Midnight In Sicily (Panther S.)
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Product Description
The Book Magazine
‘essential reading’
Product Description
A journey into the heart of Sicily, using art, food, history and literature to shed light on southern Italy's legacy of political corruption and violent crime. The book takes as its starting point the ongoing trial of seven-times Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All the passion and sadness of life on a bittersweet island,
By liz@contentworks.net (Malta) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Midnight In Sicily (Panther) (Paperback)
I read Peter Robb's capolavoro while on holiday in Sicily. My first two nights were in Palermo, where I noticed that once the shops close no one dares the time-honoured tradition of the evening passeggiata. And a day later, I read why, in Peter Robb's prose. You hear a footstep round a corner, a door shuts somewhere, but nowhere do you see the people. They vanish as night falls. What you sense in Sicily but can't explain, Peter Robb puts into words. It is better than any guidebook and the nearest you'll come to getting under the skin of the place. The book is a strange juxtaposition of topics. He can take you from a three-page history of caponata, quoting the Italian Mrs Beeton, Alda Busi, and Elizabeth David, to a harrowing account of Mafiosi murders, and all within the turn of a page. Yet none of this seems strange. I went from seeing women begging on the street with week-old babies in their arms to the jet-set Milanese within four hours - from Palermo to the Aeolian Islands in summer holiday mood. The book is both passion and sadness. The elements of life worth experiencing - in prose, even if you never have the chance to set foot in Sicily to experience them in the flesh.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great read,
By a reader (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Midnight In Sicily (Panther) (Paperback)
I'd just read Lampedusa's dazzling 'The Leopard' when I spotted this by chance in a bookshop and got hooked while flicking through.
I really enjoyed it. As other reviewers have noted, 'Midnight in Sicily' combines all sorts of aspects of Sicilian life and history, from the development of the fork to domestic violence. It gives a lot of jaw-dropping, eye-opening information about the mafia, and about how Cosa Nostra's influence had spread to politics and the Vatican before its existence was even acknowledged. The book deals mainly with the period of time between the 40's and the 80's, and I thought it was a pity that it didn't run up to the present day - although this would probably be impossible. Robb's heart seems to belong chiefly to Naples, and I found the chapters on Neapolitan life perhaps the most interesting. I very much liked Robb's writing voice. The author clearly had a wide and detailed knowledge of his subject(s), but he never lectured, and managed the very difficult trick of balancing his own experiences and observances with an objective perspective. He was informed, discursive, conversational, intelligent without being stuck-up. And some of his descriptive writing is amazing. If I were to make any criticisms, it would be that there was just a bit too much detail for my liking, some of it repetitive; and also that although the book's main subject by a country mile is the mafia, the way the book is marketed does not reflect this. Highly recommended. (F, 31)
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A chilling and true picture of post-war Sicily,
By A Customer
This review is from: Midnight In Sicily (Panther) (Paperback)
I have been living in Sicily for many years and I can vouch for the accuracy of this account. It is all so true, I wish I could have written it myself. But I would never have had the courage. Thank you, Peter Robb, for having put together the pieces of the mosaic for us; the result is a chilling picture indeed.
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