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I’ve just read the Napoli section of Goethe’s ‘Italian Journey’

A look back (first published on 6 January 2016): Naples is not a ‘do-in-a-day-city’ – it’s a city with roots, a city that takes time, a city that feels like it might be time itself. Even Goethe lost his rhythm here.

thephraser's avatarThe Phraser

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (portrait by Stieler 1828)

There are names I heard at school that are still buried beneath teacher dust. Names I’ve never looked at again – unreachable, academic names.  Goethe was one of them.

Then, a few weeks ago, I bumped into him on the internet and I read his notes on Naples.  They were a happy find.

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Book Review: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

A look back (first published 24 November 2015): this review is of the third of the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante. I read them all whilst in and around Naples, Italy.

thephraser's avatarThe Phraser

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

This book, the third in the series, has an ache in it that grows as the story lengthens.  It is about the absence of love and belonging, and the complications of motherhood.

The themes belong to us all and Ferrante intensifies them against the backdrop of Naples. She paints her story with the city’s colours, chosen for their truth from a palette that other cities struggle to match.

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Book Review: The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca

The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca

The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca

This little book, which I met first in the bookstore at the airport in Napoli, dropped its hero into my life like a coin into a pool.  He span so deep and so fast that he was almost lost … until, from nowhere, a sudden current pulled him out of sight.

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