A Contemporary Sermon on the Mount

Peter Paul Rubens, The Fall of the Damned, 1621

This is a reflection by Bora Mici on René Girard's mimetic desire and rivalry based on the original text by Girard, the French-language philosophy podcast Le précepteur by Charles Robin as well as the author's own experience. It is written in French and English, and the last part in English navigates all the questions surrounding the topic of why we all like to imitate each other and how this animates a cycle of violence that came to me as I was thinking through and writing about this topic. The last part is written in very plain English, has not been edited but represents my original train of thought and choice of words, and should be accessible to anyone who is willing to read with an open mind. 

Une courte réflexion sur ma vie pour commencer avant de rentrer dans le vif du sujet

I was thinking about how my life has become and I just think life is so lonely and alienating these days. Life may have been harsher before but at least everyone belonged. At least that’s what Fellini’s Amarcord shows. Now there are so many interlopers and lonely people and screen addicts and self-addicts of all sorts. Everyone is just looking in the mirror more than ever before, whether they want to look like the stars or be an influencer or simply spend all their time online. It’s just you and your projection of yourself in there, especially when the algorithm never bursts your bubble. But in order to really understand the world and not be afraid of it you have to experience it firsthand. That’s the only way to know what is possible and what is not and to understand human nature and behaviour.

J’ai eu envie de revenir sur le sujet du désir mimétique de René Girard qu’il expose dans son livre Mensonge Romantique et Vérité Romanesque. J’ai déjà lu une bonne partie de ce texte et je viens d’écouter un podcast de vulgarisation philosophique là-dessus, à savoir, le podcast La philosophie pour tous du Précepteur Charles Robin, que je vous recommande vivement. L’idée principale du désir mimétique c’est qu’en tant qu’êtres sociaux et aussi vaniteux, épris par le souci de mouler notre image de nous-mêmes sur un modèle extérieur, on est toujours à la recherche d’une autre personne qu’on est susceptible d’admirer et d’imiter. J’ai déjà discuté dans un autre article d’Arttists Speak d’où mène notre tendance à nous retrouver dans le regard d’autrui, c’est-à-dire une ruée conformiste irréfléchie et une existence inauthentique. Ici on va examiner plus en détail le problème des engouements de masse et leur antipode, la diversité sociale, à l’aune du désir mimétique et ses retombées logiques, ou parfois irrationnelles en l’occurrence.

Pour commencer on se focalisera sur la structure triangulaire du désir mimétique que relève Girard. À titre d’exemple, la médiation débute par le sujet qui souhaite posséder un objet ou une qualité dont fait preuve déjà l’être spécial pour lui. Pour reprendre les mots du titre de l’ouvrage de Girard, le mensonge romantique relève de la fiction que notre désir nous apparteint et qu’il est foncièrement original comme le croyaient les écrivains romantiques du 19è siècle. On les associait à une existence solitaire, houleuse au niveau des émotions et animée par une sorte de génie créatif porteur d’une sensibilité éperdument religieuse et passionnée. Cependant la vérité romanesque vient démentir l’apanage singulier de ces esprits libres de se projetter dans des élans inouis. La littérature et la fiction nous apprennent la vérité profonde qu’on dissimule à nous-mêmes, à savoir qu’on est toujours dans un procédé d’imitation issu de notre vanité, de notre désir de faire nôtre une identité favorable à l’image sociale qu’on se fait de nous-mêmes et que les autres admireront à leur tour.

