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The Seven Madmen The Flamethrowers
The one book written in the 20th Century that outdoes Celine's Journey to the End of the Night in suspiring the miasma of World War One and its projections into the future, The two part masterpiece of Roberto Arlt, The Seven Madmen, The Flamethrowers has remained largely hidden by the inept or corrupted efforts of publishers to make a buck off a translated work in the United States. As Arlt published The Seven Madmen, clearly incomplete, in 1929, and then the rest of the novel, The Flamethrowers in 1931, publishers made do with just the first half until finally a layman named Larry Riley translated The Flamethrowers just so he could read the book. Readers of Arlt today will recognized all disasters now inevitable in their blightscape, doomed as any Arltonian characters.
This is the first edition that follows Arlt's ideas, titles, words, and style published in English, unembellished as Arlt himself, one of the most personally beloved authors of the 20th century--an author who once under the skin of the reader remains, drinking literary pal and parasite of doom.
This is the first edition that follows Arlt's ideas, titles, words, and style published in English, unembellished as Arlt himself, one of the most personally beloved authors of the 20th century--an author who once under the skin of the reader remains, drinking literary pal and parasite of doom.
- GenresFiction
485 pages, Paperback
Published December 30, 2022
3 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
About the author
Roberto Arlt
209 books359 followersRoberto Arlt was an Argentine writer born Roberto Godofredo Christophersen Arlt in Buenos Aires on April 2, 1900. His parents were both immigrants: his father Karl Arlt was a Prussian from Posen (now Poznan in present-day Poland) and his mother was Ekatherine Iobstraibitzer, a native of Trieste and Italian speaking. German was the language commonly used at their home. His relationship with his father was stressful, as Karl Arlt was a very severe and austere man, by Arlt's own account. The memory of his oppressive father would appear in several of his writings. For example, Remo Erdosain (a character at least partially based on Arlt's own life) often recalls his abusive father and how little if any support he would give him. After being expelled from school at the age of eight, Arlt became an autodidact and worked at all sorts of different odd jobs before landing a job on at a local newspaper: as clerk at a bookstore, apprentice to a tinsmith, painter, mechanic, welder, manager in a brick factory, and dock worker.
His first novel, El juguete rabioso (1926) ("Mad Toy"), was the semi-autobiographical story of Silvio, a dropout who goes through a series of adventures trying to be "somebody." Narrated by Silvio's older self, the novel reflects the energy and chaos of the early 20th century in Buenos Aires. The narrator's literary and sometimes poetic language contrasts sharply with the street-level slang of Mad Toy's many colorful characters.
Arlt's second novel, the popular Los siete locos (The Seven Madmen) was rough, brutal, colloquial and surreal, a complete break from the polite, middle-class literature more typical of Argentine literature (as exemplified, perhaps, by the work of Jorge Luis Borges, however innovative his work was in other respects). Los lanzallamas (The Flame-Throwers) was the sequel, and these two novels together are thought by many to be his greatest work. What followed were a series of short stories and plays in which Arlt pursued his vision of bizarre, half-mad, alienated characters pursuing insane quests in a landscape of urban chaos.
During his lifetime, however, Arlt was best known for his "Aguafuertes" ("Etchings"), the result of his contributions as a columnist - between 1928 and 1942 - to the Buenos Aires daily "El Mundo". Arlt used these columns to comment, in his characteristically forthright and unpretentious style, on the peculiarities, hypocrisies, strangeness and beauty of everyday life in Argentina's capital. These articles included occasional exposés of public institutions, such as the juvenile justice system ("Escuela primaria de delincuencia", 26–29 September 1932) or the Public Health System. Some of the "Aguafuertes" were collected in two volumes under the titles Secretos femeninos. Aguafuertes inéditas and Tratado de delincuencia. Aguafuertes inéditas which were edited by Sergio Olguín and published by Ediciones 12 and Página/12 in 1996.
Between March and May 1930, Arlt wrote a series of "Aguafuertes" as a correspondent to "El Mundo" in Rio de Janeiro. In 1935 he spent nearly a year writing as he traveled throughout Spain and North Africa, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. At the time of his death, Arlt was hoping to be sent to the United States as a correspondent.
