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Gomorrah

3.67 of 5 stars 3.67 · rating details · 3,787 ratings · 439 reviews

A groundbreaking major bestseller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages...more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published October 30th 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2006)

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Dec 28, 2007 Francesca Lenti rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

This book should be taught in schools.
The media tend to forget about the camorra in Campania.
They only talk about it when there's more than 2 deads a day...
this book is a great tragical testimony of somebody who does not want to forget and wants to shout to everybody what the truth really is.
Recommended to anyone who doesn't want to stop to the surface and wants to go deep into the scum of reality.

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Aug 24, 2009 Pat rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: documentary, ethics

Since he has pulished his book, Saviano is a hunted man. Does he glorify organised crime after all? Or where did my fascination come from when I read him? The book portrays the Camorra as the incarnation of capitalism in its purest form, whoever stands in the way of business will be eliminated with the appropriate means. Appropriate? How much are moral standards essential for good business? The question is neglected and yet imminent on each page. Who is good? Who is evil. Names over names are qu...more

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Jan 25, 2008 Alec rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow! Anyone who defends the idea that there is such a thing as a free market should take a deep breath and confront the multi billion dollar criminal enterprise depicted in this book. If you can accept that steroids in sports is a direct result of too much money being directly linked to performance, how do you think trillion dollar markets will behave? Read it and weep.

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Mar 26, 2009 Nikki rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book seems to have suffered a loss in translation, and there were also some formatting problems with it that may have been a result of it being on my Kindle, and not in paper form. Also, the author obviously wrote for the Italian reader. Several times, he made long lists of Camorristas or of cities in Italy, and I suspect that these may have meant something to someone who lives in Italy and who has more knowledge of the state of organized crime in the country than I do, but for me, it was j...more

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Dec 29, 2010 Wu Ming rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

WM1: Non ho letto nessuna recensione prima di affrontare Gomorra. Nessuna.
Libro impegnativo: a volte l'impasto è denso da soffocare, come la sabbia ficcata in bocca ad Antonio Magliulo legato su una sedia, spiaggia di Castelvolturno, litorale domizio.
Il lettore deve affrontare Gomorra con attenzione, coscienza, responsabilità. Altrimenti verrà travolto.
Mentre mi spingevo nel fitto ha preso forma un'ipotesi: l'io narrante di Gomorra è l'autore, ma non soltanto e non sempre. L'autore, per di...more WM1: Non ho letto nessuna recensione prima di affrontare Gomorra. Nessuna.
Libro impegnativo: a volte l'impasto è denso da soffocare, come la sabbia ficcata in bocca ad Antonio Magliulo legato su una sedia, spiaggia di Castelvolturno, litorale domizio.
Il lettore deve affrontare Gomorra con attenzione, coscienza, responsabilità. Altrimenti verrà travolto.
Mentre mi spingevo nel fitto ha preso forma un'ipotesi: l'io narrante di Gomorra è l'autore, ma non soltanto e non sempre. L'autore, per dirla con la colonna romana del vecchio Luther Blissett Project, ha esercitato la libertà di "dare dell'io a qualcun altro", di collocarsi dietro gli occhi di diversi "io" che raccontano storie di camorra. Non "io è un altro" ("je est un autre", come scrisse Rimbaud), bensì "anche un altro è io" ("un autre aussi est je").
L'io che racconta dell'economia cinese in Campania non è lo stesso che racconta delle pecore spaccate a metà dai colpi di prova del "tubo" (il fucile fai-da-te usato dal "Sistema"), e cos� via. E' sempre "Roberto Saviano" a raccontare, ma "Roberto Saviano" � una sintesi, flusso immaginativo che rimbalza da un cervello all'altro, prende in prestito il punto di vista di un molteplice.
E' un punto di vista straniato e fermo al tempo stesso ("fermo" nel senso di fermezza, coerenza, dirittura morale). "Io" raccoglie e fonde le parole e i sentimenti di una comunit�, tante persone hanno plasmato - da campi opposti, nel bene e nel male - la materia narrata. Quella di Gomorra � una voce collettiva che cerca di "carburare lo stomaco dell'anima", � il coro un po' sgangherato di chi, nella terra in cui il capitale esercita un dominio senza mediazioni, �ncora a una "radice a fittone" il coraggio di guardare in faccia quel potere. "Io" � la comunit� aperta di chi sceglie "Cristo, Buddha, l'impegno civile, la morale, il marxismo, l'orgoglio, l'anarchismo, la lotta al crimine, la pulizia, la rabbia costante e perenne, il meridionalismo. Qualcosa."
Gomorra � il tributo appassionato ai "qualcosa" che, ai bordi dell'allucinazione condivisa imposta dai clan, permettono ancora di tastare la realt�.
[La recensione prosegue qui: http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/Giap/nandropau… ]
Vedere anche:
APPUNTI SUL "COME" E IL "COSA" DI GOMORRA:
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/Giap/gomorra.h…
LE ALLEGORIE DI GOMORRA (IN "WU MING / TIZIANO SCARPA: FACE OFF"):
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/outtakes/Wu_Mi… (PDF)(less)

