Compared to the last novel “Combray”, I found Mad Toy to be a much easier read. The most distinct aspect of this book is the way the content is categorized. The book is split into four parts, each representing a different episode of the main character, Silvio’s life. “The Band Of Thieves”, just like this title, captures Silvio’s aspirations to become a bandit by being engaged in a club dedicated to committing theft. “Work and days” recounts Silvio’s experience of his job working at a bookstore. “Mad Toy” narrates Silvio’s attempt to become an apprentice of the School of Aviation. Finally, “Judas Iscariote” illustrates Silvio as a door-to-door paper salesman. Though these four chapters all represent important events of Silvio’s life, the way they are presented in this novel seem to be four completely distinct stories. Despite the episodes appearing to have no connection between each other, they are implicitly connected. For example, the failure of the “Club of the Gentlemen of Midnight” ends Silvio’s dream to become a bandit and forces him to accept reality to begin work. With the difference of events in each chapter, there is also a change in the character Silvio himself. 

The style of this book is another aspect that I found to be interesting. The author depicts the story in an autobiographical way in which everything is written from the perspective of Silvio. Although the audience is already reading through the lens of Silvio, italicized words representing his inner thoughts and emotions would be inserted between the actions actually happening. Some of these italicized writings would be short sentences, others would be long paragraphs written in a poetic style. These poetic expressions essentially represent another one of Silvio’s aspirations, which is to become a poet. As a reader, these italicized expressions were very insightful in terms of understanding the character of Silvio. In the scene where Silvio attempted to commit suicide, his surroundings intertwined with this repeated thought that he needed to kill himself particularly stood out to me. The inner contemplations of whether or not he should “die” and the finalization that he needs to kill himself combined with the vivid depictions of him holding the gun towards himself created a powerful and emotionally charged scene. I found Arlt’s style of writing to be very compelling as it really enabled me to engage with the plot and empathize with Silvio. 

My Question is what is Arlt’s purpose of inserting italicized expressions of Silvio’s thoughts when readers already reading from his perspective?