Roberto Arlt Book order

Remo Erdosain's Buenos Aires is a dim, seething, paranoid hive of hustlers and whores, scoundrels and madmen, and Erdosain feels his soul is as polluted as anything in this dingy city. Possessed by the directionlessness of the society around him, trapped between spiritual anguish and madness, he clings to anything that can give his life meaning: small-time defrauding of his employers, hatred of his wife's cousin Gregorio Barsut, a part in the Astrologer's plans for a new world order... but is that enough? Or is the only appropriate response to reality - insanity?Written in 1929, The Seven Madmen depicts an Argentina on the edge of the precipice. This teeming world of dreamers, revolutionaries and scheming generals was Arlt's uncanny prophesy of the cycle of conflict which would scar his country's passage through the twentieth century, and even today it retains its power as one of the great apocalyptic works of modern literature.

"Unleashing a wave of petty crime on 1920s Buenos Aires, stealing books and light bulbs from liibraries and dreaming of show-stopping murders, Silvio Astier and his gang embody the disaffection of youth ... Silvio despairs of the state of his life, which steadfstly fails to match his intellectual aspirations and scientific dreams ... At times, the tide seems about to change but fate or reality intervene and Silvio seems destined to be unable to better his lot. Arlt's writing provides a snapshot of Argentina at a formative time in its history and embodies the human condition with is ultra realistic depiction of the highs and lows of daily existence"--Jacket flap.