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Nov 12, 2009 La Petite Américaine rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Leghisti / People who know Italy

**Update** Saw Roberto Saviano on TV last night. He was talking. Talking. And talking. And talking. And talking. And talking. For a frickin hour and a half without stopping except when he was interrupted by applause. Great writer, but his nonstop jabber has me ready to whack a star off this book.**

Gomorrah is a young journalist's account of just what the power of the mafia has done to southern Italy, particularly (but not solely) the Camorra in the Campania region. While he does discuss briefly...more

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Jun 01, 2012 Frank rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Laissez-faire capitalism where nothing is too big to fail, or even tear itself apart.
However, Saviano's descriptions suggest that the clans are also like states, albeit small and fluid.
They defend their borders and attempt to control everything within them, even while planning expansions and invasions of their own.

Sits nicely with a recent read: E.L. Doctorow's The Waterworks which illuminates life under New York's Tweed Ring.
The writing is more impressionistic and less engaging that a real fav...more

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May 12, 2013 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, italy

This is a worrisome portrait of the extra-legal underworld centered in and around Naples. It is run by "clans" that are much larger, more ruthless, more sophisticated and more international than the American style Mafia family. These clans compete with each other for market share in drugs, hazardous waste, high fashion, arms and anything else they choose.

The prose is absolutely wonderful. Well chosen words provide descriptions of people, life and feelings in a way you usually don't find in inves...more This is a worrisome portrait of the extra-legal underworld centered in and around Naples. It is run by "clans" that are much larger, more ruthless, more sophisticated and more international than the American style Mafia family. These clans compete with each other for market share in drugs, hazardous waste, high fashion, arms and anything else they choose.

The prose is absolutely wonderful. Well chosen words provide descriptions of people, life and feelings in a way you usually don't find in investigative journalism. Both the author and translator deserve credit because this high level of prose is maintained throughout. On pp. 214-5 there is a beautiful rumination on concrete. Phrases, "secrets in the bowels of the economy, sealed in a pancreas of silence" and "micro-criminal excrescence nourished in movies" demonstrate that the prose originates with Saviano.

Organizationally, the book is not 5 stars. It seems like these are loosely tied together articles. It is not clear how the opening part about fashion, shipping and the Chinese ties up with the rest of it. Even within the chapters there are a lot of unfinished vignettes and some come out of nowhere. For instance, Anna Vollero's minute of fame on p. 147, or the mention of local governments "dissolving" which is not explained. Does this mean the schools close? The police get laid off? There is an isolated but interesting piece on Mikhail Kalashnikov, who's invention has helped to make this all possible.

I feel like I received an education on the reach of organized crime in Italy. I knew nothing of the Aberdeen connection and little of the Sparticus trial. Some of the stories, for instance about the 14 year old recruits training with body armor are chilling.

Last year I read The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi which described how the government operates. Berlusconi inspired laws, enabling the accused to chose their own prosecutor and laws whereby a witness is not compelled to testify do not help in bringing an end to this scourge.

The dedicated police, prosecutors and press of Italy seem to labor in the shadows. Their lives and families are in danger, but they persist. This unheralded group deserves the respect and support of the world, if only in self interest as witness to the hazardous waste tsunamis can bring to their shores. (less)

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Mar 03, 2013 Shawn Davies rated it 4 of 5 stars

Never have I read a book which generated such palpable anger coming from its author, from the first page to the last, it was a living and hard breathing and visceral sensation in every story told and every evil explained. However, after having read the books litany of crime, collusion and suffering you have to applaud the author Robert Saviano for maintaining such a sense of righteous anger and not simply surrendering to despair.

