|
| Gomorrah | 
 enlarge | Author: Roberto Saviano
Creator: Virginia Jewiss
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $16.32
You Save: $8.68 (35%)
New (8) Used (12) from $15.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 2262
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0374165270
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1060945
EAN: 9780374165277
ASIN: 0374165270
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: 100% Brand New! - Ships Today! Identical to Amazon's book in every way. Flawless! Not a cheap Remainder or Book Club Copy! *We recommend Expedited Shipping option for much faster mail delivery
|
| Customer Reviews:
A first-person account of the activities of the Camorra May 23, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Gomorrah is a horrific first-person account of the activities of the Camorra, the Naples based organized crime system. This book would not have been written quite this way in America. Absent are formal interviews and investigations. The prose is florid and overwrought. The operation of the port of Naples is described: `... the anus of the sea were opening out, causing great pain to the sphincter muscles' [page 6]. I do not know if this has something to do with the original Italian style. Saviano writes with indignation palpable in each sentence. Once the reader gets used to the style, the picture of life in the depressed Naples hinterland is horrific. It appears that there is no legitimate way to earn a living either at the subsistence level as a laborer or at the other extreme as an entrepreneur, without breaking the law. The criminalization of day to day economic activity explains the ubiquity of the Camorra. The root of the problem appears to be political. In the presence of stifling regulation and in the absence of good governance crime families rule in a feudal fashion, making profits that could have gone to legitimate businessmen. Saviano does not fully come out and say this. One senses his disapproval of market forces and capitalism.
Readers familiar with the garbage collection woes of Naples from the international sections of newspapers will learn the underlying cause of the problem. While there is no legitimate place to dispose Naples' garbage, refuse from as far away as Milan is illegally dumped in the environs generating enormous profits for organized crime.
The primary emotion of shooting victims is not pain or anger but humiliation. Victims of mob hits are allowed to die in the streets without help, for fear that the killers will punish anyone who comes to their aid. Saviano describes an episode from his own father's life. His father was a doctor who accompanied an ambulance to the scene of a mob hit. The victim was still alive. He was advised by his nurse to wait till he died, before taking him to the hospital. Saviano's father failed to heed the advice and was beaten up in his home.
The book is somewhat haphazardly put together without a clear time-line. It contains a Homeric compendium of characters, the killed and the killers, most of who are of interest only to those who actually knew them. Perhaps that is how this book should be seen. Not as the result of a sober investigation, but as an epic account of a raging war. One with no end in sight.
A real eye-opener November 20, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
"A feel-good mafia expose? The author gives an insider's view of a monstrous system that is all the more disquieting because you're in there with him. Besides the titillation of so much blood and excess, what kept me reading was the intelligence and heart in the work. The tone sounds raw and cynical but it isn't without occasional touches of poetry and sentimentalism. The author never stayed in one mode long enough to get tiresome. I was shocked by what this book had to say. I don't know if I was convinced by the litany of the names and places or if I just sympathized with a good writer. His heart's in the right place. I hope it's still beating somewhere." --Bill (Louisville, KY)
 Entertaining, but author is reckless with facts and uses fabrications January 15, 2008
5 out of 14 found this review helpful
I returned from a two year military assignment to Naples last year. When I saw this book at my local bookstore the other day, I was excited to learn more about what I'd seen outside the gates of the two Navy bases in the Naples area- Secondiligano and Gricignano. I found the book really entertaining until the author mislabeled the Navy base at Gricignano as a NATO base (it isn't) and fabricated a false warning from US officials to military assigned there (I'll admit the author's lie about how US military officials warn sailors and there families to leave the base at Gricignano only when necessary because the area outside the base resembles a "Sergio Leone film... it's the Wild West out there" added an exciting sense of danger to the story; the truth is, officials conginuously encourage sailors to get off the base to experience the culture). Note I was stationed in New Orleans well before Katrina and, though safer pre-Katrina than now, military officials were justifiably more concerned with crime and the safety of sailors in New Orleans than in Naples, Italy... During my two years there, I never felt as if my life was ever in danger like it is in large US cities... Camorra generally kill Camorra or other criminals. But how would the author sell so many books if he stuck purely with the truth and his own marginal talent?
 a great read February 28, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was taken in by this book from the first pages and stayed with it for the whole day until I had completed it. I found this an easy read and yet at times most disturbing. I have visited the region around Naples and am familiar with the Italian culture, but I was in no way ready for the absolute corruption that this books exposes. I knew the governments of Italy were and are inept, but to the degree shown in this book almost makes me worry about how involved the governments are with the local "mafias". The personal and up close picture that is presented is vivid and clear. It was well written and well presented and is more of a personal tragedy than a national tragedy, yet it is really both. Read this and know what corruption is, then let us help by not participating in the process.
What a ride!! November 23, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
" You've got to read Gomorrah! It's a book written with passion and elegantly translated into English. But, reader beware, the subject matter is the stuff of nightmares. Page after page is filled with images of sweatshops, drug trafficking, murder--and the Camorra's reach into legitimate society. It's poison has insinuated itself into the very fabric of Neapolitan society and further--into the reaches of Europe, the U.S. and China. Saviano has done a great service to society by publishing this book. As a Neapolitan American two generations removed, I am indebted to the author for the courage he has shown in exposing the cancer afflicting the land of my ancestors. Grazie tanto, Saviano. Stay safe!" --Mary (Alexandria, VA)
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
