Busca el libro! : la intervención de Sherlock Holmes y D'Artagnan en El Club Dumas de Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Abstract

The essay examines Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel The Dumas Club. The novel can be categorized as a literary crime story; it maintains the characteristics of traditional detective fiction, but, as the author points out, it also presents the use of refined and complex narrative techniques. Pérez Reverte offers a dizzying array of cultural, literary and historical references, which all carry a metaphoric layer of meaning and expand the narrative space and time of the novel into infinity. Similarly to the Greek tradition and the characteristics of the literature of adventure, defined by Bakhtin, the condensed time and space become the principal motivators for the action. The complex system of symbols, the chronotopical motives and the metatextual references offer different layers of possible interpretations and provide a complex character portrayal. Pérez-Reverte's characters embody Sherlock Holmes and other famous detectives; at the same time, they evoke the classic heroes of The Three Muskateers, and often bear similarities to the author himself, and to important literary predecessors. Each of the 16 chapters of the novel is preceded by a motto taken from a famous literary work of art; these quotations function as an incipit, advancing and, at the same time, reflecting to the most important elements of the chapter.