| Mad Toy Contributor(s): Arlt, Roberto (Author) |
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ISBN: 0822329409 ISBN-13: 9780822329404 Publisher: Duke University Press OUR PRICE: $24.65 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: July 2002 Annotation: "With a novel such as "Mad Toy," brimming with fantasy and romance, yet pulling the rug out from under the protagonist--and the reader--at every turn, it seems clear that Arlt's purpose is not just to tell a good story. Along the way, he also illustrates the uses of fantasy and humor. Fantasy, transforming the sordid into the beautiful, makes life seem sweeter; humor, exposing the illusions of fantasy, makes wisdom tolerable."--from the Introduction "Roberto Arlt is the greatest Argentine writer of the twentieth century."--Ricardo Piglia, author of "The Absent City" and "Artificial Respiration" "Arlt's influence on figures like Borges, Cortazar, Onetti, and Piglia is substantial--and equally so are his literary reverberations today, when his grim, sordid view of life seems to speak louder than ever before."--Ilan Stavans, editor of "Mutual Impressions: Writers from the Americas Reading One Another" |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2001006933 |
| Physical Information: 0.49" H x 5.52" W x 9.16" (0.58 lbs) 184 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Roberto Arlt, celebrated in Argentina for his tragicomic, punch-in-the-jaw writing during the 1920s and 1930s, was a forerunner of Latin American "boom" and "postboom" novelists such as Gabriel Garc a M rquez and Isabel Allende. Mad Toy, acclaimed by many as Arlt's best novel, is set against the chaotic background of Buenos Aires in the early twentieth century. Set in the badlands of adolescence, where acts of theft and betrayal become metaphors for creativity, Mad Toy is equal parts pulp fiction, realism, detective story, expressionist drama, and creative memoir. An immigrant son of a German father and an Italian mother, Arlt as a youth was a school dropout, poor and often hungry. In Mad Toy, he incorporates his personal experience into the lives of his characters. Published in 1926 as El juguete rabioso, the novel follows the adventures of Silvio Astier, a poverty-stricken and frustrated youth who is drawn to gangs and a life of petty crime. As Silvio struggles to bridge the gap between exuberant imagination and the sordid reality around him, he becomes fascinated with weapons, explosives, vandalism, and thievery, despite a desperate desire to rise above his origins. Flavored with a dash of romance, a hint of allegory, and a healthy dose of irony, the novel's language varies from the cultured idiom of the narrator to the dialects and street slang of the novel's many colorful characters. Mad Toy has appeared in numerous Spanish editions and has been adapted for the stage and for film. It is the second of Arlt's novels to be translated into English. |