Il dio del fuoco

A mother tosses her newborn son into the void because he was weak and deformed. That mother is Hera, the queen of the sky; that son is a god, Hephaestus. He plummets from Mount Olympus for nine days and nine nights, until he reaches the bottom of the sea. Two nymphs, Thetis and Eurynome, find him and raise him in the heart of the abyss, where they teach him to find peace in the fire. And so Hephaestus will smelt metals, forge jewels, and become an artist so famous that even Hera, up there, will be bewitched by his creations. But someone who has been abandoned will always have an open wound.
The god of fire presented by Paola Mastrocola is a humble and gifted god with many faces. He is also a son full of rage who continues to look for his mother. The author seems to tell us that there isn’t just one truth in this myth, and this sets us free: free to reach, remove, modify, rewrite, and interpret. To continue to invent infinite versions, because the story is infinite.
Through Hephaestus, the artist god who just wanted to feel loved, Mastrocola talks about us, our insecurities, how terrible it is to experience certain solitudes. And she confirms, once again, that we will always need myths. Because “they are strong, absurd, inconceivable stories; and it is precisely because they are so remote from us that they help us see ourselves up close, without filters, without compromises: ruthlessly”. Because they converse with the most human, pure, and fragile side that stirs within us.