Here is the inside story of the “System” the choking hold the Itali...more Never have I read a book which generated such palpable anger coming from its author, from the first page to the last, it was a living and hard breathing and visceral sensation in every story told and every evil explained. However, after having read the books litany of crime, collusion and suffering you have to applaud the author Robert Saviano for maintaining such a sense of righteous anger and not simply surrendering to despair.

Here is the inside story of the “System” the choking hold the Italian Camorra have over Naples and much of Southern Italy. However, it is not a straight forward story of one evil mastermind, but a maddeningly confusing tale of dozens of viscous rival clans and a hopelessly compromised state. Here was capitalism without law, here was primal power over state structures, and here was the gun over the mediated settlement. In the heart of a first world nation third world warlordism holds sway, securing profit and advantage by flouting all laws and defeating all rivals and maintaining market share through force of arms and the fear they generate, as in the lost states of Africa.

Killing was sub contracted to child soldiers whose only role models of power were the desperate older boys who had fallen before them. The whole endeavour was ruthless but seemed to require such commitment, planning and organisation that you wondered what they could all achieve if they went straight!

That this takes place to such an extent in a modern European city was breath taking.

But I think Saviano’s book also said something more about global capital in general, the smuggling and the sweatshops to keep prices low, the violence and murders to keep and hold wealth amongst a few at the top, the appalling short termism that lead to so much toxic dumping in and round their own city. Divide and rule and sub contract and every man for himself yet that meant so few actually got anything. But all done out of sight of the rest of us, done daily and at such appalling cost but so seemingly mundane that even news junkie like me had no idea how pervasive and deadly it is.

Saviano has paid with a life on the run from hit men for this, a life of security details, movement and hiding, to expose the horror and brutality of the Camorra. Yet so pervasive are they, so ingrained into the fabric of the city, that I could see no hope or solution. Indeed, I was left feeling that “Il Systemia” was accepted as the way of life in Naples. A cowed population, measuring their margins against the Camorra violence and the cost of freedom and making their choice; what would we chose?
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Nov 29, 2012 Jason Roselander rated it 4 of 5 stars

Gomorrah is a hard book to read as a non-Italian. I originally picked it up because I had just returned from a vacation in Campania and wanted to learn more about the region. Saviano doesn't give Gomorrah a sense of place so much as assume it. If I had grown up there then the endless lists of towns and capos would probably be meaningful, but I ended up fast-forwarding through most of them.

The other problem with Gomorrah is that it lacks an overall structure. Each chapter is a self-contained epis...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Andrea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sarai per sempre coinvolto

Un libro fondamentale per capire quanto tutti dovremmo sentirci coinvolti dal fenomeno criminalità organizzata. Saviano ha il potere di dare un nuovo e inquitante significato a ogni minimo gesto quotidiano.
Chi ha letto il libro poco e male si è concentrato solo sui problemi che pone la sua classificazione: è un romanzo? è un reportage?
Il problema per me non si pone. Saviano racconta, e il suo racconto ha il potere di cambiare la mia percezione del mondo.

