okay, “Money to burn” was the drama. I feel like really haven’t seen as many books with this criminal, dystopian genre so I’m glad we added this to the mix. If I’ll be honest I’ve never been too much of a fan of crime stories, (aside from my annual true crime TikTok story time that I tune into) but this book proved not to be boring either. OH AND – based on a true story?? game changer.
Lets start with a little overview, I think the storyline where the main characters are misfits who don’t fit into society and rebel with an act of burning money was a bitt cliche as I’ve seen this concept repeated in so many other novels and films BUT I also contradict myself because it’s those stories that hits the money every time. (pun included). The author Piglia made this book special through two things. Firstly, by incorporating a shame of the hierarchy and ‘eat the rich’ concept. Like yes, burn peoples greed for money in their faces literally and by adding raw fluid relationships by incorporating the LGBTQ.
I always like to touch on how I think each authors writing affected my reading experience. For Piglia, I felt they had a very detailed way with words that made that painted a scene in your head. After reading Proust’s style of writing I always love to see authors with no need to overly describe the surroundings of every freaking thing, where Piglia’s detailed even poetic style got the point across.
Another aspect I appreciated was although there were so many characters and different perspectives such as in testimonies, newspapers and police commentary – where its usually hard to keep track of who is who, Piglia gave the characters life by crafting deep backgrounds, where we knew relationships and personalities – showing that the author isn’t one to just introduce a random to get the plot going.
One character I found interesting was Gaucho Dorda, his character was extremely unstable and violent but contrastingly there was a vulnerable side to him. I think his relationship with Nene really humanized him, showing that even someone who lives completely outside of society’s rules is still capable of loyalty and emotional attachment. Piglia doesn’t try to make Dorda a “good” person, but they also don’t make him basic.
Overall sadly this is just one of those books that wasn’t really a hit to me solely because of its plot, not even because I don’t like the characters. The predictable criminals obsessed with drugs and sex – eehhhh maybe not 🙁
anyways, thanks for reading bye-bye!
Question: Knowing money represents power in society, what do you think it means that the characters chose to destroy it instead of using it?
“Piglia doesn’t try to make Dorda a “good” person, but they also don’t make him basic”.
The novel is full of nuances and avoids the black or white situations, well noticed.
See you tomorrow!
Julián.
“Piglia’s detailed even poetic style got the point across.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this… can you give some examples? Quotations and reference to specific scenes on particular pages would help to illustrate and fortify the points you are trying to make.
Hi Amandaaaaaaaaa, great blog post. I personally am a true crime fan but I know no one asked, just a fun fact about me hehe.
To answer your question about the money: I think burning it was the ultimate “no turning back” moment. In a society where money is power and corruption (like the police, politicians describes), destroying it feels like a rejection of the system as a whole (the system that “made them” criminals in the first place?).
However, since I’ve been thinking about the illusion of agency in this book, I wonder if burning the money was the only “choice” they felt they had left. By destroying the one thing everyone else was killing for, they finally took control of the narrative, even if it meant their own end. It’s like they realized that in the world, you either own the money or it owns you… so what’s the only solution? just set it on fire I guess.