Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook240 pages5 hours
Naples '44: An intelligence officer in the Italian labyrinth
By Norman Lewis
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
Unavailable in your country
Unavailable in your country
About this ebook
Norman Lewis arrived in war-torn Naples as an intelligence officer in 1944. The starving population has devoured all the tropical fish in the aquarium, respectable women had been driven to prostitution and the black market was king. Lewis found little to admire in his fellow soldiers, but gained sustenance from the extraordinary vivacity of the Italians around him - the lawyer who earned his living by bringing a touch of Roman class to funerals, the gynaecologist who specialised in the restoration of lost virginity and the widowed housewife who timed her British lover against the clock. "Were I given the chance to be born again," writes Lewis, "Italy would be the country of my choice."
Unavailable
Author
Norman Lewis
Norman Lewis is the author of thirteen novels and thirteen works of non-fiction, including Voices of the Old Sea, Golden Earth, and A Goddess in the Stones. He lives in Essex, England.
Read more from Norman Lewis
The World, the World: Memoirs of a Legendary Traveler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Voices of the Old Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Naples '44: A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Sicily Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Came, I Saw: An Autobiography Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Tomb in Seville: Crossing Spain on the Brink of Civil War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Missionaries: God Against the Indians Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Goddess in the Stones: Travels in India Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Run Across the Sea: Selected Pieces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Empire of the East: Travels in Indonesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Voyage by Dhow: Selected Pieces Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Happy Ant-Heap: And Other Pieces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Naples '44
Related ebooks
A Long Walk South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA State of Fear: Memories of Argentina's Nightmare Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sleepily Ever After: Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Feather: A Schoolboy Seeks Redemption Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Making of a Saint Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Last Time I Saw Paris Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Father and Other Animals: How I Took on the Family Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sea and Sardinia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Merry Mornings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ebb-Tide by Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRun Wild Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Year in Marrakesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brief Lives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmall Talk at Wreyland - Complete Series - 1 - 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNOTTING HILL: A Walking Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrape Expectations: A Family's Vineyard Adventure in France Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Agent's Bedside Reader: A Compendium of Spy Writing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Songs of Love and War: The Dark Heart of Bird Behaviour Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ministry of Pain: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo War with Whitaker: Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly, 1939-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mature Flaneur: Slow Travel Through Portugal, France, Italy and Norway: Slow Travel Through Portugal, France, Italy and Norway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Philippe Sands's East West Street Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Passenger: Rome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cossacks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Siberia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Michael Gove: A Man in a Hurry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAround the World in 80 Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Russia in War and Revolution: The Memoirs of Fyodor Sergeyevich Olferieff Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jerez Diary: Andalucía from the Inside Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Essays & Travelogues For You
She Explores: Stories of Life-Changing Adventures on the Road and in the Wild Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition: An Alaskan Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet How to Be A Travel Writer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsland Wisdom: Hawaiian Traditions and Practices for a Meaningful Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Philosophy of Walking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Trip of One's Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why Traveling Solo Could Change Your Life Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great Plains Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys: Recipes, Techniques, and Traditions from around the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Holiday in North Korea: The Funniest/Worst Place on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fucked at Birth: Recalibrating the American Dream for the 2020s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paris Letters: A Travel Memoir about Art, Writing, and Finding Love in Paris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vagabonding on a Budget: The New Art of World Travel and True Freedom: Live on Your Own Terms Without Being Rich Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Unseen Body: A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Eye of the Elephant: An Epic Adventure in the African Wilderness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neither here nor there: Travels in Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet An Innocent Abroad: Life-Changing Trips from 35 Great Writers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Simple Lines: A Writer’s Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Best American Travel Writing 2016 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5River-Horse: A Voyage Across America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes from a Small Island Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Miami Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Naples '44