Alors moi j’y ai réfléchi et je me suis dite que cette théorie est pertinente au niveau de nos agissements psychologiques et symboliques mais qu’elle perd un peu de sa puissance si on considère les choix qu’on fait tous pareils et les démarches qu’on execute tous de la même manière parce que c’est plus efficace d’agir ainsi au niveau de l’existence physique. À titre d’exemple, si un appareil electrodomestique est moins polluant, moins gourmand en énergie et abordable de prix par comparaison aux autres sur le marché, ne serait-il pas vraisemblable qu’on le préférerait tous et que cela ne reléverait pas juste du désir mimétique mais bien du pragmatisme rationnel? En plus, qu’est-ce qui se passerait si on se rendait compte de ce méchanisme caché? En réalité, je ne sais pas si on peut complètement échapper à sa prise parce que parfois nos désirs se révèlent insondables, mais on peut s’habituer à se poser la question-justement pourquoi je brigue ce que je souhaite pour moi et pour les autres-et en prendre conscience de manière plus active. Ça pourrait mener à une plus grande diversité et une meilleure ouverture d’esprit et on ne se comporterait plus comme des moutons de Panurge à une telle échelle qu’on pourrait effectivement être susceptibles de suivre les tendances et de créer des bulles économiques qui après se retournent contre nous. Selon Charles Robin on veut incarner quelqu’un d’autre parce on vit dans le manque d’une essence de l’ordre de l’existentiel, et la médiation triangulaire selon laquelle on accède à l’identité d’autrui par le biais d’un objet dont on a la possibilité de s’accaparer, se renverse et on commence à s’approprier l’identité même de l’être admiré pour finalement posséder les mêmes objets que la personne dont on voulait imiter le mode de vie tout au début de ce cycle qui se répète à l’infini. C’est à la suite de ce procédé de homologation qu’on devient tous semblables. C’est pourquoi la publicité nous vend des modes de vie et non pas des objets forcément utiles. L’engouement c’est un phénomène d’imitation de masse et on peut dire de même pour les petits groupes d’élite qui puisent leur prestige dans l’exclusivité. La distinction n’est jamais originale selon l’analyse de Robin du texte de Girard. Elle cache toujours un désir d’imitation et de la “supplantation existentielle” par quelqu’un qui semble avoir plus que nous ou une meilleure vie, même si le choix de notre objet d’admiration peut être subjectif dans une certaine mesure. C’est cette subjectivité qu’il faut encourager et décliner de la manière la plus variée possible. On nous dit que la diversité génétique est propice à la survie d’une espèce. Mais on nous dit également que l’unité fait la puissance. Donc voilà une petite contradiction logique qui défie l’intuition. Qu’est-ce que vous seriez plus enclins à croire, la première affirmation ou la deuxième? L’intuition est censé nous permettre de dépasser la contradiction en nous permettant de puiser dans l’ensemble de notre expérience vécue. Par exemple, comme l’explique Charles Robin dans un épisode sur le philosophe Henri Bergson, si on considère de façon mathématique qu’une flèche parcourt une certaine distance par moitiés successives, elle n’atteindra jamais sa destination, parce qu’après avoir parcouru une moitié du trajet on peut s’imaginer qu’elle ait toujours la moitié de la moitié restante à traverser. Mais notre expérience vécue nous montre qu’une flèche part d’un endroit précis et arrive toujours à un autre endroit précis un peu plus loin. Donc notre intuition, en s’appuyant sur notre observation passée, nous dit que dans le cas de la flèche, elle arrive toujours à destination, avec un minuscule décalage peut-être. Pourtant le calcul infinitessimal est bel et bien applicable sur des distances plus grandes, et à ce point-là notre intuition défaillit. Donc est-ce que vous pensez que c’est mieux de se faire nombreux et conformistes ou différents et un peu moins soudés, un peu plus en proie au processus de la découverte de nos différences, peut-être? Que signifie la vraie solidarité selon vous?

Questions and Answers about Rivalité mimétique

I don’t get why we want to imitate the desire of others. That’s the crux of the question. According to the analysis of Le précepteur if our mediator becomes internal rather than external, distant and unattainable, we become their rival. And we want to immitate their desire and participate in a competition for an arbitrary object, that might or might not be valuable or useful. We just want it for its symbolic value or for its symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s words. But why? Why can’t we want something else, not what someone else wants? The cycle he paints is love, loss, jealousy, violence, and when the violence becomes too widespread, a scapegoat. I don’t really understand it yet. Why does the scapegoat appease everyone temporarily? Desire is a feeling that subsists only through the delay or impossibility of its fulfillment. Is that true? When I get what I want and I enjoy it, I want it again. Why? Was there something unfulfilling about it or did I just get what I wanted and it was good and not perversely denied in the end, and the satisfaction I felt made me want to repeat the experience so I would feel not like I was lacking. We always respond to lack by seeking a way to fill the emptiness. If we don’t know something we go looking for the answer. But are there things we cannot have that would lead us to jealousy and violence? Kids who all want to play with the same toy, there’s always an exception. Even if there is no scarcity, do people still compete? Is it because they want to impress their friends? But surely there is a constructive way to do this, by sharing for example and by not instrumentalizing objects or people symbolically. Do people only care about the symbolic value something has? What if they just focused on utility and cooperation? What if they were taught not to cede to their vanity? What does my vanity instruct me to do? I am trying to understand this cycle in order to break it. I don’t need a scapegoat. Is coveting what your neighbor has sin? Desire is supposed to be an illusion because according to some it can never be fulfilled. But desire is what keeps us alive. We just need a less hungry relationship to it. In order to relate to other people we need to take their point of view. Is this possible? I hope there are other people who think like me. I am using my vanity to break the cycle of violence based on need. Is vanity what we need in order to relate to other people? My image of myself affects my interactions with others. And at the point where I am, if I think I have no self, then I think it’s pointless to exist or do anything, even though I still write and try to make sense of this non-dual contradiction. I guess I have to use my sense of self to deconstruct the problem of the self, because if it leads to violence and suffering based on a perceived scarcity or rarity, which is a cognitive bias, according to that theory, then it needs to be solved so our lives can be enjoyable, unless people enjoy violence, but I don’t think they do. Everyone shirks at the idea of enduring violence or suffering and I have empirical proof of this, noticing how everyone avoids it. That’s a good basis to start on. No one likes violence or suffering done upon them or anything or anyone they love. So why do they assume anyone else does? Why do they always like to transfer the violence which arises from a sense of rivalry that is not even real, that is purely an instinct of some kind that we need to identify and release? What is release? For me release is when I can externalize some internal question or strife or energy? Well we need to find non-destructive, non-violent ways to direct this conundrum. How do we do that? We go for a walk, we let our thoughts and our feelings subside, and we write or make art or talk to someone in a thoughtful purposeful manner. We become less reactive. We can probably rechannel the energy within our own bodies without doing harm. Where is this energy coming from anyways? An external stimulus or our own internal disorder? I suppose both are possible. But how does wanting what someone else has relate to our self-regulation? Do we need competition for the same resources or the same markets and consumers or can we all try to invent something that is different and of our own stamp? I think organizing ourselves in small collaborative entities that produce a similar commodity that is somehow useful is a good idea. The smaller the groups the smaller the egos and the ability to do harm based on competition and the desire to lead or conquer. The more variety there is the less impetus for sameness and competition over the same objects or positions. If we value diversity over sameness and we don’t become defensive or say that we are somehow in competition with each other then we are happier and everyone belongs. I think it’s part of our vanity to say we are different and therefore deserving of more or less than another, but if we say we are different but all worth of the same dignity and esteem then we all win because we are all accepted, not more not less. No one is more worthy than another. If we understand this then we end all wars and discord and our egos become smaller and more tranquil. So who likes their ego? Does your ego give you pleasure? I think it does or you would not insist on being better than everyone else. Well think about your ego and what you want it to be doing? And then decide. And think about the consequences. Will they aggrandize your ego and your lack? The two are often proportionally related? The more you seek the more you feed the hungry wolf in your consciousness. But killing your ego does not work either if you want to participate in being alive. So learn to moderate it and always keep in mind that violence comes from lack and giving that lack power over your actions. Often the lack is not real. It’s just you comparing yourself to others. That’s why you should learn to be yourself and not step on anyone else’s toes unless you come in friendship and love. What is love and friendship? It’s when you respect someone for their differences and accept that they are just as worthy as you are. Stop instrumentalizing life symbolically.

