Posicionamiento, apuesta, intervención Una relectura de La pesquisa (1994) y “Recepción en Baker Street” (2000) de Juan José Saer a partir de la cultura de masas

Abstract

This article explores relations between mass culture and Juan José Saer’s La pesquisa (1994) and “Recepción en Baker Street” (2000). Because these texts are the only crime fictions in the vast work of a writer who was refractory towards the culture industry, this approach is necessary. To study these matters we will make a double movement. First, we focus on Saer’s texts, analyzing confluences and tensions with the architext of crime fiction. Afterwards, we examine how these active uses of the genre can be considered a tactical operation regarding the mass culture of its time. The relationship between these two movements reveals that these texts can be read in relation to the Paulin- Mathurin affair. The establishment and nature of this dialogue is an intellectual stand in respect to the constitution of identity between America and Europe, a political move towards otherness, and an intervention of the Argentinian literary canon.