Okay, I know this might be a controversial take, but I was bored. Up until the money-burning scene. No offense to Ricardo Piglia, but the genre just isn’t for me. I’ve never been drawn to crime or true crime stories, nor do I particularly enjoy action. They tend to make me feel dizzy and depressed. I suspect that Piglia’s novel would have had the same effect on me if it weren’t for that ending. I just wasn’t very interested in reading a book about a bunch of criminals obsessed with drugs and sex.
That is, until they started setting money on fire. That scene was genuinely the best in the book (I mean, I would hope, given the title). The line “burning innocent money is an act of cannibalism” (158)????? Insane. The outrage the public has over money being destroyed compared to the robbery and multiple murders???? Insane. It’s good social commentary I suppose. The fact that they managed to hold everything down for hours while completely coked up was honestly impressive. The fact that this was based on real events was also impressive. I suspected it might have been inspired by real events but knowing that it actually was brought it up a notch for me.
The epilogue really saved the book. Learning that Piglia just coincidentally ran into Blanca Galean, “the Girl,” as she’s called in the story, and that she casually gave him the rundown of the lore on a train to Bolivia was wild.
The thing is, the story felt familiar even before I started. Money to Burn carried a kind of Quentin Tarantino vibe with its cinematic crime scenes. It also reminded me a lot of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: the nonfiction novel format, the focus on planning, and the way the characters’ psyches are presented as fascinating, morally grey figures. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just not my cup of tea. Also I genuinely could not keep track of who was who at any point my bad.
So yeah, it was incredibly predictable, but still well-paced enough that I made it to the end. I’m glad I pushed through though because never did I think I’d read a novel where being able to “carry a joint hidden in my balls, and to stash the wraps of dope in my arsehole” would be treated as a point of pride but here we are.Top of FormBottom of Form
3 replies on “Money to Burn (Bruh)”
Hi Sofia! I also thought that the epilogue added a lot to the novel, especially learning about where he got his insight into the character of Blanca. And I have to agree with you, this book very much so reads as a work of Tarantino with the drugs and bloodshed and the jumping from one event to the next — but I think that’s also what made is so easy for me to visualize and get into, as compared to some of our more slower-paced reads.
Hi Sofia,
I kind of agree with you!! I personally do not like true crime story that much..And I was shocked not only by their action of burning the money, but even more by the reaction of the public….lol
“The epilogue really saved the book. Learning that Piglia just coincidentally ran into Blanca Galean, “the Girl,” as she’s called in the story, and that she casually gave him the rundown of the lore on a train to Bolivia was wild.”
Those casualties are one of the things that makes us think of the bonds between fiction and reality, and how, sometimes, reality overcomes fiction.
See you tomorrow.
Julián.