Reflection - ' Mad Toy' By Roberto Artl

 Mad Toy by Roberto Artl is about a teenage boy named Silvio who is an avid inventor and idolizes outlaws and bandits. The first part of the novel follows Silvio and his friends Lucio and Enrique and their adventures which mostly consist of committing burglaries with aspirations of being heroic outlaws and being able to give back to the poor. After a close call, as a result of committing a robbery, both Silvio and Lucio decide that it would be best for them to disband and lay low for a while, however, Enrique says he will continue even if he is the only one left. The second part follows Silvio who in an attempt to do the right thing and help out his mother, decides to get a job at a bookstore, however after witnessing the horrible conditions and trying to burn the store down (but ultimately failing) he decides to quit. After. In the fourth and final part of the novel, Silvio turns in his friend Rengo to the authorities after he learns that Rengo intends to commit a robbery and has seemingly done the ‘right’ thing.

Throughout the novel, we witness Silvio getting older and constantly struggling to do the ‘right’ thing. We witness his family's struggle with poverty and Silvio who wants to be an inventor and his aspirations of making something out of himself. As soon as Silvio seems to be making progress towards his goals it suddenly all falls apart and he ends up back at square one. The novel has you constantly wondering which path Silvio will end up taking and how long will his determination last.

The part that stuck the most for me was when Silvio met his friend Lucio a couple of years after their group disbanded. Lucio, who is now a police investigator, then tells Silvio that Enrique never stopped committing burglaries and has now found himself in jail as a result. I found this interesting as Silvio himself was constantly having trouble choosing which path to follow and could see firsthand the results of his friend's choices. 

The novel also makes you rethink what is considered ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Even though we can declare one side as being ‘right and the other one ‘wrong’, both Enrique and Lucio have ultimately gone down different paths with the same goal of survival. Also, when Silvio turns Rengo in after having done something that is deemed ‘right’, he himself thinks that he has done something unforgivable.

My question for everyone:

At the end of the novel, Silvio states his reasoning for turning Rengo in is that  ‘There are times in life when we need to be pigs, to wallow in filth till it seeps inside us, to do some vile deed, I don’t know . . . to destroy a man’s life forever . . . and having done that, we can go calmly on our way’’. Do you think Silvio really turned Rengo in order to ruin his life? Or did he have another reason for doing so?