Mad Toy

Rating:
Summary: Mad or Angry?
Review: Perhaps the title should of been 'Angry Toy', as Arlt's vision is one of the urban, alienated protagonists of his work being God's Angry Toys. This is Arlt's first novel and contains the seeds of all his further output. The story relates the activities of one Silvio Astier, street kid, thief, exploited employee and betrayor. His story is told with enormous(and angry)energy. Whether in terse street slang or vignettes of poetic prose Arlt captures his characters deficiencies and virtues concisely.
This is not Borges streets of Buenos Aires, but the urban squalor, people pushed to their limits, yet displaying, humour and much tenderness. There is much compassion and insight into the female experience (if oblique) as in this following excerpt as Silvio reflects on his mothers love."I was too small to walk, and she, whipped by the shadows and frantic with worry, was walking along the roadside, carrying me in her arms, warming my knees with her breast,holding my small body stretched out against her tiny frame, and she was begging for my sake,and while she was giving me her breast, the heat of a sob dried her mouth, and she took the bread from her hungering mouth for my mouth, the sleep from her nights, in order to attend to my cries, and with her eyes shining, with her body clothed in shameful rags, so small and so sad, she would open like a veil to shelter my dreams."
Silvio's story of adolescent trials is in many way's Arlt's and reflect's his own upbringing in the back streets of Buenos Aries. That Silvio does "redeem" himself, through a betrayal, is an irony somteimes easily missed. This is an important Latin American novel by an important Latin author. Michele McKay Aynesworth and Duke University are to be applauded for their efforts in bringing this novel to the english speaking reader. That it has taken nearly 80 years is an International literary scandal. Others should have similar courage and belief in Arlt's work and insist his last 2 novels be translated without delay