Agg. 24/06/2008

S...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Gomorrah, journalist Roberto Saviano's account of the activities and crimes of the Italian Camorra crime organisation is a difficult read. Not difficult because of baroque language (though Saviano's writing is lyrical and laden with metaphors) and not difficult because it deals with with the obscure and unknowable. Rather it is the sheer relentlessness of the horrors which he lists which make this book a tough pill to swallow.
Initially recounting the author's personal experiences with the Camorr...more Gomorrah, journalist Roberto Saviano's account of the activities and crimes of the Italian Camorra crime organisation is a difficult read. Not difficult because of baroque language (though Saviano's writing is lyrical and laden with metaphors) and not difficult because it deals with with the obscure and unknowable. Rather it is the sheer relentlessness of the horrors which he lists which make this book a tough pill to swallow.
Initially recounting the author's personal experiences with the Camorra's involvement with the fashion industry, Saviano goes on to cover a variety of other aspects of this octopus-like Mafia family. Their history, their businesses, their bosses, their homes and even a chapter on the role that the Kalishnikov rifle has played in the Mafia's 'military' actions. Saviano always ties every thread back to one common strand: The economy.
Though frequently shocking, there is also a sense of amazement at the degree to which modern criminal organisations are run as a business. Hollywood has it wrong; crime families do not live or die with the actions of one individual - a Scarface or Little Caesar - in actuality the incarceration or death of a boss has no effect whatsoever because the business persists no matter who is in control. Equally shocking is the sheer scale of slaughter perpetrated by the Camorra against the people of Italy, a Wild West mentality with a World War body-count.
Gomorrah is not just a shopping-list of human misery however as Saviano examines the psychology behind the criminal clans and the society which allows and encourages the clans to exist. In fact the book's greatest strength is also its weakness, as the author's personal experiences and feelings are so much more fascinating that his lists of who-did-what-to-whom. Saviano's personal and deep-rooted hatred of the clans simmers on ever page, his revulsion robbing the book of any hint of glorification of their disgusting crimes. The final chapter is however the most damning as it details how the clans' involvement in Waste Management is turning southern Italy into a toxic wasteland, symbolic of how the Mafia as a whole has poisoned generations of Italian society with drugs, murder and extortion.(less)

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Aug 07, 2012 Pucca182 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

A bordo della sua vespa, Saviano ci guida nell’impero economico della camorra, facendoci scoprire i meccanismi del “Sistema”.
Partendo dal porto di Napoli, punto di passaggio per tutto quello che è prodotto in Oriente, scopriremo tutti i settori dove la camorra ha investito a livello mondiale, quali il tessile, la droga, le armi, il cemento e, infine, i rifiuti.
Leggendo questo libro si comprendono: ingranaggi, struttura e organizzazione dei clan, i cui capi si considerano degli imprenditori, bram...more

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Jul 28, 2012 amelia rated it 2 of 5 stars

Vorrei davvero avere un voto di mezzo... una stellina supplementare perché dire "così così" è dire davvero poco ma dire "bello" non mi pare il caso, l'ho trovato CARINO.
La storia ovviamente è interessante, è quella che è, piatta e cruda, è la verità e per questo bisogna ringraziare Saviano perché solo un Napoletano che ci è cresciuto dentro può raccontarti cos'è la Camorra a te che di Camorra ne hai solo sentito parlare al telegiornale e in qualche fiction o telefilm.
Ho iniziato a leggere ques...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Bap rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: italy, non-fiction

This is a book about the "other" Italian mafia centered in Compania with Naples vicinity as the epicenter. The author, an Italian journalist with a Hunter Thompson/Maria Puzo bent shows the various clans to be ruthless with tentacles throughout Italy and colonies in Spain and England. Gang wars have resulted in hundreds of deaths often brutal and symbolic. The crime syndicates dominate the massive port in Naples where entire neighborhood have been appropriated and the interiors of buildings bash...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Duesterwald-Online rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: belle-italien

Inhalt:
Roberto Saviano entführt einen nach Neapel, der Stadt, aus der er selbst stammt, in die Welt der Camorra.
Das Buch ist Reportage und Literatur zugleich.
Er erzählt die Geschichte der Camorra, zeigt, wie sie lebt, mordet und damit jedes Mal aufs Neue durchkommt.
Wo sie überall ihre Finger mit im Spiel hat.
Eine Camorra, die mehr Leben geopfert hat, als die sizilianische Mafia.

Meinung:
Im Grunde genommen würde allein der Mut, solch ein Buch zu verfassen und auch tatsächlich zu veröffentlich,...more Inhalt:
Roberto Saviano entführt einen nach Neapel, der Stadt, aus der er selbst stammt, in die Welt der Camorra.
Das Buch ist Reportage und Literatur zugleich.
Er erzählt die Geschichte der Camorra, zeigt, wie sie lebt, mordet und damit jedes Mal aufs Neue durchkommt.
Wo sie überall ihre Finger mit im Spiel hat.
Eine Camorra, die mehr Leben geopfert hat, als die sizilianische Mafia.

