What is it about?
In the novel Los secretos de San Gervasio (1994) by the writer, critic and translator Carlos Pujol (1936-2012), Sherlock Holmes tries to solve a case in Barcelona and faces the resounding failure of his supposedly infallible rational logic. We seek to show, first of all, that in this novel an elevation and parody of the police genre is carried out through the ironic inversion of the characteristic elements of detective stories. Secondly, we will see that the work portrays Carlos Pujol's conception of literature as an intelligent entertainment. Finally, we will defend the hypothesis that an intertextual relationship can be appreciated between this novel and El Quijote; the latter being the classic example of a novel with literary ambition that entertains in an intelligent way with a parody of its genre, incorporating metaliterary considerations through irony and addresing the theme of personal failure. Holmes ceases to be a flat character and joins a literary novel.
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Why is it important?
The article analyzes a detective novel, Los secretos de San Gervasio by Carlos Pujol, which performs an intelligent parody of the detective genre while elevating this genre with a literary novel in which Sherlock Holmes ceases to be a flat character. Don Quixote is the reference of this transformation.
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This page is a summary of: Elevación y parodia del género policíaco: Sherlock Holmes en una novela literaria con el Quijote de referente, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, July 2020, Liverpool University Press, DOI: 10.3828/bhs.2020.41.
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Resources
Workshop: "Sherlock Holmes in Barcelona"
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the publication of Los secretos de san Gervasio [The Secrets of Sant Gervasi] by writer Carlos Pujol, the research group Carlos Pujol, Literature and Humanism is organising an event entitled “Sherlock Holmes in Barcelona”; a tribute to the first novel in which the famous detective travels to Barcelona to solve a crime.
Los secretos de San Gervasio (novel)
Sherlock Holmes recibe en Londres la visita de dos hijas de un rico fabricante de telas de Barcelona, que le encargan investigar la presunta desaparición del industrial. En sus pesquisas por el distrito de San Gervasio, Holmes conoce a curiosos personajes y se contagia del ambiente mediterráneo estival que lo pone a prueba... Los secretos de San Gervasio, novela que en 1994 publicó Carlos Pujol (y ahora recupera Menoscuarto), es una clara muestra del gran talento de este sutil narrador, que sabe aquí trascender los tópicos del género, y brindar al lector una obra amena y perdurable, cargada de irónico humor, ternura y mitomanía.
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