What is being good or doing a good action or speaking well or engaging in a beneficial activity? It is doing something that can feel good but also that benefits someone else without hurting anyone. The good subscribes to Kant’s definition of the categorical imperative. Whatever you will to be true ought to be a universalizable concept that everyone would accept to be done onto them and to all those they love. First we are born, then we see someone do something, then we mimic their behavior without really being able to judge its quality or utility or goodness/beneficiality for ourselves because we lack the experience of it. And we also lack the experience of greater things around it or around us. Our world is small and we are thus born into prejudice. Prejudice means judging something before hand, before we can really judge it for itself. We merely copy another person whom we trust or to whom we are entrusted. And this person presumably has more experience than we do but that experience is important in quality and quantity and in all the bias and prejudice it carries with it. Prejudice is also related to doing harm etymologically. If we judge something based on our vanity, which is formed progressively through mimicry and social expectations as we grow up and become integrated into the social fabric of symbolic prejudice running amok, then we are doing harm because we are putting ourselves above others. We think we are in a competition but this is a socially constructed illusion. What are we competing for? We are competing for who is the best. And what does that mean? Nothing if we judge for ourselves. If we judge for ourselves we will realize that symbolic value comes from peer pressure and rivalry, and not from intrinsic value. Everything is necessary to life, so everything has intrinsic value. And if we judge for ourselves we will create diversity and difference in equal worth for us all because we will realize that our self-worth does not depend on what others think. And thinking you are better than someone else means being prejudiced and doing harm and not thinking for yourself or being beneficial to yourself and others. I need to think about the material implications of this worldview, but therein lies the difference between things of equal moral worth we must respect while helping each other live a fulfilling life not defined by symbolic lack or unlivable material lack and therefore emphasizing that we recognize everyone’s worth and right to exist in non-violence.

Fragments from a Woman's Life, Part 1

James Rosenquist, Flowers and Females, 1984

Fragments from a Woman's Life is an original short story by Bora Mici written in Italian language. It follows the model of The Man Who Wore the News, which was published in July 2025, and uses unknown vocabulary words gleaned from various sources, including didactical texts, podcasts in Italian and Italian-language literature from authors such as Jhumpa Lahiri and Italo Calvino. This particular story is still in the making and will be published in installments as it evolves in the guise of a 19th-century roman feuilleton. However it will be a short story and not a novel. Just like for The Man Who Wore the News, this story centering on a woman's daily life and memories, is woven around a list of vocabulary words that were either new to me or that I wanted to record for the sake of better remembering them, and I followed the list in order as I had created it spontaneously, without any particular attention to themes or an underlying logic. In that sense this story is dependent on that invisible order, which gives it an unexpected dynamic and forces me to creatively integrate words I might not have otherwise chosen into the fabric of the narrative. This first installment is subject to minor modifications in the event that the subsequent one necessitates it. But I will notify you if I make any changes. As always if you are a native Italian speaker reading this, you may pick up a small mistake here and there because I have not had it edited, and I am still learning Italian. However, you might be pleasantly surprised by the complexity of the story.          

