The Economist (2022-02-26) Riva

The Economist February 26th 2022 Culture 79

ond-most-populous municipality with 2m
people, it is known as one of the most
dangerous, in which residents feel most
unsafe. Iztapalapa has long been the “back-
yard” of the capital, says Clara Brugada, its
mayor. “Prisons, that was the investment
we received,” she says.

Eyes of the tiger
Some of the murals carry slogans
exhorting better behaviour, such as “No to
violence!” Others portray the faces of wom-
en, many of them local, such as Lupita Bau-
tista, a world-champion boxer, and Eva
Bracamontes, herself a street artist. In-
deed, the whole project grew out of a push
to improve the lot of women in this patriar-
chal bit of a male-dominated country,
where the killing of women remains trag-
ically common. Initially the murals were
part of a programme designed to create
streets where women felt safe walking
alone; but they took on a life of their own.
At first, says Ms Brugada, people were scep-
tical about having paintings on their hous-
es and shops. Now they request them.
To critics of the scheme, the fact that Iz-
tapalapa’s authorities pay for the artworks
undercuts their authenticity. Enthusiasts
point out that Mexico’s education ministry
paid Rivera and his contemporaries in mu-
ralism’s heyday. Then, as now, individual
artists had distinct styles, as well as leeway
to decide the content of their murals.
Rivera, for instance, romanticised the
time before the Spanish conquest and rep-
resented the conquistadors as greedy and
barbaric; Orozco was softer on them and
the Catholic church. “I connect with the
place and people,” says a contemporary
muralist who paints as Andre amx. “I don’t
just put out my message.” She often ex-
plores feminist themes and subjects, such
as prehispanic goddesses. Her murals in
Iztapalapa include a huge tiger whose
striking eyes stare out from a green wall.
Historians think the post-revolution-
ary murals did help to forge a cohesive,
modern country. They shaped both how
Mexicans saw themselves and how for-
eigners saw them, reckons Barbara Haskell
of the Whitney Museum of American Art in
New York. (The big three went on to paint
influential murals in the United States.) An
example of their impact lies in the way
Mexico celebrates mestizaje, the mixing of
Spanish and indigenous peoples. One of
the country’s best-loved murals, by Oroz-
co, is in the Colegio de San Ildefonso, a
former school in Mexico City. It depicts
Hernán Cortés, the conquistador, and Mal-
inche, his indigenous interpreter and later
lover, who gave birth to a child considered
one of the first mestizos.
Can murals in places like Iztapalapa
have a comparable impact now? Since 2018
some crimes, such as those involving
firearms, have declined there. Rapes of

womenhavefallen,too.Otheraspectsof

theregenerationdrive,suchasimproved

lighting and better maintained streets,

havecontributed.Butofficialsarecon-

vincedthatthearthashelped.

Whatevertheireffectoncrime,themu-

ralsarepopular.“Theyaremotivatingpeo-

ple,especiallygirls,whothink,‘Icouldap-

pearthere’,”saysMsBautista,theboxer.

Herfaceisplasteredonabrightredback-

groundaccompaniedbythewords“Proud-

lyfromIztapalapa”.Residentswhousedto

concealwheretheycomefromnolonger

do.Slowly,outsidersmaycome tosee

Iztapalapainthesameway.

Nobel-prizewinningfiction

The spirit and

the flesh

T

henovelthatearnedOlgaTokarczuk

theNobelprizeinliteraturefor2018,

nowpublishedinEnglish,isawild,unruly

beast—notjustbecauseitismorethan 900

pageslong.Dividedintosevenbooks,itbe-

ginsonefoggymorninginOctober1752.

Horsemen,merchants, peasantsand

priestsjostlealongamuddyroadincentral

Polandontheirwaytomarket.Theairis

scentedwiththesweetsmellofmaltfrom

nearbybreweries.Vodkaandmeadarealso

onoffer,MsTokarczukwrites,aswellas

winefromHungaryandtheRhineland.

Thefogissodense,though,thatthecrowd

canonlynavigatebytheburbleofariver,a

metaphor for readers who will also find

themselves, as the Polish author says, on a

“fantastic journey across seven borders,

five languages and three major religions,

not counting the minor sects”.

At the centre of “The Books of Jacob” is a

large group of Jews from Podolia, in what is

now south-western Ukraine, adherents of

a real-life Kabbalist rabbi and self-

proclaimed Messiah called Sabbatai Tzvi.

In the mid-18th century they become fol-

lowers of his heir, Jacob Frank, also based

on a real figure (pictured), a tall, charis-

matic merchant who always dresses in a

long coat and a high Turkish hat. As the au-

thor herself has commented, Frank is an

ambivalent figure, “ruthless yet sensitive,

unpredictable but attentive”, practical if

somewhat eccentric. “He’s a trickster—a

charmer and a fraud.”

A one-time convert to Islam, Frank per-

suades the group to be baptised as Catho-

lics—and to experiment with incest and

other forms of sexual licence—all in a bid

for intellectual and emotional freedom. He

is accused of heresy and imprisoned for 13

years in a Polish fortress that also serves as

a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Liberated by

Russian troops, he makes his way to Brno

in Moravia, where he is befriended by Em-

peror Joseph II and his mother, Maria The-

resa. Later his group move to Offenbach am

Main in Germany, where they create a huge

court and religious centre. Eventually they

return to Poland, where Frank dies and his

followers join the growing bourgeoisie.

“The Books of Jacob” conjures up a soci-

ety flooded with the new thinking that

emerged from the Enlightenment and the

French revolution. Its central question—

the answer to which remains tantalisingly

out of reach—is why people believe in the

likes of Frank. In the living, breathing,

mysterious world he and his followers in-

habit, Ms Tokarczuk shows how ideas,

along with fables, myths and delusions,

made the society in which he flourished,

which in turn led to the world of today.

Jennifer Croft’s translation brilliantly

captures the onward rush of Ms Tokarc-

zuk’s writing. Of the novel’s many other

stories, two stand out. The first concerns a

challenge that Father Benedykt Chmielow-

ski, a diligent priest, sets himself: to write

down all the knowledge humanity has ac-

cumulated. The other revolves around a

magnificent character called Yente, intro-

duced as a sickly old lady at a wedding in

the mid-18th century and still around in

1944, so ancient she is almost translucent.

Five families descended from Frank’s

followers have taken refuge in a cave; Yente

is among them. Someone throws in a bot-

tle in which is “a piece of paper that says, in

a clumsy hand, ‘Germans gone’.” Over the

decades, Yente waits and watches,proffer-

ing advice, asides and rich observations—

much like Ms Tokarczuk herself.

The Books of Jacob. By Olga Tokarczuk.

Translated by Jennifer Croft.

Riverhead Books; 992 pages; $35.

Fitzcarraldo Editions; £20

Man and myths