A Breeze of Freedom in Stone and Word

'Taking Care of Him' by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, a reflection on memory, freedom and the artist's responsibility.

Iran's Sefir Arjan Literature Service (Safir Arjan) - Aryaman Ahmadi, writer and journalist: As a writer, the storyteller does not only narrate; Sometimes he testifies, sometimes he goes to the trial of history and sometimes he stands against the power. Literature, in moments of history, goes beyond the border of storytelling and becomes a field of resistance; Where the word not only holds the human memory, but also the possibility of his freedom. From the ancient Greek tragedies, in which Sophocles and Euripides staged human suffering in the face of fate, law and power, to Emile Zola and his famous letter "I accuse", we can follow a historical thread in which the artist, each time in a way, asks himself: Where do I stand in the face of injustice? By defending Alfred Dreyfus, Zola brought literature to the field of civil intervention; And in his novels, from "Germinal" to his other works, he revealed the face of man in the gears of industrial society. This tradition, of course, did not begin with Zola, nor does it end with him. In the 20th century, writers such as Bertolt Brecht and artists such as Picasso, each in their own language, turned the relationship between art and power into a moral and political issue. Now in the 21st century, Jean-Baptiste Andrea in the novel "Caring for Her", winner of the 2023 Goncourt prize, returns us to the same question: what is the duty of the artist in front of the power that wants to make the world in its desired image?

Caring for Him is the story of Michelangelo Vitaliani, nicknamed Mimo, a sculptor of short stature and exceptional talent, whose life is intertwined with the turbulent history of Italy in the 20th century. His name is reminiscent of Michelangelo Bonarotti, the great Renaissance sculptor; It is as if from the very beginning, he bears the fate of an artist who must draw a new face from the world from the heart of hard matter. But Mimo is not in Renaissance Florence, which flourished in Italy plagued by war, inequality and fascism; A country where art can both serve power and become an arena to defy it. Andrea follows his story from the years after the First World War to the following decades and presents the political history of Italy not in the form of a dry and external report, but through everyday life, human relationships, sculpture workshops and aristocratic houses.

In this narrative, fascism does not suddenly fall from the sky. It gradually enters people's lives; In the language, in social relations, in the praise of the leader, in the promise of restoring the national greatness and in the desire to make a united and obedient human being. Mussolini's Italy, with its ambitious slogans and display of power, tries to use even art to serve its ideology. In such a situation, the artist is faced with a difficult choice: accept the orders of the government and use its facilities, or pay the price of his independence? Andrea shows that the line between these two choices is not always clear. Art sometimes becomes a tool of power from the place where the artist thinks he is just busy with his professional work.

Mimo experiences this contradiction with all his heart. He is a sculptor who has to deal with stone and volume and proportion, but history wants him to be more than an artist: the creator of the regime's ideal image. The construction of the "New Man" statue, which is linked to the fascist idea of ​​the ideal man, is the turning point of this encounter. Power wants art to make a person who neither hesitates nor defies; A person whose body, look and even his silence are subject to the ruler's will. But the artist, if he still remains faithful to his creative independence, cannot forever put a distance between his work and the meaning that power imposes on it.

One of the most brilliant moments of the novel is Mimo's confrontation with Mussolini, nicknamed "The Duce"; Where, after making the "New Man" statue, at the ceremony of receiving the medal, with a speech that seems formal and praiseworthy at the beginning, he suddenly changes the direction of the speech and stands against the power. After thanking those who have helped him in his artistic path, Mimo ends his speech with a message from the Orsini family and a quote from a friend:

"I don't want to bore you with a long speech. Thank you to everyone who helped me along the way. A path that is characterized by the fact that it is like the arts that are cherished here, when one thinks that he has achieved what he wanted, he realizes that he has not yet reached it and is in front of him in a fugitive form. When we take a step towards it, it also takes a step, hopefully smaller than ours, so that we can reach our hope of reaching it. Therefore, one work is a practice for the next work. First of all, I must thank my father who taught me everything I know, and then the Orsini family who supported me. I will end my speech with a message from the Orsini family and of course myself, whose sentences I will of course quote from a friend. "Esh Dwarf Ayr of Kapors... This Ayr Thants Tatten Arain!" I apologize for my bad pronunciation. There was a sentence in Yiddish that literally means: "Give this medal to your father's father." In modern Italian we have an equivalent that is not very polite: "You can take your medal and put it in there."... Greetings from Mimo Vitaliani and the Orsini family! We will never work for this murderous regime again!"