Fragments from a Woman's Life, Part 1, by Bora Mici

Si aggiustò i capelli grinzando un po’ le labbra mentre si guardava nello specchio. Stava appena albeggiando. Doveva mandare un email con il suo lavoro svolto la sera prima in allegato. Non se ne aspettava di ricevere una risposta prima del indomani. Il suo datore di lavoro le aveva comunicato che l’assegno era già stato imbucato da una settimana. Rideva sotto i baffi mentre pensava al suo sforzo frenetico ma finto per non consegnare il dossier in ritardo. In realtà avrebbe voluto spassarsela senza prendere il compito troppo sul serio. Si era veramente dimenata benché sapesse che tutto si sarebbe stato arrangiato ed avrebbe fatto un lavoro più che sufficiente. Adesso si sentiva benino mentre sognava un caffè ristretto. La bontà degli esseri umani le appariva un’evidenza schiacciante come gli uccellini che cantano sui rami senza averne coscienza. Si recò alla buca delle lettere ancora una volta per verificare che non fosse arrivato e rientrò in casa. Decise che quel giorno avrebbe messo entrambi le calze ed i calzini, ma niente calzoni, solo una gonna di lana per celebrare il freddo invernale insediatosi di recente nell’aria secca. La camicetta poi l’avrebbe messa soltanto per andare in ufficio perché altrimenti si sarebbe bagnata di sudore mentre passeggiava sotto i raggi abbaglianti del sole mattutino.

Avrebbe fatto il suo solito tragitto da una casella postale all’altra, da una cassetta delle lettere davanti a una casa che somigliava proprio alla prossima, tutte allineate sulla stessa riga scorrendo parallelamente al vicolo dove abitava. Avrebbe salutato il cassiere che stava per recarsi al supermercato, immaginandolo bonario e celibe, che inscatolava le ciliegie appena arrivate da chissà che paese lontano. Si infilò la cinghia di cuoio nero con la fibbia di metallo giallastro e gettò uno sguardo attraverso la finestra chiusa allo riverberare della luce bianca e liquida sul cofano della sua macchina rossa parcheggiata nel camino affiancando la casa. Siccome aveva delle inclinazioni ambientaliste, lo aveva fatto pavimentare di mattoni incastrati nel suolo a capofitto e spaziati tra di loro. In quelle crepe cresceva l’erba, piccola e dritta, che si era ormai ingiallita dal freddo.

Nel silenzio si rammentò il colloquio con il giornalista che le aveva chiesto come era stato di lavorare in negozio in tanto che commessa quando era giovane. Ricordava soltanto il modulo banale che doveva compilare senza nemmeno capire a cosa servisse, visto che una non chiede di diventare commessa se ha esperienze antecedenti di lavoro. Poi, d’improvviso, il suo pensiero rigalleggiò nel presente rivolgendosi ai contorni che aveva promesso di comprare per la festa di compleanno della sua migliore amica.

Due notti prima avevano fatto baldoria in una discoteca e lei le aveva lasciato sul cruscotto un foglio con l’indirizzo della festa, che purtroppo era stato bagnato nel diluvio notturno, mentre lei lo portava con sé nel corto tragitto dalla macchina in casa. Il domattina l’aveva trovato illeggibile.

Presto si sarebbe recata dalla fornaia e dalla fruttivendola ma prima doveva occuparsi della sua portiera guastata. Quando sarebbe arrivato l’assegno avrebbe impiegato un’oretta per incassarlo in banca. Non si era nemmeno resa conto di aver varcato la soglia della porta e di ritrovarsi nel giardino davanti a casa sua. Improvvisamente frugò nella buca delle lettere e vide che aveva dimenticato di recuperare una cartaccia coperta di inserzioni promettendo di fornire i prezzi più vantaggiosi per una interurbana. Doveva essere uno scherzo o una truffa! Chi ne avrebbe tratto un’utilità da un’offerta simile nell’epoca dei cellulari? In un lampo, sgualcì il foglio, ne fece una pallina, e con un sorriso lieto, pensò ad imbucarla nella cassetta del vicino così come era appallottolata. Invece si immagino che avesse davanti a sé un macellaio fiero di sé ed un monaco vegetariano e che ne uno ne l’altro avrebbe molto gradito questo suo modo di comportarsi come un monello maleducato, e che neppure stando al largo per fare loro strada, non gli avrebbe convinti che fosse un’adulta nubile che si sarebbe costituita una nuora degna di ogni onore. Le venne in mente che occorreva chiamare il padrone di casa per avvertirlo che il pagamento dell'affitto lo avrebbe consegnato quando avrebbe ricevuto il suo stipendio, e di sottecchi gettò uno sguardo alla parabrezza della macchina che era sporca, e pensò anche che doveva portarla a lavare tutta perché anche il paraurti ed il parafango erano coperti di chiazze di acqua infangata.

Aveva voglia di una pera che poi l’avrebbe anche aiutata a sciogliersi le budella, perciò rientrò in casa dal portone che era rimasto aperto, prese la sua pillola mattutina e si portò indietro quella pallottola di carta straccia e la buttò via insieme al prezzemolo marcio che trovò nel frigorifero. Qualora avesse avuto bisogno di altro ne avrebbe potuto comprare al supermercato a due passi da lì. Quantunque non le paresse necessario al momento, forse avrebbe fatto meglio a procurarselo subito per evitare ogni imprevisto. Dunque si recò a piedi al negozio del rione, sgualcì la ricevuta come aveva fatto con il foglio di inserzioni, e come un regista da film si vide salpare dietro l’orizzonte in una barca a vela sebbene le paresse seccante di essere stata interrotta nella sua fantasia dal pensiero del serbatoio quasi vuoto e della sottana di seta che doveva portare in biancheria e dopodiché averla aggiustata alla sua statura da grissino. Aprì la portiera della macchina rossa e mise il tergicristallo in moto per pulire un po’ la parabrezza. Tutt’a un tratto cominciò a tirare vento e si sentì un rintocco lontano di campana che segnalava le otto di mattina. Nel bagliore della luce del sole i suoi capelli sembravano che tornassero biondi come li aveva avuti da bambina. Sentì un tuono e si disse che da qualche parte c’era stata un’esplosione e poi si ricordò della vaglia che doveva mandare in raccomandata da subito.

