La historia de un fecundo error: El club Dumas de Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Abstract

Arturo Pérez-Reverte's vision of literature in El club Dumas derives, in part, from two fundamental principles of chaos, namely, indeterminacy and nonlinear cause-effect relations (the absence of direct connections between causes and their effects). A reading of El club Dumas in terms of indeterminacy reveals that Miguel de Unamuno's Niebla contributes to defining Pérez-Reverte's metafiction as a literary representation of existential uncertainty. In addition, nonlinear intertextuality provides Pérez-Reverte's novel with the notions of unpredictability and the unexpected. As a consequence, El club Dumas encourages readers to regard the possibility of error as a critical source of intellectual knowledge, creative innovation, and personal growth.