Great photos, evocative piece. I'm at the beginning of what I call The Bourbon Capitals Tour. It's a multi-year project that started last year with Paris-Versailles and is continuing next month with Parma (as an add-on to a stay in the Veneto with friends). Naples and Palermo will be next year, I hope, and Madrid, possibly also Seville, the year after that. In any case, your description of Naples has whetted my appetite as a former denizen of several Asian metropolises, so, thanks!
Madrid? Great! I'll definitely post at least some notes from Parma next month. I've subscribed to your stack, so I look forward to reading more from your travels, too.
Your take on Ferrante is interesting - she is not a Neapolitan (so they say) and never lived there. To me, her style reads better in translation than in the original (being a native speaker, I can dare such a remark - it is tuffy). Just as the Aragonese or the Anjou, she came from outside and threw a suitable cover over the reality so as to suit her.
You may have mentioned Herling - a Pole who settled there after WWII and was the son-in-law of Benedetto Croce, or Norman Lewis (Naples '44).
This being said, congratulations on your sensing the complexity of Naples' culture on such a short visit. Just as in Chinese calligraphy, there is a deep core below the bewildering phantasmagory. Naples is the only Italian town that revolted and threw the Nazis out - and paid for it. Kesselring had to withdraw and the town was spared Florence's fate.
Ferrante allegedly is a translator. Translators have no own style, for they have to mimic the authors'.
As for her cultural impact, you may read James Rebanks: The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District. He criticizes Wordsworth for the elegies on the Lake District. By doing so, W occupied the geographical niche and deprived the local people of their voice.
Great photos, evocative piece. I'm at the beginning of what I call The Bourbon Capitals Tour. It's a multi-year project that started last year with Paris-Versailles and is continuing next month with Parma (as an add-on to a stay in the Veneto with friends). Naples and Palermo will be next year, I hope, and Madrid, possibly also Seville, the year after that. In any case, your description of Naples has whetted my appetite as a former denizen of several Asian metropolises, so, thanks!
Thanks! Your The Bourbon Capitals Tour sounds ab fab. Can't wait to read more about it. Maybe see you in Madrid?
Madrid? Great! I'll definitely post at least some notes from Parma next month. I've subscribed to your stack, so I look forward to reading more from your travels, too.
Your take on Ferrante is interesting - she is not a Neapolitan (so they say) and never lived there. To me, her style reads better in translation than in the original (being a native speaker, I can dare such a remark - it is tuffy). Just as the Aragonese or the Anjou, she came from outside and threw a suitable cover over the reality so as to suit her.
You may have mentioned Herling - a Pole who settled there after WWII and was the son-in-law of Benedetto Croce, or Norman Lewis (Naples '44).
This being said, congratulations on your sensing the complexity of Naples' culture on such a short visit. Just as in Chinese calligraphy, there is a deep core below the bewildering phantasmagory. Naples is the only Italian town that revolted and threw the Nazis out - and paid for it. Kesselring had to withdraw and the town was spared Florence's fate.
You are not the first person to say that Ferrante reads better in translation.
Ferrante allegedly is a translator. Translators have no own style, for they have to mimic the authors'.
As for her cultural impact, you may read James Rebanks: The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District. He criticizes Wordsworth for the elegies on the Lake District. By doing so, W occupied the geographical niche and deprived the local people of their voice.