THE CRISIS OF THE FIGURE OF THE DETECTIVE IN THE NOVEL "COLONIA DE PERROS", BY GONZALO HERNÁNDEZ

Abstract

The crime fiction genre has occupied a prominent place in the context of Chilean narrative during the past two decades. Within this narrative production, in some cases, the figure of the detective slips into that of the anti-detective, especially due to the conditions of the world being represented or to the perceived uselessness of the figure’s actions. Exemplary in this regard is the novel Colonia de perros (2010) by Gonzalo Hernández, which is the focus of this article. The article analyzes the collision between the wishes of Altazor and the latent symbolic structures in the poem: Christianity, capitalism, and traditional poetry. Ending “in the jaws of insatiable oblivion” or reaching “eternity like a dove in his hands” will be the protagonist’s great dilemma. To develop this approach, a hermeneutical method and multidisciplinary focus will be used. The article concludes that the unsatisfied desires reveal the fragility of the values on which the culture is based.