Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week’s book. This week we delved into Ricardo Piglia’s Money to Burn. It’s safe to say this was definitely my least favourite book. The jump from reading books about childhood, romance, and death, to violence was weird, but honestly the change was good.
The story has several main characters but the ones I was able to remember while reading the book were the “twins” at the start of the book, Dorda and Brignone, the boss, Malito, Twisty Bazan and Mereles. However the one I found most amusing was Malito, especially his obsessions, that ranged from not being able to stand sunlight, to phones and them being trapped. He also surprised me with his degree in Engineering, and he seemed to me to be a gaslighter considering he got others to do what he wanted, and then made it look like they wanted to do it in the first place.
One line that I found relatable was “And in the end, daughters always do what their mothers want” (16), and although I cannot relate to it in the context that the line was being said in, I can relate to the sentimentality of it. It always ends up with the daughters agreeing and following what their mothers want!
One of the most predictable storylines in most thriller books, is someone from the main group being a traitor. This was fulfilled by Malito, whose intentions about the heist became clear gradually.
One thing I noticed was that there was a violation of the societal norms when the men were burning the money, but not when they actually robbed it. Apparently the bigger crime was burning the money and not stealing it. That was quite weird according to me. But I did understand why they did that. The hidden, symbolic meaning behind it is totally justified. Who would have thought they wanted to make a statement about societal norms and the true meaning of wealth by quite literally burning money. One line that got me thinking was the one on page 158 “Burning innocent money is an act of cannibalism”. This comparison is very subtle yet its meaning is so deep. It shows how money is a symbol of how burning that money literally killed other human beings, since that sum of money could have helped so many people in need. I feel like a more impactful statement would have been if they would have donated the money or given it to people in need instead of burning it.
Overall, this book gave me mixed emotions, but the action was a good change.
See you all in the next book!
Question: What other way could the robbers have chosen to deliver a message? Do you think the burning of money communicated what the robbers wanted to say?
Week 1 - Introductory Blog Post 
2 responses to “Money to Burn”
Dhwani, glad you liked a change! You remembered a lot more names than my first time reading this! The line about mothers and daughters was very memorable, especially since most of the novel seems to revolve around male-male relationships. You made a really good point of seeing the burning of the “innocent” money as more dangerous than the stealing itself. Might have to do with the poverty surrounding the setting of the story.
Thanks for your comment!
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Hi Dhwani! I was also excited for this change, especially when it started right away with the planning and execution of a heist. Honestly, I don’t think the robbers could’ve thought of another way to deliver a message. The burning of money was huge and symbolic and really did shock the country to its core. Also, it was clear that they were prepared to go down fighting and they weren’t going to surrender, so they thought it was the best to burn the money to go down with the.
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