Meinung:
Im Grunde genommen würde allein der Mut, solch ein Buch zu verfassen und auch tatsächlich zu veröffentlich, bereits 5 von 5 Sternen verdienen. Doch steckt in diesem Buch viel mehr, als der mutige Hintergrund.
Roberto Saviano schildert aus der Ich-Perspektive das Leben in und mit der Camorra. Eine Verbrecherorganisation, die die Wirtschaft Neapels vollkommen in der Hand hat und die von der Politik still geduldet wird - Denn wer wagt es schon, sich gegen eine Organisation zu wenden, die innerhalb eines Jahres über 700 Morde zu verantworten hat.
Jeder weiß von der Mafia, jeder kennt die Mafia, doch niemand redet darüber und schon gar niemand kritisiert die Mafia. Denn das wäre schließlich gleichbedeutend mit einem Selbstmordversuch.
Der Journalist Saviano wagt es jedoch und taucht mitten in diese Organisation ein - Und lässt dabei kein Detail aus. Jeder einzelne Name der Oberhäupter der Clans und Familien wird genannt und damit tut Saviano etwas, das zuvor noch nie jemand gewagt hat. Doch könnte ihn diese Ehrlichkeit sein Leben kosten.
Es ist schwer dieses Buch einem Genre zuzuordnen. Es ist kein Sachbuch, es ist viel mehr eine Erlebniserzählung, von der man an vielen Stellen hofft, es würde sich nur um eine erfundene Thriller-Geschichte handeln.
Savianos Schreibstil bleibt bei seiner Erzählung kühl, sachlich und doch äußerst eindrücklich. Das Buch ist Reportage und Literatur zugleich und diese Mischung macht auch seinen besonderen Reiz aus.
Ich kann jedem nur empfehlen, dieses Buch zu lesen. Aber ich kann auch jeden vorwarnen: Es ist definitiv nichts für schwache Nerven. Saviano schmückt nichts aus. Denn schließlich gibt es auch nichts an dem Geschehen, was man ausschmücken könnte.

Fazit:
Allein schon für den Mut, solch ein Buch zu schreiben, verdient es eine hohe Blätterzahl. Der Schreibstil tut sein übriges. (less)

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Jun 25, 2011 Marjorie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Where to start? A MUST READ book. It was a huge slap in the face and made "The Godfather" look like a care-bear mafia. Roberto Saviano makes us dive into the Italian mafia, the Camorra, an almighty organisation ruling the southern regions of Italy.
We are presented with his view, yes, but what remains are the facts, the cold-blooded facts: the terror that the Camora uses over Naples and its surroundings. The population live under their rule, the politicians are nothing but highly corrupted puppet...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Jonah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Stunning in it's vastness and crushing bleakness. In the book Saviano explains the inter-workings of an inconceivably massive global crime network based in Southern Italy. The author does so in bitterly sardonic and personal prose, underscoring the tragedy the plight of Naples and its sister cities in the South. At times the book can be incredibly confusing for someone not familiar with Italy's geography or with a good memory for names. While I eventually remembered the names of some areas and i...more

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May 26, 2010 Harry Rutherford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, non-fiction

This is a journalistic account of organised crime in Naples; the title is a pun on Camorra, the name of the Neapolitan mafia. It’s an eye-opening, depressing book. The prose is occasionally a little purple for my taste, which I suspect is partly the translation. And I feel a bit petty criticising the prose style since Saviano risked his life to write it; he now lives under 24 hour police protection. I can only hope his bravery does some good, although the book makes the problem seem intractable....more This is a journalistic account of organised crime in Naples; the title is a pun on Camorra, the name of the Neapolitan mafia. It’s an eye-opening, depressing book. The prose is occasionally a little purple for my taste, which I suspect is partly the translation. And I feel a bit petty criticising the prose style since Saviano risked his life to write it; he now lives under 24 hour police protection. I can only hope his bravery does some good, although the book makes the problem seem intractable.

I realised it would feature unpleasant people doing unpleasant things — I’m not a complete idiot, I saw Goodfellas — but I thought that the movies might tend to exaggerate it, since violence is so cinematic. But actually the brutality is genuinely shocking: there are page after page of murders and beatings.

As a young doctor in the 1980s my father had worked on an ambulance crew. Four hundred deaths a year. In areas with up to five murders a day. They’d pull up in the ambulance, the wounded on the ground, but if the police hadn’t arrived, they couldn’t load him onto the stretcher. Because if word got around, the killers would come back and track down the ambulance, stop it, climb in, and finish off the job. It had happened lots of times, so the doctors and nurses knew to stand by, to wait till the killers came back to complete the operation.

