Money to Burn by Ricardo Piglia has been my favourite book we have read in this class. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to like an Argentina-based gang robbery as much as I did but for whatever reason I found this book a much easier read than any others. Most of the time I can read books quick when I enjoy them and I find myself reading for a long time w
A part of it I didn’t enjoy however were the random unhinged lines. They were random in terms of context, the only thing about them that was out of place was the graphicness of them. The very first line I noted that caught me off guard was on page 9 which says “He forced him to his knees, plunged his face in the mud, and it’s said he pulled down his trousers and raped him while the cop struggled to try to free himself with his head under water.” I would argue, however, that maybe these early-on lines were put in to reflect the intensity of these characters, what they’ve seen and what they’ve done. It prepares us for scenes we get further into the novel like when we find out about the back story of Dorda or the Kid. I found their stories really crazy, like Dorda and the voices he hears in his head and the Kid and his story about r*ping girls, which was really messed up. I also found the two’s (Dorda and the Kid) relationship very interesting, I almost felt bad for them, how they cared for eachother (seceret lovers?). I especially felt bad when the Kid died in the final scene, the standoff with the police,”dead at his (Dordas) feet, the only man who had ever loved him, and who’d treated him as a person, better than a brother, that Kid Brignone had treated him like a woman” (188-189pg), But just when I want to feel bad for the characters they say something that reminds me that they are infact (pretty messed up) crminals. Also the amount of character at first, and honestly sometimes as they were randomly brought up, confused me at times. I found myself having to go back and try and remember who is who. Even when people died (like twisty ((?)) spoiler) I found myself saying “oh no!…wait who was that again?”
This to me felt like a gang version (and a much more brutal version) of Oceans 11. This happens to be one of my favourite movies (I’d recommend to anyone who enjoys the quick-paced heist genre), I like seeing the thought process when people who really want things that are below the law and how they think, it’s a different kind of smarts.

My question is what was your final opinion on the characters? Did you still feel some sympathy or was not a fan of the criminal minded robbers?