This scene, beyond the individual courage of a sculptor, is the moment of reclaiming the agency of the artist. By rejecting the medal, Mimo rejects not only a badge of honor, but also the relationships in which the artist must take his credit from the power apparatus and bow before the ruler. The importance of this confrontation lies in the fact that Mimo's protest comes from the heart of the ceremony that is supposed to show his loyalty to the regime. He uses the official language of power to subvert its meaning in a calculated moment. Art no longer serves to show authority; It becomes a tool to reveal it. With this clear "no", Memo draws the border between the artist and the propaganda tool of the government; A border that may be crossed at the cost of deprivation and isolation, but maintaining it is a condition for the independence and freedom of art.

Next to Mimo is Viola Orsini; The daughter of an aristocratic family who does not want to conform to the predetermined roles of the society. He dreams of flying, wants to become a scientist and overcome the limitations imposed on him by his family and patriarchal relationships. For him, his interest in Marie Curie is not just an infatuation with a famous scientific figure; It is a sign of the desire to live in a world where a woman can choose her own destiny. In this respect, Viola is Mimo's counterpart: she too must go through the forces that want to curb her talent and freedom. If Mimo struggles with political and ideological authority, Viola stands against the authority of family, tradition and a society that sees women's freedom as a threat to the existing order.

The bond between these two, which starts from childhood and passes through separations, class differences and political transformations over the years, is the beating heart of the novel. Their relationship cannot be summed up only in the form of a love story. Mimo and Viola see in each other a possibility that the world outside of them denies: the possibility of being, without conforming to a pre-made mold. Love and friendship in this novel is not a refuge outside of history, but a way to resist in its heart. Instead of turning freedom into an abstract slogan, Andrea embodies it in the choices, failures, desires and relationship of these two characters. Feminism here is more than the name of a theory, it is the lived experience of a woman who wants to gain the right to make decisions about her life.

Mehdi Behnoosh, the Persian translator of the novel (New Thoughts Publishing), in a conversation with the author, said about the experience of reading and translating this work, that the author's descriptions brought him closer to the atmosphere of Italian cinema, especially neorealism; It is as if he is walking in the world of the films of Vittorio Desica and Roberto Rossellini. This reference, correctly, clarifies one of the prominent features of the work. Andrea, who previously worked in cinema, creates a cinematic structure from the back and forth between the present, in the last days of Mimo's life, and the past, which reconstructs his story from childhood. Landscapes, bodies, silences and details of daily life, along with the narration of history, become spectacular scenes. However, the importance of this feature is not only in imaging; Just as Italian neorealism tried to see the common man in the context of his social and historical reality, Andrea's novel also shows how history is deposited in the private lives of individuals and shapes their seemingly personal decisions.

Meanwhile, stone has a place beyond the raw material of sculpture. A stone can be a memory, it can resist the erosion of time, and it can carry a false image of greatness in the hands of power. It's not about what the artist makes; The issue is which idea of ​​man is served by its effect. Mimo is struggling with this question throughout his life. From religious figures to works commissioned by the regime, each sculpture reveals a part of his struggle with the world. Artistic talent, by itself, does not guarantee freedom; The same hand that can create a masterpiece may also be used for advertising. Freedom begins when the artist accepts responsibility for his choice.

The title of the novel also finds a wider meaning at the end. In the last years of his life, in a monastery in Piedmont, Mimo takes care of a work whose secret is gradually revealed to the reader. This care is not just guarding a statue; It is a kind of loyalty to something that should be kept away from the reach of oblivion and destruction. It is as if the artist, after a lifetime of encountering history, has finally found something worth preserving; Something that cannot be made by order of power or bought with medals and titles. The secret of this work, like the art itself, remains part of the power of the novel until the end.

Mimo stands up to Mussolini and Viola refuses her imposed role; Two different forms of resistance that ultimately reach a common desire: defending the human right to be free and choose. By connecting the history of the two, Andrea shows that resistance to power is not necessarily formed in the field of politics or in the form of an open protest; Sometimes it manifests in the artist's refusal to submit to the government's order, and sometimes in a woman's insistence on the right to determine her own destiny. In the end, it is the novel that takes care of us; By keeping alive what power tries to forget and remembering the fact that you can still say "no" to authority. Stone, though hard, can speak, and words, though seemingly weightless, can stand against history. Maybe this is the artist's mission: in the darkest times, to find a way for light to pass through stone and words.

"Taking care of him", not just a historical and romantic novel, is a reflection on the memory, freedom and responsibility of the artist. From Emile Zola to Jean-Baptiste Andreas, from the letter of protest to the silently cared for sculpture, the question remains: can the artist maintain his independence in the face of a power that demands his obedience? The novel's answer is not simple and inexpensive. Resistance does not always lead to victory and the truth is not necessarily known in its time. But art can save something from the sting of oblivion; It can present another image of man and show that no power, no matter how dominant and comprehensive, has the right to monopolize all the meaning of life.

"Caring for Her" by Jean-Baptiste Andrea, a reflection on memory, freedom and the responsibility of the artist.

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