Plata quemada (original 1997; edição 2000)

An Elmore Leonard-style fast-paced crime thriller, also a meditation on 1965 society gone violent and grotesque, Money to Burn makes for one gripping, spellbinding, engrossing read – once I opened the book, I simply couldn’t put it down; I even continued reading while taking my afternoon walk, keeping to paths so as not to be hit by a car, and eyes still riveted to the page, kept on reading deep into the night.

Based on actual events, Argentine author Ricardo Piglia’s novel begins with an action-packed, multimillion dollar bank robbery and bloody getaway in Buenos Aires and ends in the legionary battle in Montevideo between the cocaine-fueled bandits and three hundred Uruguayan police. Never a dull moment – I had the feeling I was right there with the desperados, living through their blood-splattered, death dealing mayhem.

The life of each bandit is laid bare: drug-happy, trigger-happy Twisty Bazan, sex obsessed Crow Mereles, bossman Mad Malito with his phenomenal intelligence, a man who knew absolutely everything about motors, circuits, planning, scheming, controlling, a man who could assemble a bomb in minutes to send an entire police station up in smoke, and, lastly, two bandits so bonded together they consider themselves twins: little Kid Brignone and Blond Gaucho Dorda.

Skinny, pale, agile Brignone turned his back on his well-to-do family to embrace a life of violence and crime with all his heart; big, corpulent, slow moving Dorda is a psychotic killer and, according to his mother who saw him in action as a child, thoroughly evil; he hears women’s voices in his head and can go for weeks without speaking a word, and, oh yes, Dorda is obsessed with drugs. In addition to having occasional sex together, one of the many things Kid and Blonde Goucho share: they would both like nothing more than to see the entire Buenos Aires police force lined up against a firing squad.

Did I mention cocaine back there? The bank robbers imbibed the white powder before and during their bank hoist, machine gunning down with glee bank tellers, guards, police and pedestrians. And they didn’t take a break from cutting lines all through their getaway in a nifty, souped-up Chevrolet. Well, once they reached their first hideout, occasionally the boys did switch to drinking whiskey and popping speed and happy pills, but only very occasionally. Witnesses later remarked how young they all were.

Rumors float the police had their dirty blue hand in the robbery so as to get a cut of all those millions. And what part did politics play in the hoist? When occupying their last hideout, the apartment on the ninth floor in Montevideo, they're surrounded and the chief of police tells the robbers via a loudspeaker to hand themselves over. The Kid calls down, taunting, claiming they are Peronist activists, exiles fighting for the General’s return and have information they can use against Police Commissioner Silva. As perhaps expected, the Buenos Aires Commissioner himself is on the scene in Montevideo to make his presence felt. In the rich tradition of Latin American literature, Money to Burn is a very political novel.

No doubt the strong arm of politics manifests in Police Commissioner Silva. Among Silva’s first moves following the robbery was to round up sixteen-year-old Blanca Galeano, girlfriend of Crow Mereles, and beat her face to a bloody pulp in an attempt to extract information. A big burly man in his fifties, representing the state, torturing and defacing a sixteen-year-old girl. Part of the author’s running commentary on a society gone violent and grotesque.

One of the more intriguing aspects is how Mr. Piglia's story is encased in documents of one variety or another, that is, events are detailed and conversations relayed with the aside “as reported in the newspaper” or some such reference to other media coverage or official papers. In the short Epilogue, the fictional author (maybe Ricardo Piglia?) goes on to tell us he has utilized original sources in his account of what the characters say and do and documents have been employed to confirm the facts as they appear throughout the book. My own sense is the “facts” add to the vast imaginative landscape throughout every creatively constructed chapter.

Another telling example of the media’s influence: the trapped banditos watch on television as police take up various tactical positions, in the building opposite, up on the roof, down below on the street. Recall members of the Palestinian terrorist group at the 1972 Olympics admitted doing exactly the same thing: watching on television as soldiers with high power rifles climbed on the roof in order to catch them by surprise.

The siege by three hundred police equipped with tear gas, bombs and military-style rifles takes on epic proportions – much more than simple cops and robbers, spectators at the scene and millions of viewers glued to their television screens are witnessing a historic event, on the level of a decisive military operation. And, as if on cue, the three robbers (yes, only three in that apartment!) mount an effective counter-attack inflicting multiple casualties.

