Eat Pray Love alla napoletana

Today's Financial Times included an article discussing how ordinary Neapolitans are attempting to reclaim their city and region from the grip of criminal gangs. (The article also offers links to stories about Chinese gangs taking root in Italy.) The FT story describes hard-won gains by everyday people fed up with organized crime. These actions take great courage, as the Italian version of Naples' underworld, known as the Camorra, is a formidable, lethal adversary. It has iron control of various communities, provides "liquidity" for many impoverished families, has politicians and police in its collective pocket. No one with any sense tangles with the Camorra lightly.

Roberto Saviano's book Gomorrah splendidly and chillingly portrayed the Camorra's fierce grip on Neapolitan social, political, and business life. I read the book some months ago, and his work, even in translation, scared the shit out of me. The nihilistic atmosphere Saviano described seemed like a return to a hopeless Dark Ages, a mix of contemporary gangster ethics and a particularly corrupt style of Fascism. The book, which is far more frightening than its filmed version, presented facts, eyewitness recollection, and local knowledge to depict the Camorra's odious world.

This environment is far removed in sentiment and sense from Elizabeth Gilbert's frivolous memoir Eat Pray Love. Gilbert, who claimed a deep desire to "experience" Italy, visited Naples principally to eat pizza at a well-known restaurant. She never bothered to talk to Neapolitans, grasp their desperate struggle for survival, or comprehend Naples beyond the cliches of shameless Anglo-Saxon food journalism. However, one should not be surprised by Gilbert's breezy lack of perspective or intoxicating hubris. After all, the word "think" is not included among the three verbs in her memoir's title.

The painting, Titian's Danae and the Shower of Gold, is among the works in Naples' Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte.