Gomorrah
If there is an antidote for silly Europe worshipping among American intellectuals it is a brilliant little book called Gomorrah.
Gomorrah is a description of life as it is really is in the ancient Italian city of Naples by a native son Roberto Saviano. Gomorrah simply exposes modern Naples for what it really is a cesspool of crime and corruption dominated by a clique of vicious gangsters. The gangsters are the Camorra, a traditional Italian crime syndicate that has dominated every aspect of life in Naples for generations.
Gomorrah has been a sensation in Italy selling a half million copies, winning literary awards and landing Saviano in police protection, Camorra thugs don’t like their secrets being exposed. The book itself is a tremendous work a memoir written in a style of hard written prose worthy of Dashell Hammett or John D. McDonald.
Saviano exposes the sorry underbelly of his native country. He reveals that most of the haute products of Italian fashion are made at sweatshops in dismal Naples suburbs controlled by the Camorra. The glamorous creations of Milan’s fashion mavens are marketed by gangsters who make most of their profits by selling cheap knockoffs on the side.
Fashion is the tip of the iceberg, the Camorra are major drug dealers who provide heroin, cocaine and other drugs to the people of Europe. Saviano writes of drug supermarkets in the heart of Naples, and gangsters ruthless enough to use poor addicts as guinea pigs for new drugs. Then there are the other rackets the importation of counterfeit high tech items from China and garbage disposal. Saviano explains how Southern Italy has become one giant garbage dump. The Camorra bosses make huge fortunes by dumping hazardous waste and poisoning their homeland.
When he’s not describing the rackets of the Camorra or system of organized crime that runs Naples, Saviano takes us on a tour of Naples. The oddities of Naples’ underworld are as entertaining as they are frightening. A female mob boss whose lady body guards dressed in yellow like Uma Thurma’s character in Tarantino’s seminal “Kill Bill.” Teenaged Italian gangsters who bear an eerie similarity to American drug gangs, swaggering youths with pistols and arrogant attitude. Then he describes their heroes the Camorra bosses who live in villas rivaling those of Roman emperors, one modeled after the home of Robert DeNiro’s character in the 1981 version of“Scarface.”
Gomorrah is more than a tour of Naples it is also the first real description of post modern gangsterism by a true intellectual. Thugs whose actions are inspired by soccer video games and Quentin Tarantino movies. Street punks whose lives are shaped by American movies and of the new ethics and logic of 21st Century Gangsters.
Saviano describes not poor men who turn to crime out of desperation but middle and working class sorts motivated by an ugly combination of greed, boredom and tradition. The desperation he writes of is not survival but a desire for success and excitement that the European socialist welfare state can never fulfill. The prize is unlimited amounts of cash and the ability to do whatever you want if you’re tough, smart, ruthless and good with a gun and not afraid to use it.
The gangsters Saviano writes of are something new, they’re not the traditional creatures of the Godfather. Nor are they the victims of injustice, instead they’re simply greedy and amoral citizens of a modern state to whom crime is simply a lucrative job option.
The regions they inhabit, Naples and Southern Italy a cesspool of crime and corruption rivaling anything in the Third World. Yet an area vital to the success of modern Europe, the place where all the items judged politically incorrect by the European Union come ashore. A place of intense violence where guns are as common as they are in the United States and every gangster owns an AK-47. In Southern Italy European gun control like the European welfare state is a shallow and sick fantasy.
Saviano himself is an author to watch, for he’s a brilliant wordsmith who tells the truth. Like George Orwell he’s an intellectual native who lived as an ordinary man in his homeland. What he found there didn’t confirm to the fairy tale of Europe as welfare state utopia and he isn’t afraid to say it. His anger at the sorry state of affairs in Italy is refreshing and just a little frightening.
Gomorrah isn’t a journalistic expose it’s a brilliantly written memoir of post modern life and an entertaining philosophical musing on the state of the modern world. Saviano has written an intellectual book that is both entertaining and thought provoking. Unfortunately it’s a book that will be ignored because it exposes the ugly reality under the tourist friendly welfare state veneer of modern Europe.
Saviano Roberto Gomorrah, New York, 2007, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, translated by Virginia Jewiss. Originally published in Italian in 2006 by Arnoldo, Mondadori Editore, S.p.A., Milan.