Worn out and exhausted after a lifetime of hardships, he died from a stroke on July 26, 1942. His coffin was lowered from his apartment by an operated crane, an ironic end, considering his bizarre stories.
Arlt has been massively influential on Latin American literature, including the 1960s "Boom" generation of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez. Analogues in English literature are those who avoid literary 'respectability' by writing about the poor, the criminal and the mad: writers like William Burroughs, Iceberg Slim, and Irvine Welsh. Arlt, however, predated all of them. He is widely considered to be one of the founders of the modern Argentine novel; among those contemporary writers who cla
His first novel, El juguete rabioso (1926) ("Mad Toy"), was the semi-autobiographical story of Silvio, a dropout who goes through a series of adventures trying to be "somebody." Narrated by Silvio's older self, the novel reflects the energy and chaos of the early 20th century in Buenos Aires. The narrator's literary and sometimes poetic language contrasts sharply with the street-level slang of Mad Toy's many colorful characters.
Arlt's second novel, the popular Los siete locos (The Seven Madmen) was rough, brutal, colloquial and surreal, a complete break from the polite, middle-class literature more typical of Argentine literature (as exemplified, perhaps, by the work of Jorge Luis Borges, however innovative his work was in other respects). Los lanzallamas (The Flame-Throwers) was the sequel, and these two novels together are thought by many to be his greatest work. What followed were a series of short stories and plays in which Arlt pursued his vision of bizarre, half-mad, alienated characters pursuing insane quests in a landscape of urban chaos.
During his lifetime, however, Arlt was best known for his "Aguafuertes" ("Etchings"), the result of his contributions as a columnist - between 1928 and 1942 - to the Buenos Aires daily "El Mundo". Arlt used these columns to comment, in his characteristically forthright and unpretentious style, on the peculiarities, hypocrisies, strangeness and beauty of everyday life in Argentina's capital. These articles included occasional exposés of public institutions, such as the juvenile justice system ("Escuela primaria de delincuencia", 26–29 September 1932) or the Public Health System. Some of the "Aguafuertes" were collected in two volumes under the titles Secretos femeninos. Aguafuertes inéditas and Tratado de delincuencia. Aguafuertes inéditas which were edited by Sergio Olguín and published by Ediciones 12 and Página/12 in 1996.
Between March and May 1930, Arlt wrote a series of "Aguafuertes" as a correspondent to "El Mundo" in Rio de Janeiro. In 1935 he spent nearly a year writing as he traveled throughout Spain and North Africa, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War. At the time of his death, Arlt was hoping to be sent to the United States as a correspondent.
Worn out and exhausted after a lifetime of hardships, he died from a stroke on July 26, 1942. His coffin was lowered from his apartment by an operated crane, an ironic end, considering his bizarre stories.
Arlt has been massively influential on Latin American literature, including the 1960s "Boom" generation of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez. Analogues in English literature are those who avoid literary 'respectability' by writing about the poor, the criminal and the mad: writers like William Burroughs, Iceberg Slim, and Irvine Welsh. Arlt, however, predated all of them. He is widely considered to be one of the founders of the modern Argentine novel; among those contemporary writers who cla
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 29, 2023
This is one of the few greatest books of the 20th century.
Unfortunately I have to use this space to reply to 'Gil', who wrote:
"Washed-up narcissist Richard Harsch expects people to believe this is the first edition to combine the two halves of The Flamethrowers yet that edition came out from River Boat Books a year ago, and the quality is much better than this bottom-dollar pocket book. Do yourself a favor and pick this up instead: https://riverboatbooks.com/?page_id=381."
