Los Siete Locos - Part II -

What bothers me about this book is that the author is more of a political writer than anything else. It's the story of marginalized characters who feel discontent with life in the modern capitalist and urban world and they conspire to abolish the old social and economic order to establish their own new system. The author expresses his ideas and opinions using the characters in a quite obvious way. First the title itself is misleading as the number of locos seem to be arbitrary since all the characters who interferes in the plot are some type of loco. By this I understand that the author portrays them all as aggressive and anti-social.

As already mentioned in class, the vocabulary is complicated and at times incongruent. The plot mainly focuses on the dark adventures of Endorsain who initially steals 600 pesos from his employer and who is betrayed by his wife's cousin Barsut. Roberto Arlt challenges the realistic norms of the time he wrote this book but his writing is too "all over the place". His book is apparently considered as the benchmark of Argentinean literature. He criticizes Argentinean society in a radical way by exposing his political views, and describing the instability of the lower classes who have too much to loose to try to change for the better. He also exposes this false sense of wellbeing of the bourgeoisie and he vilifies capitalism. The characters are obsessed with money, exploitation and war.

I am wondering if the author sees any hope? Even if it's fictional, it doesn't portray realistically human nature. It's confusing how he interprets the characters. It seems like they are described as rebellious, going against the communist or fascist system, which were seen as the 'norm' at the time. In a cynical way, the authors does seem to engage the reader by revealing human stupidity in being coerced into manipulating, humiliating and masochyst behaviours but I don't understand the point of this book. His views are redundant, pesimistic and hard to understand.

Does this make his book bad? I think so. I do credit the author for writing this unconventional book at a time where views were difficult to express even in literature. However throughout the second part, the inconsistencies and different point of views are as I already mentioned too "all over the place", the author chews up 'good' literature and throws it back into this pathetic narration of fragmented events.