Mad Toy
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
Roberto Arlt, celebrated in Argentina for his tragicomic, punch-in-the-jaw writing during the 1920s and 1930s, was a forerunner of Latin American “boom” and “postboom” novelists such as Gabriel García Márquez and Isabel Allende. Mad Toy, acclaimed by many as Arlt’s best novel, is set against the chaotic background of Buenos Aires in the early twentieth century. Set in the badlands of adolescence, where acts of theft and betrayal become metaphors for creativity, Mad Toy is equal parts pulp fiction, realism, detective story, expressionist drama, and creative memoir.
An immigrant son of a German father and an Italian mother, Arlt as a youth was a school dropout, poor and often hungry. In Mad Toy, he incorporates his personal experience into the lives of his characters. Published in 1926 as El juguete rabioso, the novel follows the adventures of Silvio Astier, a poverty-stricken and frustrated youth who is drawn to gangs and a life of petty crime. As Silvio struggles to bridge the gap between exuberant imagination and the sordid reality around him, he becomes fascinated with weapons, explosives, vandalism, and thievery, despite a desperate desire to rise above his origins. Flavored with a dash of romance, a hint of allegory, and a healthy dose of irony, the novel’s language varies from the cultured idiom of the narrator to the dialects and street slang of the novel’s many colorful characters.
Mad Toy has appeared in numerous Spanish editions and has been adapted for the stage and for film. It is the second of Arlt’s novels to be translated into English.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seemingly plotless but still engaging, this wild, whirling novel of Buenos Aires, originally published in the 1920s, tracks the life and misadventures of a young man whose mind is constantly evolving. As the novel begins, young Silvio forms a gang of juvenile delinquents with his friends; together, they tour houses that are up for rent and rob their fixtures, steal from shops and wreak other havoc until the police crack down. Silvio then drifts into a job as the assistant to a cruel bookstore owner; after trying unsuccessfully to burn the bookstore down, he quits and enters a school for airplane mechanics. He is thrown out after his fourth day for thinking too much and studying too little. Silvio feeds his intellect constantly, devouring great works of literature and science with ease. One job leads to another, and eventually Silvio finds himself mixed up with crime again. This time, however, he redeems himself, and the novel ends with a surprising moment of enlightenment. Despite a few grave missteps, including an unsettling anti-Semitic passage, Arlt whips up some memorable character portraits to augment Silvio's perpetually changing world. They include the handsome, dangerous Enrique, who is a role model for and during Silvio's young days as a lawbreaker, and Rengo, the old petty criminal and gadabout who nearly pushes Silvio toward lawlessness once again. Poetically animated language keeps this novel fresh and surprising, making its belated appearance in the U.S. worthwhile.