Washed-up is an unfortunate description of a narcissist, as is the use of such denigration for someone celebrating a writer not himself, in this case Roberto Arlt. Regarding the first edition to combine two halves (of the Flamethrowers? That is one half, the second, the other being The Seven Madmen). The press referred to has a book called Madmen in Revolt, which is not a book that Roberto Arlt ever wrote. Calling his book by that name would be as perplexing and misguided as if I published Moby Dick and instead called it Big Ed or Wild Whales of Yore. As a publisher I find it a simple matter to respect the authors' choices for the titles of their books. Further, that book used, without permission, my own writing for introductions to the Flamethrowers, and was put together without the knowledge of the translator, Larry Riley, of the Flamethrowers. Our complete edition of Arlt's books was something I have been working toward for years, had the imprimatur of both translators, and includes a range of front matter, most importantly from two Colombian authors who helped us reproduce the book as closely as possible to what is traditional in South America and, most importantly, to what Arlt wrote and arranged.
I have not held that book in my hands, so I won't speak to its print quality, but any reader of corona\samizdat books knows that our books are of high quality and that this 'bottom-dollar pocket book' is a beautifully made full-size paperback with french flaps, and not a pocket book. I wish it had been bottom-dollar, for then I could have afforded to print many more of them, as they are selling quite well.
Most important, this book was put together with care and respect for Roberto Arlt, one of the greatest of 20th century writers, and with the sheepish cooperation of River Boat Books, the chief editor of which recognized that what he had done was underhanded and sent me all the files I needed, such as Naomi Lindstrom's great translation of The Seven Madmen. He also said he would remove my introductions from his book. Finally, no book called Madmen in Revolt was ever written by Roberto Arlt, and no aficionado of Arlt would buy such a book.
As for Gil, who does not allow responses to his comments, I challenge him to describe the nature of my washing up so that I can correct him on particulars. I am indeed washed up, beached, careened...a man without a country, a hat without a head, a haircut posing as a man (thanks to Woody Allen for that one), and absolutely finished as a potential contributory to all things good in society.
Unfortunately I have to use this space to reply to 'Gil', who wrote:
"Washed-up narcissist Richard Harsch expects people to believe this is the first edition to combine the two halves of The Flamethrowers yet that edition came out from River Boat Books a year ago, and the quality is much better than this bottom-dollar pocket book. Do yourself a favor and pick this up instead: https://riverboatbooks.com/?page_id=381."
Washed-up is an unfortunate description of a narcissist, as is the use of such denigration for someone celebrating a writer not himself, in this case Roberto Arlt. Regarding the first edition to combine two halves (of the Flamethrowers? That is one half, the second, the other being The Seven Madmen). The press referred to has a book called Madmen in Revolt, which is not a book that Roberto Arlt ever wrote. Calling his book by that name would be as perplexing and misguided as if I published Moby Dick and instead called it Big Ed or Wild Whales of Yore. As a publisher I find it a simple matter to respect the authors' choices for the titles of their books. Further, that book used, without permission, my own writing for introductions to the Flamethrowers, and was put together without the knowledge of the translator, Larry Riley, of the Flamethrowers. Our complete edition of Arlt's books was something I have been working toward for years, had the imprimatur of both translators, and includes a range of front matter, most importantly from two Colombian authors who helped us reproduce the book as closely as possible to what is traditional in South America and, most importantly, to what Arlt wrote and arranged.
I have not held that book in my hands, so I won't speak to its print quality, but any reader of corona\samizdat books knows that our books are of high quality and that this 'bottom-dollar pocket book' is a beautifully made full-size paperback with french flaps, and not a pocket book. I wish it had been bottom-dollar, for then I could have afforded to print many more of them, as they are selling quite well.
Most important, this book was put together with care and respect for Roberto Arlt, one of the greatest of 20th century writers, and with the sheepish cooperation of River Boat Books, the chief editor of which recognized that what he had done was underhanded and sent me all the files I needed, such as Naomi Lindstrom's great translation of The Seven Madmen. He also said he would remove my introductions from his book. Finally, no book called Madmen in Revolt was ever written by Roberto Arlt, and no aficionado of Arlt would buy such a book.
As for Gil, who does not allow responses to his comments, I challenge him to describe the nature of my washing up so that I can correct him on particulars. I am indeed washed up, beached, careened...a man without a country, a hat without a head, a haircut posing as a man (thanks to Woody Allen for that one), and absolutely finished as a potential contributory to all things good in society.
