A Singular Detective: Methodological and Aesthetic Proliferation of Justice in Carlo Emilio Gadda’s Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana

In Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957), Carlo Emilio Gadda presents a philosopher-detective who overturns the rudimentary formula of the classical detective novel in order to stage an ethical tension between philosophical generality and singularity. This tension illuminates the foundation of Gadda's baroque style of non-substitutable terms, a style that seeks to recreate the proliferation of a singular reality. This article addresses the ramifications of an investigative methodology that contests the principle of equivalence and that positions itself within a proliferating narrative and aesthetic space, where the causes are always multiple and the punishment cannot tally with the crime.