Gomorrah is a description of life as it is really is in the ancient Italian city of Naples by a native son Roberto Saviano. Gomorrah simply exposes modern Naples for what it really is a cesspool of crime and corruption dominated by a clique of vicious gangsters. The gangsters are the Camorra, a traditional Italian crime syndicate that has dominated every aspect of life in Naples for generations.
Gomorrah has been a sensation in Italy selling a half million copies, winning literary awards and landing Saviano in police protection, Camorra thugs don’t like their secrets being exposed. The book itself is a tremendous work a memoir written in a style of hard written prose worthy of Dashell Hammett or John D. McDonald.
Saviano exposes the sorry underbelly of his native country. He reveals that most of the haute products of Italian fashion are made at sweatshops in dismal Naples suburbs controlled by the Camorra. The glamorous creations of Milan’s fashion mavens are marketed by gangsters who make most of their profits by selling cheap knockoffs on the side.
Fashion is the tip of the iceberg, the Camorra are major drug dealers who provide heroin, cocaine and other drugs to the people of Europe. Saviano writes of drug supermarkets in the heart of Naples, and gangsters ruthless enough to use poor addicts as guinea pigs for new drugs. Then there are the other rackets the importation of counterfeit high tech items from China and garbage disposal. Saviano explains how Southern Italy has become one giant garbage dump. The Camorra bosses make huge fortunes by dumping hazardous waste and poisoning their homeland.
When he’s not describing the rackets of the Camorra or system of organized crime that runs Naples, Saviano takes us on a tour of Naples. The oddities of Naples’ underworld are as entertaining as they are frightening. A female mob boss whose lady body guards dressed in yellow like Uma Thurma’s character in Tarantino’s seminal “Kill Bill.” Teenaged Italian gangsters who bear an eerie similarity to American drug gangs, swaggering youths with pistols and arrogant attitude. Then he describes their heroes the Camorra bosses who live in villas rivaling those of Roman emperors, one modeled after the home of Robert DeNiro’s character in the 1981 version of“Scarface.”
Gomorrah is more than a tour of Naples it is also the first real description of post modern gangsterism by a true intellectual. Thugs whose actions are inspired by soccer video games and Quentin Tarantino movies. Street punks whose lives are shaped by American movies and of the new ethics and logic of 21st Century Gangsters.
Saviano describes not poor men who turn to crime out of desperation but middle and working class sorts motivated by an ugly combination of greed, boredom and tradition. The desperation he writes of is not survival but a desire for success and excitement that the European socialist welfare state can never fulfill. The prize is unlimited amounts of cash and the ability to do whatever you want if you’re tough, smart, ruthless and good with a gun and not afraid to use it.
The gangsters Saviano writes of are something new, they’re not the traditional creatures of the Godfather. Nor are they the victims of injustice, instead they’re simply greedy and amoral citizens of a modern state to whom crime is simply a lucrative job option.
The regions they inhabit, Naples and Southern Italy a cesspool of crime and corruption rivaling anything in the Third World. Yet an area vital to the success of modern Europe, the place where all the items judged politically incorrect by the European Union come ashore. A place of intense violence where guns are as common as they are in the United States and every gangster owns an AK-47. In Southern Italy European gun control like the European welfare state is a shallow and sick fantasy.
Saviano himself is an author to watch, for he’s a brilliant wordsmith who tells the truth. Like George Orwell he’s an intellectual native who lived as an ordinary man in his homeland. What he found there didn’t confirm to the fairy tale of Europe as welfare state utopia and he isn’t afraid to say it. His anger at the sorry state of affairs in Italy is refreshing and just a little frightening.
Gomorrah isn’t a journalistic expose it’s a brilliantly written memoir of post modern life and an entertaining philosophical musing on the state of the modern world. Saviano has written an intellectual book that is both entertaining and thought provoking. Unfortunately it’s a book that will be ignored because it exposes the ugly reality under the tourist friendly welfare state veneer of modern Europe.
Saviano Roberto Gomorrah, New York, 2007, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, translated by Virginia Jewiss. Originally published in Italian in 2006 by Arnoldo, Mondadori Editore, S.p.A., Milan.
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