January 24, 2023
Through GR and IG I’ve been able to forge some incredible friendships with fellow readers. Some writers. Some publishers. Some, all of the above. Rick Harsch, a truly brilliant writer, also owns and operates Corona/Samizdat Books printing and publishing unique works of literature. Fiction and non. The 2 books I’m writing about The Seven Madmen/The Flamethrowers are now collected and available together for the first time ever. Ever!!!
NYRB released The Seven Madmen some time ago and you may have read that. And then you were probably wondering where the heck The Flamethrowers is. Thanks to translator Larry Riley he learned Spanish and translated it into English for many, many people. Along with the translation of TSM by Naomi Lindstrom, here are Roberto Arlt’s two awesome books together as they should be.
Both books are phenomenal and dig into your soul like nothing else. An insane bunch of characters in a Buenos Aires of the 1920’s that may be unrecognizable to people today. Anyway, both books are fantastic. Support small presses. And let’s do what we can to make these two books the best seller it rightfully deserves. Buy them here…
https://coronasamizdat.com/index.php?...
NYRB released The Seven Madmen some time ago and you may have read that. And then you were probably wondering where the heck The Flamethrowers is. Thanks to translator Larry Riley he learned Spanish and translated it into English for many, many people. Along with the translation of TSM by Naomi Lindstrom, here are Roberto Arlt’s two awesome books together as they should be.
Both books are phenomenal and dig into your soul like nothing else. An insane bunch of characters in a Buenos Aires of the 1920’s that may be unrecognizable to people today. Anyway, both books are fantastic. Support small presses. And let’s do what we can to make these two books the best seller it rightfully deserves. Buy them here…
https://coronasamizdat.com/index.php?...
April 23, 2023
Video review https://youtu.be/PXEzqvXfj34
June 20, 2023
“What have I done with my life?” [...] “What have I made of my life? Suddenly remorse darkened his soul, he thought of his wife, who in her poverty, had to do laundry although she was sick, and then, filled with self-loathing he leaped out of bed, paid the girl, and without having taken her, ran off to a new hell to spend the money that was not rightfully his, to descend still farther into his ever-howling madness.”
Our main character Erdosian is plagued with an inner turmoil that brings to mind Cartarescu’s Solenoid and Dostoevky’s Crime and Punishment. He encounters a cast of extraordinarily rendered eclectic characters that is probably my favorite cast in all of fiction. Many are known by their sobriquets, none of which are more mysterious and delightful than The Man Who Saw the Midwife. We also have The Astrologer and The Melancholy Ruffian, pedagogical in the vein of The Magic Mountain, and with plans for revolution.
“A Ford or an Edison has a thousand more chances to touch off a revolution than a politician. Do you think future dictatorships will be the military type? No, sir,the military man is nothing compared to the industrialist. The most he can be is the industrialist’s tool. That’s all. Future dictators will be kings of petroleum, steel, wheat. Through our society we will set the scene for all this.
Much like Conrad’s The Secret Agent, we go back and forth between the grand scope of political philosophy and the intimate lives of our characters.
Hipolita, or The Lame Whore, is definitely my favorite character in a novel packed full of interesting misfits.
“Yes, it’s very sad to see other people be happy and see how other people can’t see how you’re unhappy for all your life. I remember how at siesta time I would go to my room and instead of doing my mending I’d think: will I be a servant all my life? And the work wasn’t what tired me anymore, it was my thoughts. Haven’t you noticed how stubborn sad thoughts are?
Hipolita would be pleased to find her literary descendent in Harsch’s The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas.
The chapter Layers of Darkness expresses intense melancholy and is one of the best chapters I’ve come across in a long time. The feeling of despair permeates the novel, desperate souls lost to the greater importance of the system. And when Arlt tears that system apart you can only sit back and nod. While it was written in the late 1930’s. The feeling is one that many share today, so should it be any surprise that the downtrodden misfits seek a way out.
