[Vesuvius looming over Naples]
Things I remember from the first time I visited Naples: it was mercilessly hot. Our hotel room was tiny, brown, and stifling, and the toilet paper was, well, awful. I couldn't sleep because, out on the streets, they were playing music very loudly, especially, over and over, "Delilah" by Tom Jones: it was the summer when that was a huge and ubiquitous hit, even in Italy.
More recent impressions of Naples have concerned the Camorra, described by Roberto Saviano in his best-selling, terrifying book, Gomorra. The garbage strike, millions of Euros spent putting that trash on trains and chuffing it up to Hamburg, where they could actually dispose of it. The overarching corruption. Etc.
I had the opportunity to update my impressions of this old harbor city when Damiano and I went down there for the Premio Napoli, an annual literary prize that celebrates Italian and foreign writers, and that is doing a great job of causing people to reevaluate what they think about Naples.
The Italian winners this year were Alessandro Leogrande, Luigi Trucillo, and Franco Arminio, while the foreign winners were Avraham Burg, Robert Harrison, and Charles Simic.
[Capri as huge alligator head]
It was a very festive several days, with readings and panels held in various locations in the Pizzofalcone area of the city (each year they choose a different quartiere to celebrate). I haven't spent this much time sitting in churches since, well, I don't know when. One night the event was held in the school of fine arts, where they had several castings of statues from, I'm sure, back in the day when artists could actually make plaster casts of works by Michelangelo, et al.
Neapolitan food still lives up to its reputation, no doubt there. Two nights in a row, the group had dinner at the amazing Ristorante S. Ferdinando Di Aldo Bruno--if you're in Naples, don't miss it, really. Everything was just fantastic, from the elaborate antipasti (potato croquettes with melty smoky cheese inside, grilled vegetables, grilled octopus, etc etc) that were so substantial the next course was almost an afterthought, but we had to sacrifice and be kind and order a pasta, right? By the way they have delicious (and strong!) nocino there (Stacey, it was amazing: how is yours coming along?!)
And speaking of creations, it wouldn't be right to end without a poem. How about this one, for reasons obvious and not-so (and not least, because I like it!) By Charles Simic:
MOTHER TONGUE
That’s the one the butcher
Wraps in a newspaper
And throws on the rusty scale
Before you take it home
Where a black cat will leap
Off the cold stove
Licking its whiskers
At the sound of her name.
(from Jackstraws, 1999)
* * *
MADRE LINGUA
E' quella che il macellaio
avvolge nel giornale
e getta sulla pesa arrugginita
prima che te la porti a casa
dove un gatto nero salterÃ
dai fornelli freddi
leccandosi i baffi
solo a sentirne il nome.
(transl. Damiano Abeni, from West of Your Cities, edited by Mark Strand and Damiano Abeni)
