Algo más sobre lectores y lecturas de El juguete rabioso, de Roberto Arlt

Abstract

The literary references made by Silvio Astier, the main character of El juguete rabioso, have been the object of innumerous critical approaches in which predominate the bovarism of the character and Roberto Arlt’s lack of cultural capital. Nevertheless, if we make a literary and cultural references list of all the novel’s characters, we discover an eclectic and diverse selection, a literary mixture that embodies popular reading practices in the modern city. Despite certain critical approaches have highlighted Arlt’s symbolic shortcomings through their characters, this paper argues that the novel presents a truly democratizing access to reading, in a period in which popular culture imposed its own tactics and drifts on Argentine literary system.