Per ammazzare il tempo mentre guidava la sua macchina infangata nella direzione della posta si rammentava le vacanze presso il lago di Como dell’anno prima. Ci era andata con la sua amica, quella della festa, e dapprima erano scese alla sponda per bagnarsi i piedi e tastare l’acqua. Poi immergendosi fino alla vita, avevano accennato alcune bracciate, facendo finta di nuotare. Tuttavia, siccome non erano esperte gli sembrava di non avanzare del tutto, bensì di muoversi in tondo mentre le sagome dei pesci giravano intorno alla parte sommersa dei loro corpi bianchi come il gesso che oscilla nella luce del sole. La svolta si compì quando riuscirono a galleggiare ma al contempo sentivano un lieve disagio cagionatosi dallo sguardo svergognato di due bambini che non smettevano di fissarle. Finsero il distacco, ma questa menzogna destò un desiderio inappagato in loro di andare incontro ai bambini e di incalzarli di urli e di rimproveri duri. Tuttavia si accontentarono di percepire la luce nei loro occhi maliziosi come una forza naturale ignota che si sarebbe smussata con il calo del sole all’imbrunire. Non erano del tutto felici e si dimenavano nell’acqua a malapena addestrate, segnalando appunti mentali su come fargliela pagare a quei mocciosi scarni mentre stentavano tuttora a strapparsi dalla superficie ormai torbida che gli infastidiva. La loro riserva di pazienza era già strapiena e l’estro con cui si erano avviate nel lago dapprima era sprofondato sottacqua come una cartella pesante fradicia di dati ingombranti. Adesso i bambini si bagnavano a loro volta, i movimenti delle loro vite smunte lasciavano intravedere i passi premurosi e scorrevoli che compivano sulle sabbie moventi del fondo. Diversamente dalle amiche non sembravano affatto impacciati né avviliti dallo stento. Invece sorridevano quasi mansueti mentre lasciavano alle spalle il riparo della sponda. Si sprigionava un’energia bonaria e innocente dalle loro facce abbronzate e dalle loro membra esili e rilassate.

Mentre guidava passò accanto ad una panca di legno marcio sopra la quale avvertì uno scaffale di ottone brillante e sedutosi accanto un uomo spossato che la guardava in modo strambo come se le stesse chiedendo di fermarsi. Tutt'a un tratto lo vide sviare lo sguardo e porlo altrove, e decise che d’ora in poi non si sarebbe lasciata distrarre da persone che non conosceva neppure. I bambini del lago gli avevano davvero giocato un brutto scherzo quel giorno. Però la perizia nel barattare con se stessa rendeva il proposito un’impresa difficile da portare in porto. Non doveva darsela per scontata di poter far spargere così facilmente la foschia leggera ma sconfinata che si innalzava intorno a lei e dalla quale risaltava di nuovo il viso dello sconosciuto che la incalzava di azzardarsi a parlargli. Non si poteva permettersi di vagheggiare un tale incontro mentre guidava per spedire un’azione precisa che aveva una scadenza imminente. Invece la brama vaporosa traboccava dai confini della sua attenzione, rivolta alla strada, e che la portava sempre in avanti inesorabilmente per andare ad effettuare la spedizione del denaro. La foschia si radunava e si disfaceva a seconda delle sue emozioni che guizzavano, reggevano e poi si imbattevano abbattuti nella corsa selvatica della macchina verso l’ufficio postale. O stava andando in banca?

Si ricordò di non aver portato fuori la differenziata mentre cercava di attingere nei suoi ricordi più sepolti la ragione per cui quell'uomo sulla panca non le era sembrato una semplice inezia dell’azzardo. Era uno sforzo impegnativo e si rese conto che aveva schiacciato il pulsante sbagliato. Avrebbe dovuto acceso l’altro indicatore per segnalare che stava svoltando. Così, mentre progrediva a tentoni nella memoria annebbiata da una confusione travolgente, decise di schiarirsi le idee, tornare indietro e crivellare lo sconosciuto di domande inopportune. Aveva lavorato sodo il giorno prima, ed ulteriormente era di rado che le arrivasse di arrendersi a un impulso meno che sbrigativo. Sotto la sua corazza di impiegata infallibile c’era qualcosa di grezzo ed al contempo inafferrabile, come un graffio. Lei avrebbe dovuto spaccare in due il nodo per riuscire a svelarne il significato, dipanando così il filo che indicava la via d’uscita. Mentre rimuginava tutti questi pensieri storditi percepì un intralcio insuperabile in quanto scrittrice insofferente della mitezza con cui reagiva in realtà, malgrado la pioggia che le scrosciasse dentro.

