Category Archives: Piglia

Money is just paper

I expected this book to be leaning more on the thriller side, but didn’t mind the twist at all. In fact, I liked how each character has an identity and interesting background. I read some detective/mystery novels, and most of the times new characters would get introduced for the sake of pushing the plot, and pushing the plot only. I think it’s a waste to have characters with no depth. All that being said, I have to agree with my peers: this text is quite dense (apparently the author is known for that?).

In regards to the genre, I didn’t expect something outside of the book can be manipulated like that. In my understandings, genre is something given to the text after its completion. However, if the author intend to make use of the idea of “genre” for this book, then he must have planned the text to accomodate it beforehand. Which makes sense considering the book is based on a real event. Do you know how some movies put “based on a real event” on the end scenes instead of the beginning? That always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. You made me watch two hours of film just to tell me that? How much is accurate to history, what was changed and why? I will then go home and do some research on the internet. Similarily, I was not aware of this robbery had I not read this book. I can tell most of the dialogues and the relationship between the characters were probably made up. That didn’t stop me from going to wikipedia though…

The civilians were absolutely shocked when they see money being burnt. I didn’t quite understand that part. The author described the act of burning money as “losing justifications for the murders they committed”, that “they had no morals nor motive”. If I were a civilian witnessing that scene, I probably would also think “what a waste of money”, but won’t go as far to think about what good the money could have done. Saving orphans? Improving infrastructure? The money was stored in the bank this whole time. The function of the bank is storing the money of the public safely. So, what was burnt was basically the civilians’ money and yet they think “oh no! why didn’t these criminals use the money they stole from me to save the orphans?” Money has power because of how the society is constructed. Without the people, they are just worthless papers.

Question: What do you think about this book’s method of story telling?