In Sicily

Norman Lewis fell in love with Sicily and its environs in the mid 1950s. In Sicily is a remembrance of that long-gone era. The mafia does not have the grip it once had, but Lewis has his memories and heartbreaks tied up in the violence and terror of wartime yesteryear. He married a mob daughter, after all. Sicily is a place of long-held corruption; of falling down palaces and open-air lovemaking and Lewis does not miss a single detail. In Sicily is an open love letter, full of crime, mythology, superstition, and passion.

Read this book in preparation for an upcoming trip to Sicily and was hoping for a more general armchair travel experience but the focus was disproportionately concerned with the Mafia and their past and present (book published 2000) although the jacket did promise "landscape and language...memories of his first father-in-law...[and] the effects of African immigration, of Palermo and its ruined palaces--and of strange superstitions of witches and bandits and murder.".All this in 166 pages (small with large type) was too much to hope for and while these topics were included, they were whispers compared to the loud oratory on the mafia.

I think I would have enjoyed one of his other titles that focuses on his first wartime visit (Naples show more '44), more than this one, and will give it a try after I've read a few more general works on Sicily, such as [a:Sandra Benjamin|522055|Sandra Benjamin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s [b:Sicily: Three Thousand Years of Human History|2543023|Sicily Three Thousand Years of Human History|Sandra Benjamin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|1255890].

However, In Sicily is a fast and easy read so as one of a collection of readings on Sicily, but perhaps make it a discretionary choice. show less

Sicily is an island that Norman Lewis grew to love after he first visited there during the war. He married the daughter of a Sicilian Mafiosi and returned many times over a sixty-year period. The mafia was the theme of his first book on the island and this one is dedicated to a journalist, Marcello Cimino, killed by a bomb. This book is an account of his return to the island in the late 1990s and is partly a love letter to the place and partly a lament to the current state of affairs. He nostalgically looks back to the past and happy times spent on there, revisits old haunts and catches up with friends all over the island.

At this time the mafia is still a significant force in the island and by travelling around with the locals, he comes show more across their nefarious activities. However this is a time of change; their iron grip, along with that of the church and landowners under the feudal system is beginning to lessen. But if you know where to look, you can still see ancient rituals that predate even the Roman period.

There is something about Lewis’s writing that makes this a please to read. He has a falcon’s eye for detail and has the language to paint an evocative scene of the places he visits in just a few sentences. Kind of wish I had read The Honoured Society before this, but I still have that treat for another day. show less