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16th out of 39 books
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15 voters
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add to my books
Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A groundbreaking, unprecedented bestseller in Italy, Roberto Saviano's insider account traces the decline of the city of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network more powerful and violent than the Mafia. The Camorra is an elaborate, international system dealing in drugs, high fashion, construction, and t
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
November 25th 2008
by Picador
(first published 2006)
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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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
La Petite Américaine
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
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 disc...more
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 disc...more
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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 buil...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 verfasse...more
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 verfasse...more
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 c...more
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 c...more
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 an...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....more
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 comple...more
Also, I often more curious as to how the Camorra actually performed the operations he talked about. It's very important if they comple...more
Roy
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
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 ...more
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 ...more
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
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
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. O...more
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...more
That said, I am amazed by the author's courage to write about and...more
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, ye...more
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, ye...more
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...more
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...more
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...more
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...more
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 ...more
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 pr...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 int...more
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 int...more
I know everyone dislikes this book, but I liked it a little. It has major weaknesses - notably, it has no plot, and no characters. It's just a never-ending loop of people trying to get rich, a few of them do, and they end up dead or in jail. The usual way of writing about something like this is following a few interwoven stories that are powerful, and hint at the larger problem - which is every other gangster/mafia story you've ever read. Gomorrah touches on many gory and crazy stories, to t...more
Much has been written about the author's style, most of it positive. However, I found Saviano's style like that of a tabloid news journalist, and his metaphors are sloppy and awkward. Something may have been lost in translation, yet he has still been rewarded with international acclaim and a movie.
But that is not to say that Saviano does not have an amazing story to tell about Naples' mafia, the Camorra. Saviano knows well the violent streets that the "System" manages,...more
But that is not to say that Saviano does not have an amazing story to tell about Naples' mafia, the Camorra. Saviano knows well the violent streets that the "System" manages,...more
I thought the book equally benefited and suffered from Saviano's closeness to the subject. The scenes where he uses his inside knowledge and access to bring the reality of the warehouse workers in Naples, or the toxic waste managers really added to the depth of the story he was telling. Other times he seems to rely to heavily on hearsay, melodrama and assumption. It's also a very good primer on the dark side of globalization, especially the discussion about the Chinese textile workers in Italy. ...more
The book you have to read to understand why Italy is accepting its decline.
An extremely rare example of a well documented book which has sold a lot creating many debates in a country where the 80% of people use to buy one book a year, generally a collection of Pope's poetry or selected jokes by a famous football player.
An extremely rare example of a well documented book which has sold a lot creating many debates in a country where the 80% of people use to buy one book a year, generally a collection of Pope's poetry or selected jokes by a famous football player.
Al empezar a leerlo (a escucharlo, que es otro audiolibro) iba yo con la mosca detrás de la oreja. Recelaba un poco de Saviano, de su campaña de marketing que ha llenado medios de comunicación. Pensaba de él como otro arribista al mundo del periodismo de investigación, que se pasa 3 semanas escribiendo sobre lugares comunes y grabando dos conversaciones con cámara oculta en los baños de una pizzeria, al que luego supuestamente le amenzan de muerte y ya ha hecho su agosto.
Pero desde ...more
Pero desde ...more
"Gomorrah" is one of these books that make a huge impact on what you think about the society and the economy. It doesn't describe anything new, but mixed with strong emotions and feelings of the author - the whole complex world of mafia as presented in the book is very moving and terrifying. For me the most scary aspect of this story is how such "black" business may be seen as a normal entrepreneurship by people involved in it. Roberto Saviano is a very brave man. His book he...more
Ken
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone interested in the current condition of the world
This was such an engrossing topic that I could not put the book down despite its agonizing sentence structures and meaningless (to me) lists of names. The poor writing I assume is due to the translation. Last year I told a professor of mine in a humanities class that the people who are succeeding in the world today are those that can move illegal products and organize black markets. He told me it was worse than I could even imagine. After reading this book, I believe that it is worse than I c...more
Very angry writing; what is scary is that one knows deep down that this non-fictional description applies to practically every country. The last few chapters are particularly scary...the most dangerous and on-going climax ever...you will know when you read it.
And to think, we (common folks) are totally powerless...or so it seems!
On the negative side, the book is a little heavy for readers who are not familiar with the Italian cultural and geographic landscape; perhaps that is effect ...more
And to think, we (common folks) are totally powerless...or so it seems!
On the negative side, the book is a little heavy for readers who are not familiar with the Italian cultural and geographic landscape; perhaps that is effect ...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A disturbing under culture exposed | 1 | 26 | Jan 01, 2009 07:58pm | |
| explosive culture | 1 | 21 | Dec 09, 2008 12:04pm |
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 t...more
More about Roberto Saviano...
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 t...more
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“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.”
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