Secure Midnight In Sicily Fabricated By Peter Robb Displayed In Mobi

takes significant talent to write a book about murder that is also lifeaffirmingly beautiful, It takes significant talent to write a book about labyrinthine institutional corruption that is also engrossing, Peter Robb's is one such talent, and "Midnight in Sicily" combines incisive thoughts on politics and gangsterism with reflections on food, art and literature that are so richly evocative that one's senses are attuned not only to Sicily's olive groves and caponata but to its corpses and smoking ruins.
A deeply cultured, human book, This book is one of the very best I have read on an aspect of Italian life and politics, The other is Christ Stopped At Eboli I am going to read it again, as some of the detail is fading from memory, Robb, a longterm expat writes seriously about the underbelly of Italian life, but also conveys hislove and respect for the country, its traditions and food especially!

When visiting my husbands relatives in Sicily, I found the undercurrents there present men with rifles nd wolfdogs standing in country lanes at dusk, protecting their orange trees, for example.
My cousins not naming the menace, but refering to it obliquely, shrugging their shoulders, my uncle working two jobs, the first as a respected paramedic in an ambulance service, but earning enough for a basic existence only, but with the promise of a state pension.
The second job in the afternoon in order to afford the types of consumer goods and housing that the now advanced Italian nation takes for granted, Much has changed since WW, since the mass emigrations from a broken country, But much also remains the same and Robb gets to the heart of it beautifully, A look at the postwar rise of Cosa Nostra and its intertwining with Italian politics what with most of the Governments ministers apparently being either a part of or closely tied with the group, this was an interesting although sometimes confusing book.


A complex subject at the best of times, the vast array of names whether they be the many organisations like the Demochristians, the Red Brigades and the Cosa Nostra, the criminals and the politicians who are often one and the same, the prosecutors or the people met by the author either during his past or along this journey along with a habit of jumping around chronologically and wandering geographically sometimes left me a little befuddled as to who, when and where I was reading about.


Im not entirely sure that the books byline On Art, Food, History, Travel and the Cosa Nostra really fit, as the parts that werent about the Cosa Nostra mostly took on the form of brief tangents or reporting of what Robb ate when he met such and such a person, and didnt really bring anything particularly illuminating to the subject.
The book may have even been more successful at getting across the huge amount of information delivered on the Cosa Nostra had these little distractions not been included,

Mostly I was left with a vague sense of how corrupt it seems Italian politics are, that exPrime Minister Andreotti was extremely dodgy to say the least Berlusconi seems a choirboy in comparison and that I need to look elsewhere if I want to read about Sicilian food.


This is all probably starting to sound as if I didnt enjoy this book, I did its just more of an buffet than a fulfilling meal,

sitelinkAlso posted at Randomly Reading and Ranting A breathtaking exploration of Sicily, seamlessly intertwining politics, art, food, crime, and history, Spectacular. I was lucky to find this book in Sicily on the tiny English section of the Mondadori bookshop in Ragusa Ibla a few summers ago, It is an excellent read about the author's love of sicilian culture and food with the backdrop of the mafia's complete control of the island up to the assassinations of the antimafia judges Borsellino and Falconi.
I learned an immense amount of things about Sicily thanks to this book, It is also thanks to Robb that I discovered and later read and LOVED Il Gattopardo, the great masterpiece of Lampedusa and the incredible film as well, Another fascinating anecdote explained the connection between Lucky Luciano and the US Government that facilitated the Allied invasion of Sicily and laid the groundwork for a deeper incrustation of Cosa Nostra in the US after the war.
A definite must for those curious about Sicily and about the Sicilian mafia, Bardzo dziwna mieszanka książki podróżniczej i dokumentalnej, Temat ciekawy, ale podany w niezbyt przystępny sposób opisy sycylijskich miasteczek i wsi mieszają się tu z listą nazwisk i dat kulinarne zachwyty nad regionalnymi specjałami podane są pomiędzy suchymi faktami dotyczącymi zależnościami między mafią i politykami.
The title promises a broader and more rounded view of Sicily than what we actually get, Instead of a balanced overview of many aspects of the history of the island, we get an awful lot of Cosa Notra, with the occasional short chapter, or even just a few paragraphs, on a particular typical recipe or representative work of art, and then it's back to the mafia stuff again.
Which is fine, if that's what you're interested in, Personally I found myself skimming over some of the interminable and hopelessly convoluted descriptions of the internal power struggles, in order to get to the political angle involving Andreotti, or the personal stories like that of Marta Marzotto.

