Román Setton, Los Orígenes De La Narrativa Policial En La Argentina

L I B R O S Román SETTON, predecessors and antecedents of the detective fiction in Argentina. Los orígenes de la However, this is not so. Throughout the years narrativa policial en la some voices have pointed out that there are detective works previous to those renowned Argentina. Recepción by the canon. These critics have mainly y transformación de analyzed only one text or else the works of only one of those preexistent authors and modelos genéricos so the 1940’s version has persisted. The systematization of those authors and texts alemanes, franceses e has never been faced partly because of the ingleses, Iberoamericana, difficulty in finding those texts and also because of the lack of information that surrounds them. Madrid, 2012, ISBN 978- The general agreement regarding the origin 84-8489-668-5, 285 pp. as well as the excellence and uniformity of the texts produced in the 1940’s has kept researchers from taking a deeper look into Recibido: 25/03/2014 the matter. Aceptado: 05/08/2014 Setton undertook that task and went through magazines, newspapers and cultural The Origins of Detective Fiction in Argentina supplements since the 1870’s in order to trace the early presence of detective fiction in early is the PhD thesis of the Argentine scholar ISSN: 1510-5024 (papel) - 2301-1629 (en línea) Román Setton. This work has come to set the authors and to organize those authors and texts into a corpus. The result was surprising: Argentine literary history straight. There has 143 been a general understanding that detective not only were there clear signs of proto- fiction began, in Argentina, in the 1940’s with detective traces, but head to toe detective the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy fiction as well. So the 1940’s version was Casares, Jerónimo del Rey and Manuel Peyrou, proven unfaithful and a new and genuine a group of writers related to the magazine historization of Argentine detective fiction Sur (p. 15). This theory, presented by Rodolfo took place, one that considered the beginning Walsh in a famous compilation of detective of the genre with the 1880’s generation, a stories by these authors, declared the genre group of intellectuals that wrote fiction and had started with them. But this unfaithful non-fiction and worked in public. Setton also assertion was the result of an elaborated plot argues this early detective fiction is a varied, developed mainly by Borges, who in several prolific and high quality one, and that it takes texts established the preeminence of the model not only from the English tradition, but plot over the psychological novel, defended from the French and German traditions as well. the English detective tradition that present a This early detective fiction presents a mixture logical, rational and sometimes abstract, even of popular and high culture, includes a parodist mathematical problem, over the French one, elaboration of classic elements of the genre and exalted the figures of Poe and Chesterton and presents different points of view on a key as models. The production of the Sur group discussion of Argentine literature, i.e.: the adhered to and continued this borgean view opposition between civilization and barbarism. and produced texts along these guidelines as Setton dedicates the second part of his thesis well. After Walsh, several critics repeated his to analyzing authors and texts: each chapter Humanidades. Revista Universidad de Montevideo, XI (2011), pp. 135-145 reading (Donald Alfred Yates, Jorge Lafforgue is dedicated to one author, starting with Raul and Jorge Rivera, Elena Braceras and Cristina Waleis/Luis Varela. This author is considered Leytour) and sometimes also named a few the first detective fiction writer in Argentina, previous authors that could be considered with his 1872 play, Capital por capital, and his 1877 novels, La huella del crimen and Groussac also exhibits a consideration of luck Clemencia, both the first and second part of and intuition as important elements in the a trilogy that was never finished. Setton has investigation of a crime, a questioning of the recently worked on the new edition of these narrator’s reliability and the use of this type of two novels that have therefore received quite fictions as entertainment, along with the offer a lot of attention, but not yet a full, detailed of a new type of detective fiction, a different analysis. Waleis/Varela’s work stands out way of reading it and a happy ending similar to mainly for the social view he has on crime: he those of the French serials or the fairy tales. regards the criminal as a product of society The longest and more detailed analysis is that that has to be reinserted into it. This author of Holmberg. His detective works include also wrote pieces in which he analyzed and “La casa endiablada”, “La bolsa de huesos” criticized the legal system, the way in which and “Nelly” (1896) as well as “Don José de people were unlawfully judged and