Translation: Gianni Rodari on Humility

Today I was looking for some simple fun, but since I am incapable of having complete simple fun without a lesson to learn or to impart, I have translated two texts from The Book of Errors, Il libro degli errori in Italian, so this is Bora Mici's original translation from Italian into English of The Best Man in the World and Who Is In Charge? by the famous Italian children's author Gianni Rodari. His texts often feature plays on words and little lessons in morality or grammar, or sometimes both, dispensed with great humor. Both of these stories spoke to me on this cloudy day at the end of October, the first truly chilly day, as the leaves turn bright reds and yellows, the colors of rust. I thought we could all take a moment to gather our thoughts and reflect on what truly matters in life.  

Oscar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait of a "Degenerate Artist" 1937

The Best Man in the World, L'uomo più bravo del Mondo in Italian language, translated by Bora Mici

I know the story of the best man in the world, but I don’t know if you will like it. Should I tell it to you anyways? I’ll tell it.

His name was First, and ever since he was little, he had decided, "First in name and in actuality. I will always be the first in everything."

And instead he was always last.

He was the last one to be afraid, the last one to run away, the last one to speak lies, the last one to do mean things. In fact, he was so behind everyone that he did not even do anything mean.

His friends all came in first at something. One of them was the best thief in the city, another one was the best at being arrogant, a third was the most inane on the block. He, on the other hand, was the last one to say silly things, and when it was his turn to say something senseless, he kept quiet.

He was the best man in the world, but he was the last one to get wind of it. He was so behind that he did not even know it at all.

Pablo Picasso, The Happy Family, 1917

Who Is In Charge? Chi commanda? in Italian language, translated by Bora Mici

I asked a little girl, “Who is in charge at home?”
She keeps quiet and looks at me.
“Come on, tell me, who is in charge at your house, mommy or daddy?”
The girl just looks at me and does not respond.
“So, will you tell me? Tell me who is the boss.”
Again, she looks at me perplexed.
“Don’t you know what it means to be in charge?”
Yes, she does know.
“Don’t you know what boss means?”
Yes, she does know.
“What’s the problem then?”

She looks at me and keeps quiet. Should I get angry? Or maybe she is mute, the poor thing. Now she runs away, indeed. She runs all the way to the top of the field, and from up there, she turns around, sticks her tongue out and shouts toward me, laughing, “No one is in charge because me love each other.”

Translation: Alberto Moravia, The Disobedience

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymous Bosch, 1490-1500

This is Bora Mici's original Italian to English translation of an excerpt from Alberto Moravia's novella La disubbidienza, or The Disobedience in English. An adolescent boy goes through a crisis of metamorphosis that leads to a prolonged period of convalescence. Luca slowly rejects everything he has been given and taught by his parents and his teachers only to be reborn and to relearn to live through an acceptance and a newfound sense of belonging. His morose dejection and symbolic suicide, which he initially conceives as a game of progressive material renunciation, give way to a transformation in which he learns to trust and take pleasure in life. It's interesting to me that Moravia devotes the greatest part of his text to the unraveling of his character, describing it in great symbolic detail through his rejection of the rituals of the everyday life of a schoolboy, born into a well-to-do, loving, bourgeois family. The end of the novella, when the character finally begins to experience the joy of being alive, reads more as a resolution than as an important step in Luca's transformation journey, even though the author does stop to examine it over a few pages. I think it's important to describe what makes for a happy existence in just as much detail as what causes internal crises because both are significant and real parts of life. Is beautifully rendered suffering the only realm of great literature, leaving the rest to self-help books and religion? Or can literature reinvent itself to incorporate these other aspects of being in this world more than just symbolically or momentarily? 

Excerpt from The Disobedience by Alberto Moravia, translated from Italian into English by Bora Mici        