Also shocking is the sheer scale of their involvement not just in clearly illegal activities like drugs, people trafficking and gun running, but in superficially legitimate businesses: fashion, construction, waste disposal. I guess it makes sense; a willingness to ignore the law can be a great competitive advantage. It’s easier to make money from imported consumer goods if you don’t pay any import duties or taxes; from clothing if it’s made in an illegal sweatshop; from waste disposal if you don’t even try to dispose of toxic waste safely.

The Casalesi have distributed their good throughout the region. Just the real estate assets seized by the Naples DDA in the last few years amount to 750 million euros. The lists are frightening. In the Spartacus trial alone, 199 buildings, 52 pieces of property, 14 companies, 12 automobiles, and 3 boats were confiscated. Over the years, according to a 1996 trial, Schiavone and his trusted men have seen the seizure of assets worth 230 million euros: companies, villas, lands, buildings, and powerful automobiles, including the Jaguar in which Sandokan was found at the time of his first arrest. Confiscations that would have destroyed any company, losses that would have ruined any businessman, economic blows that would have capsized any firm. Anyone but the Casalesi cartel. Every time I read about the seizure of property, every time I see the lists of assets the DDA has confiscated from the bosses, I feel depressed and exhausted; everywhere I turn, everything sems to be theirs. Everything. Land, buffalos, farms, quarries, garages, dairies, hotels, and restaurants. A sort of Camorra omnipotence. I can’t see anything that doesn’t belong to them.

The details of life at street level, and the mechanics of things like the waste disposal trade, are the most interesting parts of it; some of the stuff where he is detailing the feuds between different groups is less gripping, just because it’s difficult trying to keep track of all the different names and the list of murders gets depressingly repetitive. But overall it is fascinating stuff and I certainly recommend it.
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Feb 10, 2010 Jack rated it 2 of 5 stars

Disappointing considering all the buzz that it got - probably 2.5 stars - but that might be partially an issue of translation; I can't really qualify this, but it often feels like the translator was too literal in transplanting every word into english, so that some of the style and descriptions that might have flowed in Italian doesn't quite pop here.

Also, I often more curious as to how the Camorra actually performed the operations he talked about. It's very important if they completely control...more

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Oct 17, 2009 Roy rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in economics or organized crime

I read this book while travelling through Campania. We had lovely weather, stayed in some of the most beautiful coastal town in Europe and had a very breezy and relaxing week, but every moment I expected to turn the corner and find the seedy underside of southern Italy – some youth selling drugs, or hand bags, or Kalashnicovs – but never found it.

Well, there was a very lively trade of cheap clothes wherever we went …

For any fan of the Wire, you won’t be surprised by how organized crime can embra...more I read this book while travelling through Campania. We had lovely weather, stayed in some of the most beautiful coastal town in Europe and had a very breezy and relaxing week, but every moment I expected to turn the corner and find the seedy underside of southern Italy – some youth selling drugs, or hand bags, or Kalashnicovs – but never found it.

Well, there was a very lively trade of cheap clothes wherever we went …

For any fan of the Wire, you won’t be surprised by how organized crime can embrace modern economics. The Comorra (aka the system, aka the clans, aka the Naples mafia) have their fingers in so many pots and pushing down so many scales, that they don’t feed off of the economy of southern Italy, they are the economy of southern Italy; swallowing up so much of the country that they’ve had to turn to legitimate and semi-legitimate businesses. Any corporation starts to die when it stops expanding, and once you’ve saturated and monopolized the drug market, you have to move on to waste management, hotels, designer jeans and local government. The Economist often reports on how inefficient the Italian workforce is, and one could assume it has to do with two-hour lunches and the general personality of the people, but actually it is because of the multi-billion dollar crime syndicate that is ingrained in the country; seems to make more sense, when you think about it.

