spanish

Abstract

Since it was published in 1995, Linda 67. Historia de un crimen, the critical reception of this detective novel has been ambiguous, partially, because of the nature of the preceding works by Fernando del Paso. In this article, I propose a reading of Linda 67 in several leves: first, as a novel that dialogues with a genre from mass-culture through the Latin American appropriatons that Amar Sánchez identifies as strategies of "seduction and betrayal". Besides, in Linda 67 we can see an aesthetic search beyond the margins of the Hispanic American "neopoliciaco", which was dominant in the late 20th century. Linda 67 brings together elements from mass-culture and high-culture, both in its direct references and its structures, or the psychological construction of David Sorensen, the murderer who is its central character. By using references to publicity, high-end products, social conflicts, and contemporary crimes, the novel re-kindles the critics by Adorno and Horkheimer of the cultural industry. At the same time, it exposes the other side of the Latin American "cosmopolitan desires", which Mariano Siskind conceived as “deseo de mundo”,  a way of aspiring to universality (articulated in global hegemonic discourses) from the geopolitical margins. This cosmopolitism has been revised by Siskind at the dawn of the 21st century, when the colapse of the imaginary function assigned to the "world" -in his initial notion of cosmopolitism- is evident. The present article, also argues that David Sorensen already embodies some of these colapses of Latin American cosmopolitism at the end of the 20th century.