TEXT GAMES OR WRITING FACETS? Detective genre, intertextuality and French literature in Bufo & Spallanzani (1985) of Ruben Fonseca.

Abstract

Ruben Fonseca is an author of "thousand faces" because his production is not restricted to only one genre. He has already written works that fit in the conception of the postmodern historical novel and he has several titles that connect to detective genre, even in different ways, which demonstrates not only the hybridity of the author, but also proves his postmodern writing that has been intensified through time (or would be from the texts?). In one of his "faces", if we pay more attention, we will realize that the question of the intertextuality passes through the fonsequian's work. In several texts we can find these marks, one example is the dialogue that the author makes with other authors, either through tradition or literary icons of literature mass. Regardless of his "interlocutor", Fonseca changes, (re) creates, brings something new, in order that the dialogue becomes so tenuous to pass unnoticed by unsuspecting readers. By using the detective genre to develop a plot that attracts (or that would cheat?) the reader, the author breaks down the boundaries of the detective genre to go in addition. Regardless of the chosen genre, we can notice the presence of intertextuality, by chance one of its most important protagonists is Mandrake, that is not only a reference to an icon of comics, but also a character called Mandrake, in Ulysses (1922), by James Joyce. Could we connect this Mandrake to one of them? When we talk about Fonsequians intertexts works the first reference that comes to our mind is the North American literature, since it has important names in detective literature, such as Edgar Allan Poe and the great names of roman noir. But what we intend here is to go beyond the appearances and evident connections and demonstrate that in Bufo & Spallanzani the presence of French literature goes farther along the protagonist's name Gustavo Flávio, who has chosen to be Gustave Flaubert.