Rating: 4.03271026635514 out of 5 stars
4/5
107 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The best book about Italian culture I’ve ever read. Combine that with a book dealing with the conclusion of WWII, and that makes for an absolute winner. Finished: 24.04.2021.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was one of a job lot of books I was given. Felt I should read it, but having no interest in war, it got relegated to a bookcase, After a recent trip to Naples, Igave it a go...and it's actually very interesting.The author was sent over with British forces to Naples - in a state of ruin, starvation and lawlessnessafter the recent German occupation. And while war still continues, with delayed-action mines going off, German bombers flying over, and suspected Nazis hiding in the catacombs - Lewis' duties are more concerned with keeping order, flushing out collaborators and handling situations. It is thus much more of a social history, focussing on bandits and mafiosi, plagues and superstition, the locals trying to keep body and soul together, whether they're plundering the aquarioum for a fish dinner, stealing everything in sight or selling their daughters into prostitution. By turns very funny and tremendously sad, as the author observes the unjust legal system, where the 'Mr Bigs' get away with everything and the petty criminals are given lengthy sentences.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best books I've read about any war, and it gets better and better as it goes on. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diary type reminiscences of a year spent in the region of Naples, 1943-44, by an intelligence officer. Searing account of the hardship and hunger after the allied invasion of Italy, resulting in a host of sordid human failings. Brutal in places, yet the author does find redeeming features amid the tragedies.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The book provides a good insight in what happened in Naples and the south of Italy in the years '43-44 when the Allied Liberation Army settled there while preparing their way to Rome. As it is a diary it focuses on the events of the day in the immediate surroundings of its writer. Written with a great deel of sympathy for the Italian people, which is why I liked it. "A year among the Italians had converted me to such an admiration for their humanity and culture," writes Lewis, "that I realise that were I given the chance to be born again and to choose the place of my birth, Italy would be the country of my choice." Still I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless he is deeply interested in Italian history.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a fine book, accurate daily participation in history with the addition of Lewis's fine irony. For example, put in charge of Naples security by the Allies, he is given the same offices the Germans had--with all their files. The persons reporting to German security, snitching on their neighbors, were the same ones who reported to Norman Lewis.His account of the workings of Italian courts are vivid, sometimes heartbreaking, as when a father of three is jailed for a year for having army rations. Or when a woman is raped because there are army blankets in her apartment. His descriptions of soldiers, such as the Canadians who use first names with their superior officers, are perceptive, often amusing.Here's his definition of democracy after Mussolini: "The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation" (169)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a diary (edited/reconstructed later) of just over a year in Naples, from September 1943 to October 1944. Norman Lewis arrives in Naples from war work with the Field Security Service in North Africa. Over the course of the year, he feels compassion for the dire poverty and deprivation around him, amazement at the sexual habits of the Neapolitans (which he periodically has to interpret for one British lover), growing disillusionment with the way the occupying forces crack down on petty theft of Allied army property while doing nothing at all about the dealers and profiteers who buy what they have stolen (he believes the black market is largely run by Vito Genovese, New York mafioso turned advisor to the American Military Government).He and his colleagues are supposed to be investigating Nazi collaborators, but find themselves bombarded with allegations - some true, some based on dislike of a neighbour, some intended to get rid of a rival (in legitimate or illegitimate business). He comes to love Italy, although it's clear that far from all of his colleagues share his attempts to understand the place or to behave respectably.This is wonderfully written, whether Lewis is describing an air-raid ("The windows blew in, the blackout screens flapping like enormous bats across the room") or the eruption of Vesuvius: The lava was moving at a rate of only a few yards an hour, and it had covered half the town to a depth of perhaps thirty feet. A complete, undamaged cupola of a church, severed from the submerged building, jogged slowly towards us on its bed of cinders. The whole process was strangely quiet. The black slagheap shook, trembled and jerked a little and cinders rattled down its slope. A house, cautiously encircled and then overwhelmed, disappeared from sight intact, and a faint, distant grinding sound followed as the lava began its digestion.But it's more than just a travel book with an unusual angle. I couldn't help thinking that its portrait of life as a foreign occupier - friendly but out of one's depth in the local society - has a lot of resonance with more current situations.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of the best, if not 'the best', narratives / memoirs of the fighting in Italy during WW II.