Roberto Arlt's Mad toy

    I found to my surprise that I deeply enjoyed this novel. Though in the lectures Arlt’s writing is described as “perverse” and “bad” I found that his peculiar style drew me into the plot and Slyvio’s story. Specifically, I found myself experiencing the highs and lows of Sylvio’s life with him rather than just as a reader. I was interested in how Arlt got me to root for such an anti-hero. Sylio, Enrique, and Lucio are thieves stealing commonplace items such as wiring, books, and lightbulbs, however, I found myself feeling the thrill he felt whenever he was stealing. The way it was described from Sylio’s perspective it felt as if he had found a way to hack the system itself that all the other people in Argentina had not unlocked. Even the name Lucio devised for their club “ The Club of the Midnight Horsemen” made the whole debacle seem alluring and exhilarating. However, after their only real brush with danger, Sylio decides to quit the roughish persona he had adopted from reading books of pirates and thieves had quickly faded to reveal his real self a scared little kid. Despite this I found myself hoping he would go back to a life of crime throughout the rest of the novel. I felt the dullness that was drowning his soul as he worked in the bookstore would only be solved by him resorting to his old ways. However, Arlt surprised me by ending the novel not with a relapse but instead with a betrayal. I truly thought he would accompany Rengo in his Scheme to rob the engineer's house, but instead, Sylvio looks deep within himself and finds that he can only become beautiful if he betrays as Judas did. He states that he’ll “ carry [the] pain for the rest of [his] life” (142) but “ despair will open [his] eyes to great spiritual horizons” (142). This speaks to something mentioned in the lecture, Sylio’s last actions free him from the unavoidable regime that all others of his class must follow. It is through his pain and betrayal that he can find peace within himself. In the last pages of the book, one can see that he abandons all his outlandish hopes for himself that have come from fantastical stories and instead settles on being content, which I think is a perfect end to his narrative despite my wishes for him to return to a life of crime.
    Additionally, one last point about this book that intrigued me is that even in his worst moments Sylio never really loses his love for life. While working in the bookseller’s shop, he finds himself in an inescapable dullness that diminishes his senses yet he still thinks to himself “I would kiss your feet, Life… how lovely you are, Life…From, now on I will adore all the beautiful things of earth” (82-83). I found it refreshing that through all the sadness that Sylio experiences, he never loses his love for living. Even at the end of chapter 3 where he shoots himself the mantra he repeats to himself is “I don't have to die, but I have to kill myself” (111). He always kept his positive outlook on life he just wanted to find a way to overcome the classist barriers he was born into, and later found a better way to accomplish that.