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La novela policial. Un tratado filosófico
Los textos que integran esta obra compuestos entre 1922 y 1925 tienen el valor de constituir uno de los primeros ensayos sobre un genero por entonces devaluado para el campo cultural. Algunos anos antes de que hiciera su aparicion el policial negro norteamericano Siegfried Kracauer doto esta expresion literaria de una densidad filosofica que la ubica como bisagra entre la Teoria de la novela de G. Lukacs y los principios de la Escuela de Francfort. A partir de las obras de E. A. Poe A. Conan Doyle Maurice Leblanc o Gaston Leroux el autor descubre las correspondencias secretas entre el genero fuertemente codificado y una teologia de la nada en la cual el detective celebra en el vestibulo del hotel las misas negras de la razon infalible e invencible. La filosofia racionalista se revela asi como una imagen especular de la novela policial. La mirada del realista prodigioso que parece adherirse a las cosas los fenomenos apocrifos los topoi banales de un genero literario son una constante en el pensamiento de Kracauer y se convierten para el en alegorias de una filosofia de la historia que iluminan la realidad social.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Siegfried Kracauer
98 books77 followersBorn to a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, Kracauer studied architecture from 1907 to 1913, eventually obtaining a doctorate in engineering in 1914 and working as an architect in Osnabrück, Munich, and Berlin until 1920.
Near the end of the First World War, he befriended the young Theodor W. Adorno, to whom he became an early philosophical mentor.
From 1922 to 1933 he worked as the leading film and literature editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung (a leading Frankfurt newspaper) as its correspondent in Berlin, where he worked alongside Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, among others. Between 1923 and 1925, he wrote an essay entitled Der Detektiv-Roman (The Detective Novel), in which he concerned himself with phenomena from everyday life in modern society.
Kracauer continued this trend over the next few years, building up theoretical methods of analyzing circuses, photography, films, advertising, tourism, city layout, and dance, which he published in 1927 with the work Ornament der Masse (published in English as The Mass Ornament).
In 1930, Kracauer published Die Angestellten (The Salaried Masses), a critical look at the lifestyle and culture of the new class of white-collar employees. Spiritually homeless, and divorced from custom and tradition, these employees sought refuge in the new "distraction industries" of entertainment. Observers note that many of these lower-middle class employees were quick to adopt Nazism, three years later.
Kracauer became increasingly critical of capitalism (having read the works of Karl Marx) and eventually broke away from the Frankfurter Zeitung. About this same time (1930), he married Lili Ehrenreich. He was also very critical of Stalinism and the "terrorist totalitarianism" of the Soviet government.
With the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, Kracauer migrated to Paris, and then in 1941 emigrated to the United States.
From 1941 to 1943 he worked in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, supported by Guggenheim and Rockefeller scholarships for his work in German film. Eventually, he published From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), which traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the Weimar Republic as well as helping lay the foundation of modern film criticism.
In 1960, he released Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which argued that realism is the most important function of cinema.
In the last years of his life Kracauer worked as a sociologist for different institutes, amongst them in New York as a director of research for applied social sciences at Columbia University. He died there, in 1966, from the consequences of pneumonia.
His last book is the posthumously published History, the Last Things Before the Last.
Near the end of the First World War, he befriended the young Theodor W. Adorno, to whom he became an early philosophical mentor.
From 1922 to 1933 he worked as the leading film and literature editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung (a leading Frankfurt newspaper) as its correspondent in Berlin, where he worked alongside Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, among others. Between 1923 and 1925, he wrote an essay entitled Der Detektiv-Roman (The Detective Novel), in which he concerned himself with phenomena from everyday life in modern society.
Kracauer continued this trend over the next few years, building up theoretical methods of analyzing circuses, photography, films, advertising, tourism, city layout, and dance, which he published in 1927 with the work Ornament der Masse (published in English as The Mass Ornament).
In 1930, Kracauer published Die Angestellten (The Salaried Masses), a critical look at the lifestyle and culture of the new class of white-collar employees. Spiritually homeless, and divorced from custom and tradition, these employees sought refuge in the new "distraction industries" of entertainment. Observers note that many of these lower-middle class employees were quick to adopt Nazism, three years later.
Kracauer became increasingly critical of capitalism (having read the works of Karl Marx) and eventually broke away from the Frankfurter Zeitung. About this same time (1930), he married Lili Ehrenreich. He was also very critical of Stalinism and the "terrorist totalitarianism" of the Soviet government.
With the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, Kracauer migrated to Paris, and then in 1941 emigrated to the United States.
From 1941 to 1943 he worked in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, supported by Guggenheim and Rockefeller scholarships for his work in German film. Eventually, he published From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), which traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the Weimar Republic as well as helping lay the foundation of modern film criticism.
In 1960, he released Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which argued that realism is the most important function of cinema.
In the last years of his life Kracauer worked as a sociologist for different institutes, amongst them in New York as a director of research for applied social sciences at Columbia University. He died there, in 1966, from the consequences of pneumonia.
His last book is the posthumously published History, the Last Things Before the Last.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 29, 2011
Old but very analytical and thoughtful study, influenced by the Frankfurt School (S. Kracauer was friend with Adorno and others from the School). Even if one would think that he exaggerates as regards the comparison of the detective novel with some streams of philosophical thought e.g. rationalism, idealism, nevertheless I think that the objective of the study is fulfilled. The main point is not the simple condemnation of the ratio, of which the absolute personification is the detective, but besides to show the analogies of different aspects of the aesthetic form of detective novel with a theology of zero. Even the common finale of this kind of novels, as related with a sentimentality which looks like kitsch, is revealed as a religious eschatology. Many aesthetical concepts, e.g. the irony, the humor, the tragic, and other philosophical ones are good articulated, as the writer reaches to a formalistic and partly essential approach, and a comprehensive critical interpretation. Although the sentences are very long, it is not difficult one to follow the argumetation, which flows effortlessly. I would recommend it as a very good example of such studies.
August 1, 2011
Dificil, esa es la única palabra que se me ocurre. Estamos ante un tratado filosófico (el propio título lo indica), como tal no deja de ser interesante, pero... yo no soy filósofo. Es un libro muy duro de entender, y tener en las manos el primer intento serio de análisis de la novela policial es (o puede ser), delicioso.
August 1, 2013
Si a uno le gusta la filosofía detrás de una novela policíaca, este libro sería bueno leer. Kracauer analiza cada aspecto de una novela incluye los papeles del personaje, lo marginal y las esferas sociales. Me hizo releer algunos libros con una nueva perspectiva.
June 5, 2025
satire humor - finite infinity
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews