With all the enticements of a detective novel—intrigue, action, constant surprise—Eduardo Mendoza's novel recreates the revolutionary tension of Barcelona in the period 1917-1919, when the Catalan capital was the scene of violent clashes between workers and employers, in the shadow of the First World War and its consequences. The city, the true protagonist of the work, nostalgically remembered by Mendoza, is presented to us as a conglomerate, apparently absurd, of social parties, nightlife and tavern environments, of bombs and flowers, murders and love affairs, madness and acceptance, populated by individuals who bring together the most complex humanity and the air of dolls and caricatures: a journalist dedicated to the ideal, an adventurous Frenchman, a disconcerting gypsy, a misogynistic bodyguard, a stubborn commissioner, a visionary beggar, and business captains, climbers, confidants, circus people, liberated women, cabaret dancers, etc. Humor, irony, the richness of nuances and experiences, parody and satire, the pastiche of subliterature, popular, the recovery of the narrative tradition from the Byzantine novel, the picaresque and the books of chivalry to the modern detective story, make this novel an intelligent and fun tragicomedy.
La verdad sobre el caso Savolta
Year
1975
Pages
339
Tags
Description
With all the enticements of a detective novel—intrigue, action, constant surprise—Eduardo Mendoza's novel recreates the revolutionary tension of Barcelona in the period 1917-1919, when the Catalan capital was the scene of violent clashes between workers and employers, in the shadow of the First World War and its consequences. The city, the true protagonist of the work, nostalgically remembered by Mendoza, is presented to us as a conglomerate, apparently absurd, of social parties, nightlife and tavern environments, of bombs and flowers, murders and love affairs, madness and acceptance, populated by individuals who bring together the most complex humanity and the air of dolls and caricatures: a journalist dedicated to the ideal, an adventurous Frenchman, a disconcerting gypsy, a misogynistic bodyguard, a stubborn commissioner, a visionary beggar, and business captains, climbers, confidants, circus people, liberated women, cabaret dancers, etc. Humor, irony, the richness of nuances and experiences, parody and satire, the pastiche of subliterature, popular, the recovery of the narrative tradition from the Byzantine novel, the picaresque and the books of chivalry to the modern detective story, make this novel an intelligent and fun tragicomedy.
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