It was the beginning of December. One afternoon, Luca left home carrying all the money he had in his coat pockets, silver coins and small bills. The rain had stopped after many days. The sky was clean but dark, a smoky and even color, as if the usual blue had been replaced not by the shifting gray clouds that liquefy themselves into rain or are pushed away by the wind, but by another, more still, and gloomier hue that would last forever. There was that sense of depletion that follows storms in the fresh, windless air; but crows were flying low, seemingly warning with their aquatic caws, that it would rain again. Looking up a the sky and fiddling around with the money in his pocket, Luca headed toward the public garden, located not too far from his home. He knew that at that hour no one would be there and that he could carry out his plan without worrying about being observed. He went through the gate and started making his way into the garden. He knew where he was headed, a place which was tied to a kind of childhood obsession in his memory. It was a small plaza surrounded by tall leafy oak trees on three sides and, on the fourth, by an ornate wall with nooks, columns and and roman epitaphs. On the other side of the wall stretched out the zoo, and the roaring of the hungry beasts could often be heard. When he was a child, his governesses had frequently brought Luca to walk in that melancholy and lonely plaza, with white gravel framed by the dark fronds of the bronzy oak trees. While his governess sat on an overturned capital and read a book, Luca climbed all the way to the iron grille of the fake windows and tried to look down at the zoo. Otherwise, he thoroughly searched the wooded area at the margins of the plaza; it was very shady, with its blanket of many layers of dead leaves on the surface, shiny and wet underneath; here and there grew nettle bushes that seemed to nourish their light green color with all that rotting stuff, which filled Luca with a great disgust. One day, at his house, the governess and the maid had begun discussing a crime. A young man had been killed, and his body had not been found; but some bloody clothes and and the place where they had been located made people think that the dead body had been buried in one of the many gardens in the city. Luca had listened to the maid’s comments for a long time without saying anything, pretending to play, and finally had asked her: “Why did they kill him?” The woman had responded in a sententious and bitter tone: “Because he was nice and good…that’s why…because he was not made for this world.” And since this phrase had made an impression on him, Luca asked nothing further. But later, he could not tell why, he had gotten it into his head that the young man’s dead body had been buried in that same plaza where he went walking so often with his governess. This conclusion did not have any basis in reality, not even a far-fetched or tiny one; but maybe, it was precisely because of that that it seemed irrefutable. His mind fixated on this terrible but fascinating secret, and as he walked around the plaza, he liked being able to look at the precise place where the dead body was decomposing underground. It was a corner between the ornate wall and the woods at the foot of a tall oak tree; and Luca would often stop to look at that place, searching with his foot through the dead leaves or digging up the soft dirt with a stick. He knew that the dead man lay under there and would not have given up his conviction for anything. On the other hand, by turning it over in his mind, he had reconstructed the crime in his own fashion and had even imagined what the victim and the killers looked like. The former must have been a nice and good young man, just like the woman had said, but of a special kind of goodness and niceness, which were not at all ostentatious but secret, invisible to most; as for the latter, Luca saw them exactly in the same way he saw the people on the street, normal and anonymous pedestrians. Maybe they had killed him to steal his possessions, as the newspapers wrote; but in reality, according to what the woman had said, it had been because of his goodness and niceness, in order to remove him from this world, to which he did not belong. Thinking about the young man and his death, he felt a horrifying attraction and a great pity at the same time. Then, with the passage of time and nearly without realizing it, he had imagined that he was the victim and that the body buried under the oak tree was his own. This doubling, inspired by an unknown fantastical infatuation for the person and destiny of the victim, seemed natural to him and was not the first. At other moments, while reading adventure books, he had dreamed of being a heroic and fortunate character. What was exceptional was that this was the first time he had fallen in love with such a lugubrious fate; and he darkly sensed that, unlike in other similar doublings, this was due to deep reasons, to an obsession that expressed everything to which his life was devoted. As often happens, such an obsession had gradually become lighter over the years, just like the fog that dissipates in the sun, and had changed into a desolate memory that had finally vanished into forgetfulness.

But now, having gone back to the plaza, the obsession was coming back, though in a different way. He knew now that no one had ever been buried in the plaza; but sacralized in his imagination, the plaza still remained that place where something dead had to be buried. He would bury his money in the very place where he had once thought the victim lay; and in burying the money, in a certain way, he would also bury himself; or at least that part of himself that was attached to money. Also, memories of buried treasure in adventurous settings combined themselves vaguely with these more grave resolutions, echoes of the things he’d read in early adolescence.

He mainly had in mind The Gold-Bug by Poe. But as a kind of alibi, destined to remove any tragedy from the sacrifice, and keep it within the limits of the game. Besides the money, he had also brought with him a little blue glass bottle, inside of which he had placed a map with the directions for finding his small buried treasure. Not knowing much about cryptography, Luca had contented himself with writing the directions in academic jargon, adding an f to every syllable. Just like in the short story, he would hide this vial in the hollow of one of the oak trees that surrounded the plaza.

Looking ahead, he crossed a big square meadow. The oak trees in the wooded area swayed back and forth at the end of this opening, their dark trunks resembling a crowd about to go into a panic, undulating before dispersing. Beyond the oak trees, in the pale whiteness of the gravel coursed by the daylight, you could glimpse the plaza with the decorative wall. He entered the wooded area, enjoying walking on the upright layer of dead leaves. In the underwood’s silence, he heard a subtle bird’s call; and then, turning around, he saw the bird itself, big and black, jumping up and down on the ground and then taking flight to hide among the leaves. He even noticed that, while he was making his way through the woods, he felt a sense of liberty; and he thought that it was nice to be able to act, even if it meant destroying his own life; this is precisely what acting meant; doing things according to our ideas rather than out of necessity.

There was no one in the plaza. He walked up and down it for a while thinking about the time when he had been certain about the buried dead man, and it seemed to him that the lonely and slightly sinister atmosphere that had seduced him when he was a child was intact again. There was the decorative wall with its empty nooks, the broken epitaphs, the cornices that were coming apart. There were the large windows, with their alcoves, and the big iron bars. He climbed up to one of those windows and looked at the other side into the zoo. He saw the thick foliage of a bay leaf bush, but through the leaves, it seemed to him to glimpse the green and golden plumage of a large exotic bird. A faraway roar startled him; then, as always, the beasts were hungry. He climbed down from the window and approached the designated place. The same oak tree was still there, old, hollowed out with a gaping hole, with the main branch hanging out over the plaza and leaning onto a brick support wall, like the arm of a cripple leans on a crutch. The dead man lay under the oak tree. All of a sudden, the cruel and pathetic sentiment of having been buried himself came back to him, him, killed without any pity.

