Publisher's Weekly Review
Compared to that parvenu Rome, southern Italy's metropolis is "more ancient, less well-off.wiser, grander.glorious [and] ghastly," as well as the ideal setting for shaggy-dog repartee and philosophical ruminations, to judge by this beguiling travelogue. Taylor (Into the Open: Reflections on Genius and Modernity) offers a meandering, conversational account of 3000 years of Neapolitan history, one that veers off on interesting digressions on the origin of the alphabet to the fate of a lost American bomber crew but which always circles back to gossipy anecdotes about Roman emperors, medieval potentates, and latter-day literary figures and sexual outlaws. Meanwhile he leads readers on a journey through the modern city's cathedrals, poets' tombs, and famously finicky concert halls-a chorus of boos erupts when a harp recital strays into the avant-garde modernism-and periodically repairing to some cafe for impromptu debates with locals about everything from Faulkner to CIA conspiracies. (Naples's buried Greek heritage provokes Taylor's own opinionated musings on the superiority of pagan spirituality, which he greatly prefers to Christianity's "masochistic preoccupation with suffering, death and putrefaction" and "untragic view of life.") Steeped in off-hand erudition and raptly attuned to the city's scruffy allure, Taylor makes a charming guide to an under-toured city. Photos. Agent: Irene Skolnick. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
This book contains no itineraries, advice on getting around, or hotel or restaurant recommendations-in fact, novelist Taylor (The Book of Getting Even) hasn't so much penned a literal guide as one literary-but there is a chronology of Naples (from c.1800 B.C.E. to the present) that proves useful when planning a walk through the city. Taylor's book, like his subject, Naples, is a lot of things at once; there are lengthy discussions of history, philosophy, religion, art, culture, literature, customs. The book meanders between past and present, wanders in stream-of-thought fashion through the Naples streets, delves deeply into the city's stories, lives, and lore, and drops in for conversations with locals; it is an accurate representation of what travel is and what it means. VERDICT Scholarly and insightful and balanced with wit and levity, this is written with an effortless poeticism. It has drawn comparisons with Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia and Eleanor Clark's Rome and a Villa, but there is the potential for cross-genre (and media) appeal as it shares a cinematic pace with Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset films as well as Chris Marker's Sans Soleil. Recommended.-Ben Malczewski, Ypsilanti Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
