude toward the rules of the criminal novel is also manifested in her choice to leave the murderer unpunished. Moreover, the author introduces an improbable method of crime. In Plough Through the Bones of the Dead—a title which also provides proof that this is a pastiche of a criminal novel—one will not find any references to classical criminal novels, but quotations from William Blake’s mystic poetry.
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