Robb is obviously intelligent and knowledgeable, although he leans a little too heavily on one particular source: the legal dossier titled The True History of Italy, and I sometimes felt that he got bogged down in trying to present too much information rather than communicating some key facts more clearly.
Then again, when it comes to Sicily it seems that very little is clear or uncomplicated, interesting flaw between details on the Mafia in Sicily to great descriptions and love to Sicilian culture and especially food, sometimes fun read and sometimes i got lost in too many names and events, This is a complex and fascinating read that weaves together Camorra, Cosa Nostra, Mafia and the politics of post war Italy, At times I felt overwhelmed by the complexity of the topic but as I continued to read I found the threads coming together to create a complete picture of this period in history.
I really enjoyed the travelogue components that included history, culture and the food of Naples and Sicily, along with the interviews and descriptions with some significant spectators to the unfolding events.
After recently reading the Neapolitan series by Ferrante I now feel I have a much better understanding of the scene in Naples, and perhaps also her reasoning for remaining anonymous and writing a fictional account.
These were clearly times when it was dangerous to be identified and speak your mind, Appreciation and disappointment. These are the feelings I'm left with after finishing "Midnight in Sicily", I'm appreciative that Robb is willing to dig down into an area of Italian life that so many particularly Italians are reluctant to, but I can't help feeling a pang of disappointment several, actually that the result is so lackluster and unenthusiastic.
Having just finished Alexander Stille's "Excellent Cadavers" which was indeed excellent the contrast couldn't be sharper, We lived with the individuals Stille reported on, got a visceral look at the inner workings of La Cosa Nostra, Robb, by contrast, seems like he hasn't quite figured out what he wants to be talking about at all, "Midnight in Sicily" ispercent mafia, the otherpercent a smattering of things like coffee, sculpting, the elderly, photography, etc, If Robb wanted to write a book about the mafia he should have committed to doing so wholeheartedly, Instead what we're left with is an account of political thugs like Giulio Andreotti Italy's former Prime Minister and thenpages on children visiting a museum in Palermo and being told by their guide of the beauty of a particular sculpture's buttocks.
What If you want to talk about the mafia, you can't do so halfheartedly, What I thought I was getting with "Midnight in Sicily" was an overview of Sicily itself, Equal parts mafia, cuisine, people, culture, and history, Instead it's almost all mafia with the rest crammed in as filler for god knows what reason,

Ironically, the Midnight in Sicily's best chapter isn't about Sicily at all, but about Napoli, There are two or three very intriguing pages about the history and culture of Neapolitan coffee the best in the world and then a few on the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra.
What this is doing in a book called "Midnight in Sicily" I don't know, . . perhaps it should have been called "Midnight in the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" as that would have no doubt made for a much more intriguing book,

Is astar book worth your time Not when there are so manystar books out there that deal with the mafia, Italian history, culture, and cuisine so much better.
I wish I'd stopped reading after the chapter on Naples somewhere midway through the book, At least then Robb and I could have parted ways on a sweet, rather than a bitter, note much like a Neapolitan Caffè, Off the southern coast of Italy lies Sicily, home to an ancient culture thatwith its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archaeologyhas seduced travellers for centuries.
But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: "La Cosa Nostra," the Mafia, In an intoxicating mix of crime and travel writing, Peter Robb, a writer who lived in Southern Italy for fourteen years, sets out to understand both the historical roots of the Mafia and its central place in contemporary Italian politics.
And whether he's touting the gustatory pleasures of Sicilian ice cream, unveiling

the Arabic origins of pasta, or unraveling the criminal history of a bandit, Robb seductively brings Sicilian culture to life.
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