“Let’s be friends. Correct me if I’m wrong, but before your marriage you were a prostitute, and I think of myself as an antisocial man. For myself, these realities are very pleasing… the association with thieves, pimps, murderers, madmen, and prostitutes. I’m not going to say that all of these people have a real feeling for life. . . no, no . . . that’s very far from the truth, but I’m enchanted by those whose initial wild impulses launch them into adventures.”
There is much more to this novel, and there is a reason why I invoke some of the great novels of the past and present. Roberto Arlt’s The Seven Madmen The Flamethrowers was hidden behind the wall of translation for too long, it absolutely deserves the consideration of the English speaking world. I rate Arlt’s work about as highly as one can.
Two more quotes because these are just too good to ignore.
“When the newspaper comes out without sensational catastrophes, we shrug our shoulders, and we throw it away. What am I telling you? This is what we’ve become in 1929.”
One wonders if the reverse is also true in 2023.
“The mechanistic reality which deafens the nights of men with the racket of machinery has turned man into an unhappy ape.”
4.9 stars
*note: this is one novel originally published in two parts for financial reasons, you’ll want the complete edition.
Our main character Erdosian is plagued with an inner turmoil that brings to mind Cartarescu’s Solenoid and Dostoevky’s Crime and Punishment. He encounters a cast of extraordinarily rendered eclectic characters that is probably my favorite cast in all of fiction. Many are known by their sobriquets, none of which are more mysterious and delightful than The Man Who Saw the Midwife. We also have The Astrologer and The Melancholy Ruffian, pedagogical in the vein of The Magic Mountain, and with plans for revolution.
“A Ford or an Edison has a thousand more chances to touch off a revolution than a politician. Do you think future dictatorships will be the military type? No, sir,the military man is nothing compared to the industrialist. The most he can be is the industrialist’s tool. That’s all. Future dictators will be kings of petroleum, steel, wheat. Through our society we will set the scene for all this.
Much like Conrad’s The Secret Agent, we go back and forth between the grand scope of political philosophy and the intimate lives of our characters.
Hipolita, or The Lame Whore, is definitely my favorite character in a novel packed full of interesting misfits.
“Yes, it’s very sad to see other people be happy and see how other people can’t see how you’re unhappy for all your life. I remember how at siesta time I would go to my room and instead of doing my mending I’d think: will I be a servant all my life? And the work wasn’t what tired me anymore, it was my thoughts. Haven’t you noticed how stubborn sad thoughts are?
Hipolita would be pleased to find her literary descendent in Harsch’s The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas.
The chapter Layers of Darkness expresses intense melancholy and is one of the best chapters I’ve come across in a long time. The feeling of despair permeates the novel, desperate souls lost to the greater importance of the system. And when Arlt tears that system apart you can only sit back and nod. While it was written in the late 1930’s. The feeling is one that many share today, so should it be any surprise that the downtrodden misfits seek a way out.
“Let’s be friends. Correct me if I’m wrong, but before your marriage you were a prostitute, and I think of myself as an antisocial man. For myself, these realities are very pleasing… the association with thieves, pimps, murderers, madmen, and prostitutes. I’m not going to say that all of these people have a real feeling for life. . . no, no . . . that’s very far from the truth, but I’m enchanted by those whose initial wild impulses launch them into adventures.”
There is much more to this novel, and there is a reason why I invoke some of the great novels of the past and present. Roberto Arlt’s The Seven Madmen The Flamethrowers was hidden behind the wall of translation for too long, it absolutely deserves the consideration of the English speaking world. I rate Arlt’s work about as highly as one can.
Two more quotes because these are just too good to ignore.
“When the newspaper comes out without sensational catastrophes, we shrug our shoulders, and we throw it away. What am I telling you? This is what we’ve become in 1929.”
One wonders if the reverse is also true in 2023.
“The mechanistic reality which deafens the nights of men with the racket of machinery has turned man into an unhappy ape.”
4.9 stars
*note: this is one novel originally published in two parts for financial reasons, you’ll want the complete edition.
