This book was less short and nice this week 🙁
“Money to Burn” was a bit of a hard read for me as I usually don’t enjoy reading action books. I am a bit stupid in the sense that I like seeing action type stories in video form (such as movies) more… But my personal preferences aside, I did find the book a little hard to follow as I found it flip flopped between exposition about the characters’ backstories, sex scenes, and real time events quite frequently and abruptly. One moment I would be reading about types of guns that the cast were using, or their elaborate plans to evade the police, and then the next moment I would be reading an incredibly in detail sex scene. Maybe I was not paying enough attention, but this kind of threw me for a loop.
I wanted to speak on the question in the lecture that Professor Beasley mentioned about the truthfulness of the book. I found it very interesting to find out that this book was inspired by a true story. I say “inspired” and not “is a true story”, because I think that, unlike what The Narrator says at the end of the story, Piglia added some things that made it too fictitious for me to think that it is as completely faithful to the facts as he says his story is. For me, I think that the things that Piglia added to the story enhanced it, but ultimately changed it from a documentary type book about a bank robbery and resulting gang war, into the crime fiction thriller that it is.
Another thing that I wanted to mention was the incredible details of the sex scenes and sexual parts of the book. To me, some of them kinda came out of nowhere and were a bit distracting. When I was reading it kinda seemed like anytime a woman was mentioned they would have to make a comment about how ran through she was or how attractive her “features” were. I am a bit confused at why such detail was included in these kind of one-off moments in the book. Maybe I am too goldfish brained to comprehend the genius of Ricardo Piglia.
All in all, I think that I did not enjoy this book as much as I did other books that we have read. I found it a little hard to follow, but I can see the appeal to the general audience.
My question: How much do you all think that embellishment of stories effects the truthfulness of the story being told. How much is too much and is there sweet spot?
Well, perhaps we should also reflect on the way intimate encounters between men are described in the novel. Do you think these are also unjustified? How do they help us build the psychology of the characters?
“the incredible details of the sex scenes and sexual parts of the book”
Can you give examples of these? With page numbers? Because to me, though there are some parts that are a little explicit, I wouldn’t say there was all that much detail.
“Piglia added some things that made it too fictitious for me to think that it is as completely faithful to the facts as he says his story is.”
And what are these things? Can you be a little less abstract here, too?
I think Piglia definitely went for dramatic flair on this one. I do think it was a little misleading to suggest that he based this story entirely on truth, when it’s clear that certain creative choices were made that might have exaggerated events. It’s one thing to do that and be up front about it, but it seems Piglia led people to believe this was a true to facts account.
Hello, thank you for the post. I think in certain areas of the book, the embellishments allowed for greater interest in the overall criminal heist we were reading about. However, in other times it did make me a little uncomfortable. But the embellishment never reading made me doubt the truthful aspects of the story. It is clear that the plot was based around the real-life heist that occurred but most of the embellished details were placed in to entertain the reader.
– Vibha Jayaprakash