While I wouldn’t compare “In Search of Lost Time” and “Mad Toy” in terms of style of writing because they have so many artistic differences, one thing they have in common is that they both deal with the subject of time and the changes that occur to people over time. For our narrator Silvio in “Mad Toy,” the journey that he takes us on – from his home, to libraries and bookshops and barracks, to the new and unknown future he heads off towards – is broken up by years. We follow along with his journey from young to slightly older as he brushes up against authority and searches for a place in the world and in his city.

I found it really compelling that the novel followed such a young protagonist and yet I felt that his view of the world was solid and backed by years of experience. Silvio’s inner musings about life and his own perspective and ideology were complex, but I felt like they made sense given his life experience and the stories he read as a kid filled with the characters he wanted to emulate. His desire to be a rogue and a thief was born out of those stories.

Thieves are popular main characters in many genres, including some of the YA and fantasy books that I grew up reading. Maybe it’s because of their ability to slip through the cracks, but I think the reason people like to read about these rogue characters is because, like Silvio, these characters can question the authority and expose the underbelly of a society. Like other protagonists who are “on the outside” in a way, Silvio provided a perspective on the world that allowed for questioning and for inner wrestling that is often different from our own and can challenge or reinforce our ways of thinking or our own perspectives on the world.

The last part of the novel, “Judas Iscariot,” contained a treachery that I didn’t entirely see coming. When Lucio was re-introduced, I found myself wondering whether he, now a police inspector, was going to turn Silvio in – thus becoming the Judas character himself. I honestly didn’t expect that Silvio was going to betray Rengo, and that twist, as well as Silvo’s thoughts about it, were so interesting in the sense that he talks about having a beautiful life – but Judas didn’t have a beautiful life or at least a long one because he killed himself after his betrayal of Jesus. Still, the book maintained a hopefulness for Silvio’s future as Silvio himself wrestled with his place and his path, and despite what he did to his friend, I still viewed Silvio as a sympathetic character: somehow still the fourteen year old we met at the beginning of the novel, and yet now carrying the weight of this choice he made about his friend into whatever comes next.

My question for the class would be: what did you make of Silvio’s character at the end of the novel? Were you still rooting for him as the protagonist, and what did you feel when Silvio betrayed his friend?

Memorable quote: “Sometimes at night. – I would think of the poets and how their beauty made the world tremble” (77).

Peace,

Maia