He went on his knees under the tree and started digging a hole with his pocketknife. Under the dead leaves, the ground was light and wet, full of rotting pieces of bark. He displaced the dirt and then removed it with his hand and put it to the side in a small hill. When he had finished digging the hole, he slowly removed the bills from his pocket and started tearing them one by one, letting the pieces fall to the bottom of the hole. He realized that he felt a deep hatred for that money, like you hate someone who has oppressed you, and against whom you have rebelled. The idea that his parents had so much respect for money and that, without knowing it, for so many years, he had prayed in front of a safe full of that money, also contributed to his resentment. He felt that he was vindicated for all those prayers in tearing up the money, making reparations. But money was sacred too; even if in an entirely different way from the sacred image it was hiding behind while he was praying. It was sacred because of those royal effigies and those symbols that guaranteed its value; and it was sacred because it could have meant happiness for so many people. For example, for the poor man on the street, who always extended his hand toward him when he was going to school in the morning. But giving it to a poor man would have ultimately meant respecting it, reaffirming its value. And instead, Luca really wanted to destroy it, not just in his own desires, but also in reality. Loathed idol, as he felt, nothing further was necessary beyond that degrading tearing up to desacralize it forever.

When he had finished ripping up the bills, he mixed up the pieces and then, he pulled an envelope full of silver coins out of his pocket and shoved it at the bottom of the hole on top of the bills. He carried out these actions with a sense of grave and aware rigor, even if tinged by a mortal sadness. The man who had been killed and buried came back to his mind and once again that strange pity for himself overcame him. In the meantime, he filled the hole with dirt. When he was finished, he evened out the ground and covered everything with the carpet of dead leaves.

He stood up, cleaning his wet and dirty knees, and then he remembered the turquoise glass bottle and Poe’s short story. But this time, he did not have the courage to carry out that part of the plan. He felt a lugubrious and enchanted sadness, and he could understand that, after all, it had not been a game. He was not the bloodthirsty and insensitive pirate at the end of a life of adventure and freedom; that plaza was not the deserted coastline of a savage land; ultimately, no one would have ever discovered his meagre treasure of torn up bills and coins with joy. His own mediocrity, that of the place and of the treasure, all of a sudden seemed to him like the best proof of the strenuous seriousness of what he was doing and of the impossibility to delude himself by attributing to it the value of a game. He took the little bottle out of his pocket, opened it, took out the piece of paper and tore it into tiny pieces. He crushed the bottle under his heel. As he was leaving, it seemed to him that he had acted like a madman, he was just unable to understand it out yet.

….

The train lunged forward, and this thrust seemed to him like a delightful contrast to his own inertia. What else was the train to him but that which had a direction, a goal, a will, just like the nurses’s passion and his parents’ concern? All of a sudden, he thought that it would have been nice to keep going like this for all of his life. Greater, if not more mysterious forces would have followed the train, the nurse, his parents, and he would have believed in them with the same trust and the same delight. He saw himself as a soldier in torn up clothes, wounded and hungry, part of an army, whose leaders and whose war, he knew nothing about, a beggar thrust into a poverty he was neither responsible for nor aware of; rich of a wealth of which he had not earned a single penny; elevated to a power he had not sought out; a priest in a church whose rites he did not know; dead in the end because of a catastrophe he had neither foreseen nor wanted to avoid. The noisy shifting of the train on the switches, the regular and fast beating of the wheels, the whistle that tore through the silence of the countryside, the very landscape fleeting backwards on the other side of the glass windows, stimulated the rhythm of his thoughts. Yes, now he had become part of a vast, whirling and powerful current in which he was just a blade of grass that could do nothing but allow itself to be dragged along, barely hoping to float all the way to the end. And he abandoned himself to it trustingly, with his eyes closed, like he had abandoned himself a few days ago into the nurse’s arms.
….

But the train, always following the slope, came out into an opening and, at the bottom of the gorge, above two smaller mountains completely covered by forests, Luca saw the towering summit of a mountain, snow white, that seemed very tall to him. The clouds had dissipated in the sky, and the sun was shining on that faraway snow making it glow. At that time, he did not even know why, at the sight of that intact whiteness, majestic and solitary, a sudden exaltation took over him. The idea of being transported and allowing himself to be transported trustingly toward an unknown destination came back to him; but this time, it was partially modified by the new sense of being transported and allowing himself to be transported toward that snow that was so high and so white. He started looking at the mountain with his eyes wide open; and the more he looked at it, the more he felt grow in him that trusting drunken exaltation. He understood that there was no objective reason to feel so happy just because he could see the snowcapped summit of a mountain; and yet, he could not help but realize that it was precisely that view that was putting into motion the mechanism of his deepest hope, which had been blocked for so long. Almost without intending, he turned to his mother and asked, “And the nurse?”
….

Luca closed his eyes. At that same instant, the train entered into a tunnel, letting out a long mournful whistle. When Luca reopened his eyes, he only saw darkness, while a wet wind blew into his face from the tenebrous walls, mixed with spraying water and vapor clouds. Echoing in the tunnel’s vault, the clanging of the wheels seemed to him like a monotonous and exalted voice that was always repeating the same words. It also seemed to him that he could make out these words. They were the same ones, full of hope, that had accompanied him day after day in his slow healing after he had woken up from his delirium; and he understood that, from now on, not just the bustling of a train in a tunnel or the whiteness of the snow on top of a mountain, but all things, would have a meaning for him and would speak to him in their mute language. Then, with another whistle, the train reemerged into the light of day.