Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Gomorrah
Book Review: Entertaining, but author is reckless with facts and uses fabrications
Summary: 2 Stars
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?Book Review: Food destruction
Summary: 4 Stars
Great read. The most troubling to me, was his description of waste disposal in the countryside.
Knowing that all food uptakes what is in the soil. I wonder if my favorite wine, cheese, and pork is contaminated with hazardous material. I think the Italian food companies have more to worry about
than the mafia, if this crime becomes widely known. Time to try some French wine.
Book Review: From Tiberio's Leap
Summary: 5 Stars
Behold here an unfashionable and stirring book. The pages drip with the residue of disfiguring communications left by hitmen on the lifeless bodies of their victims. I do not go in for glamorized violence and I do not watch movies with guns. Still, I turned pages of this grisly book because its message is both fascinating and urgent. The scores of deaths described are countable but only a partial number. What waste. The mafia clans of Campania, whose fractions divide business by terror, account for the fear they inspire with their omnipresent success. It is bizarre to read of this smothering and ultimately corrupting system that renovates, enriches and destroys as it spreads.
A marginal insider, Savinio here unloads the weight of his learning and the roar of his disillusionment. His book puts to pasture the works that would try to rival it as discourses or discoveries on the nature of power in society. Fans of Foucault have no idea what power is about until they have read this book. The same goes for the armchair aficionado of corporate monopoly. Much of the information Savinio relates he has gathered as an inhabitant or curious, casual employee of the clans that run Italy from the graced and volatile realm of Campania.
The first chapter on the port of Naples is likely to unsettle anyone who lives near a port of entry by sea, as it shows how illegal goods make it from sea to secrecy and to the market. The chapter called "Cement" demonstrates the relationship between contractors, bids, bias and regional economy. These two chapters alone seem to be stunning achievements. The final chapter treats the horrifying management and crippling dispersion of toxins through land, sea and air for the sake of immediate profit. There are chapters that address the subjects of women, religion, fashion, film and clan supremacy.
Saviano sheds light not on numbers and accounts but on names and traces. In the face of such an overwhelming and entrenched corruption the only power a writer or citizen can exercise in behalf of the common good is to name the names. Those who speak the truth run mortal risk but only the brave who take up that risk protect the multitude from fear, abuse, and destruction. I commend the inspiring bravery of this author and the skill with which he unwinds the horrors of our twisted realm.
Book Review: Gomorrah
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent book of the Mafia (Camorra) of Naples and Campania Italy. It tells the real story of the complete rule of the Camorra in the, use to be most beautiful, State of Campania, Italy and how they have destroyed it with toxic waste and a takeover of most all business and many city councils. The truth is seen today as the streets in Naples and all of Campania are full of trash and the toxic waste has increased the cancer rate in Campania.
Book Review: Gomorrah
Summary: 2 Stars
This book covers an important topic, the Naples mafia, but is actually quite badly written. It was originally written in Italian which may be the more compelling version. This translation is not very gripping, the language is euphemistic and it is hard to see how the author could require police protection on the basis of this book. The review in The Economist hinted at a much more gripping read. Nevertheless, it does infer the existence of an import industry that avoids taxes and provides a European link for cheaply produced Chinese goods in Naples.