Every book can be summarized in 6 paragraphs….
- Editorial Cliff. Edition 2015
- Author: María Belmonte
- Book for interested in: Italy, Greece, art, culture, Travel, beauty, 18th century to the 20th century.
- What will? The author selects a group of European intellectuals and aristocrats who traveled between the 18th and 20th century to discover Italy and Greece. The text becomes a long journey through the dazzling story and beauty of both countries following the steps of those select protagonists. Through their lives we enter a social drawing, cultural, political and economic of the time. The succession of amazing stories catch the reader.
Paragraph 1
In the mid -nineteenth century, Thomas Cook, Entrepreneur and Puntal of the Anti-alcoholic League, discovered by chance the organized trip. Now, The inhabitants of Mugientas English cities could get on a train at night, and emulating Jenophon's armies, Awakening in the morning at the inflamed shout of ‘The sea, the sea!’, On the coast of the Riviera Francesca or Italian. House once were more people who could visit the coliseum at night in the light of the torches, contemplate the languor of the Laguna de Venice in winter, The imposing beautiful part of the acropolis or enjoying Naples' bay.
A first revelation of this book is that many believe that the tourism industry is an invention of the second half of the twentieth century. And not, That mass of white Nordic tourists who come to the Mediterranean to tan, get drunk, Enjoy the "Dolce Vita" and contemplate, passing, Some beautiful ruins, He began his pilgrimage almost two centuries ago.
Paragraph 2
Taormina had become, Together with Capri one of the favorite destinations of the homosexuals well -off in search of socratic friendships, attracted by the legendary beauty of Italian men (…) Goethe allowed himself to admire the naked torsos of the Venetian gondolers and felt impressed by the naturalness of homosexual friendships in Rome. There is a satirical engraving of the late nineteenth century that represents a tourist, Enter years and meats, negotiating with a boy the price of a guided tour of the blue cave of Capri.
Several of the pilgrims selected by Belmonte, Like the German photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden, They were homosexuals who were traveling to the permissive Italy to live their sexuality freely. Belmonte explains that the reasons for that permissiveness had to see more with that they were installed in rural societies full of economic deficiencies that with the social acceptance of GAIS relations.
Paragraph 3
Greece had given him the beauty of the landscape. Alexandria gave him what he needed at that time: ‘An atmosphere of sex and death that amazes its intensity’. An atmosphere created by the characters that swarmed their streets and garitos, dragged by war, remains of shipwreck from all corners of Europe and that Larry was becoming actors of the work that was growing in his head.
Belmonte speaks of the writer Lawrence Durrell that he found, as many, In that two -sided Mediterranean, With his two coasts looking from the beginning of man, A reality from which imagination was nothing other than simple routine.
Paragraph 4
The ‘uncle’ appeared at the funeral saying that he had just arrived from Rome, He descended patrically from an alpha-Romeo with registration of Rome and a spqr badge (Senate and people of Rome), wearing an elegant suit with the commander of the Crown of Italy on the flap. Once there, was mixed with attendees, putting a note of elegant comedance to the spectacular deployment of condolences and regrets of the Neapolitan relatives and the professionals who scratched their cheeks until bleeding.
One of the great values of that work is the enormous bibliographic work that discovers. This paragraph speaks of the book ‘Naples 1944’ by Norman Lewis. The uncle of Rome is a tender and fun character of the Neapolitan picaresque, Lewis assistant in the city, who makes a living by going to burials and funerals posing as a noble family of the deceased. The family hired him to improve his social status among attendees.
Paragraph 5
In the poorest neighborhoods, Like Porto, Market, Pendino and Vicaria, People crowded in five square meters called Fondaci, low or soterrani, to those who never came the sunlight and where you could barely be standing. There were also the crazy or pensions. The cheapest had no beds. They offered a rope that passed from one side to the other in the room to support the head and arms. The famous saying ‘see Naples and then died’ had acquired a little suitable connotation for tourist guides.
The documentation and description work in the book of social life of the time is excellent. Beauty and decay are part of Italy. Maybe that is your charm, His spell, which has made it so attractive. Belmonte understands it because, Like so many people, She is also a voluntary vagabund of that identity called Mediterranean.
Paragraph 6
When the plane flew corfú towards Athens, I looked with my coast where the small chapel surrounded by cypresses is located. While votive lamps continue to illuminate their interior, I thought when the plane headded for Athens, The Spirit of the Mediterranean will remain alive.
The author of the hermitage of San Arsenio speaks. A kind of place of worship for the fetishists of the writer Lawrence Durrell. Somehow the whole work is that, follow the trail of a fetish turned into sea, classic cultures, old olive trees and thick grapes. Beauty pilgrims is enjoyed how a hot sunset is enjoyed in Agrigento temples, In Sicily, listening to the singing of the cicadas supported on a stone that tells the history of men.
| Style | 8,90/10 |
| Content | 9,50/10 |
| Valoración | 9,20/10 |