Some months after the siege, the narrator relates his conversation on a train to Bolivia with Blanca Galeano who served six months in jail for her association with the gang and was now fleeing from the authorities. She recounts the astonishing tale. The narrator takes it in: “I listened to her as if brought face to face with the Argentine version of a Greek tragedy. The heroes were determined to confront and resist the insurmountable, and chose death as their destiny.”

Intuimos que algo está mal en este robo, será la incómoda espera, serán los incómodos perpetradores con pasados de los que no queremos saber. Los temores se concretan a cada momento, todo va de mal en peor, hay muertos, muchos polis, socios que desaparecen sin más. Existe un menosprecio del Nene, el Cuervo y el Gaucho Dorda por aquello que normalmente se considera valioso, han tenido vidas difíciles, sí, pero ¿se justifica su maldad? Sin embargo, pondrán al lector en una posición compleja, pues de algún modo esperamos que salven la situación. Este es un libro de ritmo rápido de uno de los autores más importantes de la literatura argentina, Ricardo Piglia. ( )

Money to Burn Ricardo Piglia
★★★

The year is 1965 the town is Buenos Aires a group of criminals carry out a daring and brutal heist raiding a protected van carrying the wages of the ordinary people.

The heist is a success the criminals escape to Uruguay where they are eventually tracked down in Montevideo leading to a prolonged, violent and bloody gun battle.

This is a book based on a real event and written with the use of original police reports and statements, the story telling is blunt there is no romanticising of the situation the gang are portrayed as what they are drug addicted, soicopaths with no thought for anyone but themselves.

Now I have a quandry I didnt hate the book and I didnt love the book but as in effect a "true crime" book I find it hard to justify why it is on the list yes it is a work of fiction but such well researched and backed up fiction that it is almost fact, which leaves me asking what has a factual book added to the development of the novel? and if we include this book why not open the gates to the swathe of great non fiction books that are out there?

( )

Piglia’s Artifical Respiration and The Absent City are intricate, demanding fictions that play off of crime and detective fiction, Argentine politics, Poe and Joyce, and the Argentine writers Roberto Arlt, J.L. Borges, Adolfo Bioy Cásares, & Macedonio Fernández. In the noir-suspense-thriller Money to Burn, a pay-roll heist and the ensuing manhunt culminate in a bloody siege at a Montevideo apartment block witnessed by Piglia’s alter-ego, the journalist Emilio Renzi. Between the lines is a commentary on the confounding intersection of criminals, urban guerillas, revolutionaries and violent nationalists that made Argentina such a dangerous (and interesting) place in the 1960s, and it turns out that Piglia is also good at portraying the imagined interior life of drug-addled, murderous sociopaths. ( )

Un grupo de criminales argentinos ha planeado lo que podría ser el crimen más lucrativo de sus vidas. Asirán la nómina de pago municipal en un robo atrevido a pleno sol, y después cruzaran el río y se esconderán en Uruguay hasta que se baja el calor. La cuadrilla incluye al Gaucho Dorda y Nene Brignone, que son amantes; Cuervo Mereles, que proyecta un carisma proscrito; y Malito, un hombre calculador y su líder de hecho. El robo se cumple como previsto, pero pronto tienen que correr, tiroteando durante que huyen por las calles de Buenos Aires. Aunque los acontecimientos relacionados en Plata Quemada parecen como podrian pertenecer a una película de Tarantino o a una novela policial, Ricardo Piglia no ha inventado nada de este cuento que trata del crimen, la lealtad y la venganza.

Piglia tiene una conexión personal pero de menor importancia a esta historia, habiendo conocido a la ex amante de Mereles en 1966 mientras viajaba en tren hasta Bolivia. Durante el viaje, ella contó una historia confusa y aparentemente increíble del hombre con quien había estado metido y los crímenes en que él había estado implicado. Aunque él nunca más la vio, Piglia se fascinó por la historia y comenzó a investigar y escribir sobre ella. Era un proyecto que tomo el mejor parte de dos décadas, durante que se olvido de la obra, antes de volver a y acabarla más adelante.

Plata Quemada es una narrativa novelística de acontecimientos verdaderos, con Piglia notando cuando está ambiguo o incompleto el expediente histórico. La única licencia tomada está en el grado a que vemos los pensamientos de las intricados, no solo los criminales pero también la policía que los caza. Lo qué emerge es una representación fascinadora de la criminalidad y la política en la Argentina y Uruguay de los años 60, y también una representación inolvidable de unos personajes fuera de la ley.

(For an English version of this review: http://azolotl.blogspot.com/2009/04/review-plata-quemada.html) ( )