Crónicas del Ángel Gris (Chronicles of the Grey Angel) is a book recopilation and expansion of a series of literary writings (tales and essays, mostly) from the popular intellectual and writer Alejandro Dolina, initially published in the magazine Humor Registrado. After the book was published, it was revisited and expanded in 1996; then, new stories in their Shared Universe were published in another three books (El Libro Del Fantasma, Bar Del Infierno and Cartas Marcadas).
This work provides examples of:
- Act of True Love: played with several times. Specially on Balada de la Primera Novia; the Hombres Sensibles tend to act as heroes without the will or consent of their beloved girls.
- The Ace: in "Apuntes del fútbol en Flores", one casual football player in a park becames the star for his team, although nobody knew him before and no one see him again.
- Aerith and Bob: The main characters of the neighbourhood have normal and even mundane or dull note Spanish names, like Manuel, Luis, Jorge, and such, but the Walker has a very strange name: Tamas Dorkas. And the Hombres Sensibles have strange or exotic last names, like Mandeb, Allen or Salzman. This could be attributed to the fact that, although being ordinary men, they search and hope for the supernatural to occur, and they are an odd group.
- Although not exactly common, those last names could be easily explained and even found in Buenos Aires: Mandeb is clearly arab, a great community in Argentina (specially in the North), Allen sounds French (and although not the most numerous, there was some French immigration to Argentina), and Salzman is a jew name, a very very large community in Buenos Aires.
- Affably Evil: the Amigos del Olvido, whom forgot the misdeads they do and always have an innocent look.
- Affectionate Parody: One of the stories take the same themes than El Otro, from Jorge Luis Borges
- All Guys Want Sorority Women: Sort of. One of the prime requisites that the men on the tales are after to is beauty; and beauty is often given by big breasts and youth (at least in this tales). But in Argentina there is no such thing as a cheerleader (aculturated bilingual schools aside), so the trope does not perfectly fit.
- All Love Is Unrequited: At least, to the Hombres Sensibles. They seem to think that every real love must be platonic or elusive enough. Most stories are about unrequited love.
- Alpha Bitch: Several, most notoriously María, the woman on which the narrator of El Caminante falls in love, whom delights on the power she posses on men.
- Attractiveness Isolation: La Mujer Demasiado Hermosa (the Too Beautiful Woman).
- Author Avatar: Manuel Mandeb. But also the Narrator in "El Caminante" arch.
- The Casanova: Jorge Allen had 23 girlfriends to the count. Almost all of them drop him. And he will always be searching for his first one
- Classical Mythology: Many horrors and wonders of the classical world were revisited and relocated in the city of Buenos Aires, mixed with the mundane, dull, and mind-boggling modern life.
- Curse: Tamas Dorkas, el Caminante (the Walker) is cursed for his stupidity by a witch, that also is the Devil, and the love of his life. He must walk continuously until find five impossible objects to be able to stop.
- Curse Escape Clause: Same as above.
- Downer Ending: Almost every story in the book ends up here.
- The First Cut Is the Deepest: Jorge Allen, as said before, had 23 girlfriends, but he ever searchs for the first one (one being the same at different years). "Balada de la primera novia" (Ballade of the First Girlfriend) cyrcles around this trope.
- Hollywood Atheist: Sort of with the "Refutadores de Leyendas". They are more of a mid-to-high class group of Jerkasses than anything else, but they also fit this trope.
- Insufferable Genius: Several, most notoriously the Refutadores, but also the musician Anselmo Graciani, and the smart kids in Niños, Libros y Lecturas.
- Invisible to Normals: The Grey Angel, because he only can be seen by people who want to believe in the supernatural.
- Also the Whistling Tree in the Atlas, who only whistles to the worthy.
- Jerkass: many, many of them. Specially the Refutadores, but also Mandeb and his crew, and the dirty storyteller Letrina.
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: The "Hombres Sensibles" (Sensitive man, not to be confused with Camp)
- Low Fantasy: One of the best examples of the Todorov's concept of Fantasy genre, in opposition to Marvelous or Strange. There are hints that supernatural things occur in Flores, but there are plausible rational explanations to almost all of them.
- Shared Universe: the same characthers and the same mythologies apply to several books from the same author.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: On of the tales of Cinco Leyendas ("Five Legends") is about a girl so beautiful that she never had a boyfriend, because every man who glances at her dies at once. To worsen her misery, she has a (mostly ordinary) sister, with lots of boyfriends.
- Storyteller: "Los narradores de historias"note is a story about this trope.
- The Time of Myths: sort of, as most short stories are placed on a "Golden Age" of Flores neighborhood, before the Hombres Sensibles were lost on the mist of modern times.
- Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: It is maybe the übertrope in this book. It is traceable in almost every story and narrator's reflection.