September 10, 2024
"And the sun, which to others might signify a picnic, to us it was dazzling and sinister. So then I would close the shutters in our rooms., and in the darkness of my own bedroom I would sit thinking about that faraway boy, while at the same time a yellow stain leaked slowly through the flowers of the wallpaper ..." (Elsa, talking to the Carmelites about her husband, Erdosian)
Read
January 21, 2023Washed-up narcissist Richard Harsch expects people to believe this is the first edition to combine the two halves of The Flamethrowers yet that edition came out from River Boat Books a year ago, and the quality is much better than this bottom-dollar pocket book. Do yourself a favor and pick this up instead: https://riverboatbooks.com/?page_id=381
September 5, 2024
If you like your literature thought provoking, wrestling with the concepts of communism and fascism, despair and depravity, i’d highly recommend giving this one a whirl. In my opinion it’s another masterpiece published by Corona Samizdat. Devastating and important!
December 24, 2024
Arlt, a forerunner to the Latin American Boom, became one of the continent’s first modernist writers with his crepuscular and disturbing exploration of the world as it exists post-industrialisation and in the wake of the bloodiest conflict to be seen by the time of writing in 1929. What is considered by many to be his greatest works follows a truly wretched protagonist as he becomes involved with a cast of idiosyncratic and frequently loathsome madmen; including demagogues, pimps, thieves, the spiritually delusional, prostitutes and murderers. By the time the two novels in one have told Remo Erdosain’s tale in full the reader will have been drawn through a Buenos Aires which is a landscape of oppression and depravity.
Erdosain and many of the other characters could have spawned from the pen of Dostoevsky, he is an ‘underground’ man among many underground men, suffering in a system that continuously creates such men and which reinforces their most self-destructive urges. The madmen of the novels repeatedly commit violent acts to satisfy their egos in a way that plasters over whatever trauma or pain they carry - without addressing any of the root causes of their suffering and degradation. Even ‘the Astrologer’, the madman with the greatest scope in his understanding of suffering, merely uses this understanding to expand the scope of his exploitation of others. Arlt delves deep into the disturbances and afflictions which enable fascism and violent revolution, almost immediately predicting Argentina’s September Revolution in 1930, which occured between the publication of The Seven Madmen (1929) and The Flamethrowers (1931).
The pair of novels portray a bleak, cancerous society in a city where even the sky is an unnatural and man-made horror, every street a concrete petri-dish for the development of a necrotic culture. Almost every character in the novel has illusions of grandeur and a dream that amounts to nothing but the petty grievances and jealousies of maniacal criminals.
Even though like all art movements modernism is a label given in hindsight, it fits Arlt’s work very well, like Eliot, Döblin and Joyce, Arlt delivers a worthy critique of the wretchedness of the modern world.
Praise should be given to translators Lindstrom Riley for rendering the complete work in English. Corona\samizdat have done a great service to literature.
Erdosain and many of the other characters could have spawned from the pen of Dostoevsky, he is an ‘underground’ man among many underground men, suffering in a system that continuously creates such men and which reinforces their most self-destructive urges. The madmen of the novels repeatedly commit violent acts to satisfy their egos in a way that plasters over whatever trauma or pain they carry - without addressing any of the root causes of their suffering and degradation. Even ‘the Astrologer’, the madman with the greatest scope in his understanding of suffering, merely uses this understanding to expand the scope of his exploitation of others. Arlt delves deep into the disturbances and afflictions which enable fascism and violent revolution, almost immediately predicting Argentina’s September Revolution in 1930, which occured between the publication of The Seven Madmen (1929) and The Flamethrowers (1931).
The pair of novels portray a bleak, cancerous society in a city where even the sky is an unnatural and man-made horror, every street a concrete petri-dish for the development of a necrotic culture. Almost every character in the novel has illusions of grandeur and a dream that amounts to nothing but the petty grievances and jealousies of maniacal criminals.
Even though like all art movements modernism is a label given in hindsight, it fits Arlt’s work very well, like Eliot, Döblin and Joyce, Arlt delivers a worthy critique of the wretchedness of the modern world.
Praise should be given to translators Lindstrom Riley for rendering the complete work in English. Corona\samizdat have done a great service to literature.
April 3, 2025
This is a major novel (or two).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews