This week’s reading was the novel Money to Burn by Ricardo Piglia. To be honest, I can’t say I enjoyed reading the overall plot due to the violence, sexuality, drugs, and gang life embedded in it. However, I do enjoy the narrative techniques and the underlying ironic themes of inequality within the system and injustice. 

The story begins surrounding the main characters, Malito the boss; Dorda, who is heavy and quiet with a ruddy face; and Brignone, who has thin and black hair. They were called twins because of their similar looks, and they committed crimes together, but in reality, their relationship was much more than brotherhood.  Dorda and Bridgnone, with twelve other men, are a gang, and they commit a bank robbery and go on the run with millions of pesos. In this part (pg. 30-34) I love how Ricardo Piglia chose first to explore the bank clerk Martinez Tobar, who was tempted to steal the money due to his family condition and his daughter’s illness. Ironically, the next scene that happened was the robbery scene by the gang. I find this as a way of foreshadowing that something to happen next, but also gives the reader to context of social class and poverty. After escaping with the money, Piglia gave me two perspectives: the police, and the criminals’ hideout. In between, there is a lot of drug and sexual content involved, giving a different theme to this novel. In the world of gangs and crime, there is not only money and violence but also love. 

There was also another scene that was a highlight for me. On page 168, Malito’s gang was setting five million pesos on fire. ‘ they are evil to the core, bad from the innards out, mere animals,” (p169). There didn’t seem to be much agitation for the crowd until they burned the money. “The idea got out that money is innocent, even when acquired as a consequence of death and crime” (p.170). When they burned the money, the anger of the crowd rose. It seemed that their act of robbery was not such a great sin, but their careless attitude toward the money was completely violating social norms and unethical. 

Other than the reflection on money and robbery, the love between Gauch and Kid was also depicted in detail. In the last scenes when the injured twins are surrounded by the police, they still care for each other. “His back against the broken bedhead, embracing the Kid as if he were cradling a toy doll in his arms” (p.212). In such a criminal novel, embedding the soft emotions between two men was contrasting with the rest of the book, but also beautiful. 

My question for everyone: the epigraph of the novel wrote “After all, what is robbing a bank compared to founding one?- Bertolt Brecht “ I believe the novel suggests that society’ has double standards about crimes. What do you think about this quote and its relationship with the novel,  why is one a crime but not the other?