sentenced, la Pamplina” and “Más allá de la autopsia” the oppression and injustice sheltered by (1906). Setton insists on the defining influence marital law, among others. Varela/Waleis of E. T. A. Hoffmann, commonly unobserved, included a “Letter to the Editor” in La huella as well as the one of Poe, Conan Doyle and del crimen in which he stated his intentions, Gaboriau. He also considers Holmberg’s to please and educate, as well as the literary view on the founding opposition of Argentina tradition these works were endowed to, i.e.: literature, civilization and barbarism, and the the nineteenth century French serials and difficulty of defining where the criminal and novels, specially Gaboriau. the representatives of the law stand along that The next charter is dedicated to two writers, line; the way in which he continues Waleis’ ISSN: 1510-5024 (papel) - 2301-1629 (en línea) Carlos Olivera and Carlos Monsalve, both of criticism on the legal institution; the close whom wrote several stories that included link between social determinism and crime, 144 detective fiction elements but only a couple especially regarding women; the importance of stories that may be considered detective. of chance in the investigation of a crime; the Olivera’s “Fantasmas” (1883) and “El hombre narration of the construction of a novel or the de la levita gris” (1880), both portray the artist’s novel; positivism as the main philosophy invention of a detective story and its outcome the writer adheres to; a certain shift from the and exhibit a parodic view that will become rational, scientific to the spiritual paradigm, a common stand in the argentine tradition. and finally Holmberg’s aspiration towards an “Historia de un paraguas” (1880) is Monsalve’s inclusive and multicultural state illustrated by one head to toe detective story. All three of his compassionate detectives these present a critical view on the current The fifth chapter analyses “El triple robo de laws, worries regarding female fidelity and a Bellamore” (1903), the one plainly detective relation between crime and illness. story by Horacio Quiroga, who, however, The French-born writer Paul Groussac, also wrote many stories using elements from that director of the Biblioteca Nacional, published genre. This two-page narration portrays the in 1884 in the newspaper Sud-América “El first radical and abstract thinker in Argentine candado de oro”, and later republished it in detective fiction, clearly indebt to Poe’s Dupin: the library’s magazine under the name “La Zaninsky deduces Bellamore’s guilt in the thefts pesquisa” (1897). This inclusion of the story without ever getting close to the scene of the in an institutional publication can be seen as crime. More precisely Zaninky’s theory is the entry of detective fiction into high culture. based solely in the denial of the material proofs Even if many elements of this story are those and Bellamore is convicted on this amateur Humanidades. Revista Universidad de Montevideo, XI (2011), pp. 135-145 of the classic detective fiction, Setton also detective’s accusation. Hence, the legal system notices several masked objections: to the lack is questioned and, moreover, the whole cast of of reality of the genre, to positivist philosophy detectives that ignore human nature and force and to the cold, rational, analytic thought. empiric data to match their own hypothesis. For not only the narrator but Zaninsky himself The last -and probably less interesting- chapter asserted Bellamore’s innocence by the end of is dedicated to Vicente Rossi, whose detective the story, hence questioning the whole genre’s stories have not been studied up to now. Rossi tradition of setting the definite solution at the published al least ten of these type of fictions end of the piece. in which he followed the English tradition, Then Setton analyses the short detective namely Poe and Conan Doyle, as well as stories by FAZ -allegedly Félix Alberto de incorporated elements from the French serials. Zabalía-, also known as the adventures of His detective, William Wilson, is a reporter Mr. Le Blond. These eight episodes were who seeks only to please his curiosity and published subsequently in the magazine Papel consequently does not feel compelled to y Tinta in 1908, a time when detective fiction inform the police: he rather empathizes with had became quite popular in Argentina. In the criminal and considers the victim as partly those stories the police force is repeatedly guilty of the crime he has suffered. Rossi has criticized and not always its’ procedures are a sort of anti-semitic and xenophobe stance, duly followed, in close likeness to the hard- he considers immigrants as criminals. He boiled tradition. This detective stands out disagrees with the positive law that he regards as a skillful man in disguising himself and in as full of flaws and present the police corps speaking several languages fluently, who has as a group of useless and ignorant individuals.

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