This is the world that Saviano grew up in and investigates. His prose is passionate and floral, and could use some editing when he is opining at the end of chapters, but when he is reporting on events and ideas, he writes more solidly. Gomorrah made me feel like I was floundering in corruption and continuing cycles of crime, but what keeps the story from being repetitive is the ingenuity of the subject. The criminal syndicate in Italy is so far reaching that each chapter tells of a different aspect of the whole. Sadly, but realistically, Saviano does not offer any solutions, but casts light on the problem, and in doing has done an impressive job of investigative journalism that is enlightening, depressing, and enjoyable, though not the best choice for beach reading in Capri.(less)

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Oct 11, 2009 Courtney rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From Naples, Italy, a consortium of cold-blooded men and women are making billions of dollars each year from the illicit trade milk and cheese, high fashion, trash collection, drugs, concrete, human lives, and anything else that can be bought and sold. Yet the Camorra, the criminal network that has made more money and cost more lives than Italy's Mafia, is hardly known around the world. Author Roberto Saviano, a philosopher with a journalist's soul, hopes to change that, to expose and aid the di...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Saviano was placed under police protection after this book was published. He exposes (through his own first-hand accounts) just how deeply the Camorra are entrenched into Italian life, especially in and around Naples. Saviano also writes about his own thought process as he deals with and tries to make sense of what he's seeing and experiencing (he studied philosophy at the University of Naples). If the Camorra have even half the grip on Italy this books claim they do, it is truly shocking. One o...more

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Jul 11, 2009 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not sure if it's because it was translated from Italian, but I found myself frequently annoyed by the sentence structure- or at times lack of sentences completely. The stories/ vignettes were fascinating, so I wanted to keep reading, but when I try to talk about this book in specifics I find myself at a loss because it was hard for me to come up with a narrative. Maybe my expectations of the book were unrealistic.

That said, I am amazed by the author's courage to write about and continue to l...more

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Jul 07, 2010 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-related, history-italy, reporting-interviews

In America, we seem to have a love affair with the mob. Look at the Godfather or Scarface just to name two. Then there's Goodfellas and who can forget The Sopranos. (Actually, I could. I never liked it). Maybe the lover affair is because of the desire to get away with things.

The real mob is one scary thing, but we know that. Roberto Savino doesn't just tell us that; he also tells us how the mob ruins society.

Gomorrah is most likely not the best translated book, yet there is something compelling...more

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Jun 18, 2010 F.R. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Anyone expecting a kind of cool, macho life of gangsters, with charismatic real-life characters and bloodily amusing anecdotes is in for a shock. This is a raw, vicious and angry book, a true expose of how the Camorra dominates life around Southern Italy and how from there it extends its tentacles worldwide.

Although it gives an overview of the various gangs and the characters involved, the book goes much further and breaks down the sociological and economic causes of and reactions to all that ha...more

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Mar 12, 2009 Delphine rated it 5 of 5 stars

J'ai enfin pu emprunter Gomorra de Roberto Saviano (Gallimard), traduit par Vincent Raynaud, à la Médiathèque et je viens de le finir.

Il s'agit d'un récit puissant, les pieds dans l'histoire, qui analyse tous les aspects des trafics mafieux, dans leurs moindres détails, du béton à la confection textile, en passant par les déchets dangereux. L'un des chapitres est même une dénonciation faite de "je sais", accumulés, les uns à la suite des autres.

Je trouve que ce texte remet bien les choses en pe...more

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Oct 09, 2011 C_ rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: deutsch, sachlich, lies

Wow...ist erstmal alles, was ich so kurz nach dem Zu-Ende-Lesen denken konnte. Das Buch ist wirklich schockierend. Ich hätte mir nie vorstellen können, dass die Camorra so weitreichend agiert. Noch dazu, da ich Mafia immer mit Sizilien und dem "Paten" in Verbindung gebracht habe. In Hollywood wirkt die Mafia immer irgendwie melancholisch-romantisch, Roberto Savianos Berichte sind das komplette Gegenteil: sachliche und doch mitreißende Zeugnisse der Brutalität, der Verwobenheit und der immensen w...more

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Sep 19, 2011 Caleb rated it 3 of 5 stars

Saviano's book is about the Camorra mob which controls Naples in southern Italy and the destruction which they have wreaked on the city in terms of gang warfare, environmental damage, and economic enfeeblement because the formal economy cannot compete with mob businesses. It's all sad and tragic and reprehensible. In addition, in reading more about this book, this book's exposure of the Camorra's practices have been widely hailed in Italy and resulted in Saviano being under permanent police prot...more

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Feb 01, 2010 Robert rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An incoherent, rambling mess. So much so in fact that I could not finish the book, which I hate doing. I got 50 pages into this 300 page book and I still had no idea what it was about.

Ostensibly the book is about the Gomorrah, which is the main Mafia family in Naples. But you wouldn't know that from at least the first 50 pages of this book. At first it seemed the book was about the corruption that takes place at the massive Naples port, in which merchandise is regularly let into the country wit...more An incoherent, rambling mess. So much so in fact that I could not finish the book, which I hate doing. I got 50 pages into this 300 page book and I still had no idea what it was about.

Ostensibly the book is about the Gomorrah, which is the main Mafia family in Naples. But you wouldn't know that from at least the first 50 pages of this book. At first it seemed the book was about the corruption that takes place at the massive Naples port, in which merchandise is regularly let into the country without proper inspection, thereby allowing the merchandise to bypass the proper tariffs and keep the costs low and allow it to be sold cheaply.

Then it seemed the book was about the Chinese infiltration of the port, since so much of the merchandise found at the Naples port is imported from China and the businessmen trying to sell their products established residency in order to make sure their products are not stolen off the corrupt port to begin with.

Then it seemed to be about the poor Italians who try to rob the merchandise enroute to the city for sale and then are shot dead by people protecting that merchandise. At least ten pages was devoted to a teenage boy just introduced to the book who was abruptly shot trying to rob a truck and the author goes on and on about the boy's murder, the town's mourning and funeral.

After that the book shifts completely into an account of how all the Mafia families create and sell first-rate quality knockoffs of all the high-end Italian fashion retailers. In fact the knockoffs are so good that the only real difference is the price tag.

I got all this information from the first 50 pages, which felt like reading four different books in the first four chapters with no real tie into each other and only cursory mentions of the Gomorrah at all. Absolutely no context was given at any time to explain to the reader how this all tied into the organized crime in Italy. Countless names of people, places and brands were mentioned and dropped within a few pages but we are meant to care about these names repeatedly without any explanation whatsoever.

And the language, my god. Sentences go on forever and written in such a lumbering style as to suggest the author became so enamored with his own flourishes. I give the author a slight benefit of the doubt since he is native Italian and presumably wrote the book originally in Italian, so perhaps this book suffers from plausible translation and an assumption the reader will not need any context or background information in order to be interested in the topic. I hate not finishing books, but with so many good books out there why waste my time? (less)

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About Roberto Saviano

Roberto Saviano is an Italian writer and journalist.

In his writings, articles and books he employs prose and news-reporting style to narrate the story of the Camorra (a powerful Neapolitan mafia-like organization), exposing its territory and business connections.

Since 2006, following the publication of his bestselling book Gomorrah (Gomorra in Italian), where he describes the clandestine particula...more

More about Roberto Saviano...

Books by Roberto Saviano

La bellezza e l'inferno : scritti 2004-2009

Lo contrario de la muerte/ The Opposite Of Death (Spanish Edition)

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Quotes from Gomorrah

“Ad aver dato fastidio alle organizzazioni criminali è il mio lettore, non sono io. Il mio lettore è ciò che loro non vogliono, il fatto che in questo momento ne stiamo parlando, che ne hanno parlato tutti i giornali, che continuano ad uscire libri, che continuano a nascere documentari, è tutto questo che loro non vogliono, è l'attenzione su di loro, sui loro nomi, soprattutto sui loro affari.” — 5 people liked it

“Era o Sistema que alimentava o grande mercado internacional da moda, o enorme arquipélago da elegância italiana. Cada recanto do globo fora atingido pelas grifes, pelos homens, pelos produtos do Sistema. Sistema, um termo aqui conhecido por todos, mas que em alguns lugares ainda está por ser decifrado, uma referência desconhecida para quem não conhece as dinâmicas do poder da economia do crime. Camorra é uma palavra inexistente, para policiais. É usada pelos magistrados, pelos jornalistas, pelos cineastas. É uma palavra que faz rir seus filiados, é uma indicação genérica, um termo para estudiosos, relegado à dimensão histórica. O termo em que se definem os pertences a um clã é Sistema: "Pertenço ao Sistema de Secondigliano". Um termo eloquente, um mecanismo mais do que uma estrutura. A organização criminosa coincide diretamente com a economia, a dialética comercial é a estrutura dos clãs.” — 1 person liked it

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