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3.72 AVERAGE
3.72 AVERAGE
Pretty cool so far. You'll never look at an Angelina Jolie dress the same way knowing how many people bled to make it. Gotta finish this before the movie comes stateside...
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
dark
informative
medium-paced
An important and brave book, but boy is it a chore to read. This is probably the worst-written book of journalism I've read. It is a testament to its content that I managed to finish it.
Dry journalism to the point of approaching a sociological treatise, but fascinating nonetheless. Yet again, criminality comes off as hacky and business as the practice of idiots.
If you're interested in reading about the modern Italian mafia, this is a great, if sometimes nauseating, read.
If you, like the members of the Camorra, Cosa Nostra, and others, have romanticized images of Don Corleone and Donnie Brasco, Tony Montana and Tony Soprano, this book quickly puts those notions to rest. It looks at how Camorra is an economic force that is truly global, like a corporation - except employees can be literally disposed of, rather than simply fired. The book shows how Camorra influence is felt in the Italian economy, Italian politics, and the communities it operates from.
Saviano beats you with relentless facts and figures, stories of murders and the raw power of its machinery, how it stretches its influence through legal businesses like garbage disposal, construction, real estate, tourism, and more. You're left feeling like the Camorra is an unstoppable entity, and that even if it was somehow wiped out from existence, another variation of the Camorra would spring up into existence from another part of the world (indeed, there are hints that a Camorra-like structure exists in Hong Kong, as Saviano mentions several separate anecdotes of Chinese immigrants learning the skills the Italians put on display).
That said, there were a few anecdotes in the story that felt a little too perfect, that it can be hard to digest sometimes. An example is how a tailor made a dress for an Italian fashion house that Angelina Jolie wound up wearing at the Oscars. Ok, I'll buy that - but the author happened to be with the tailor when he saw the dress for the first time on TV? That he later saw the tailor leave behind a wallet, which included a clipping of Jolie at the Oscars? Like I said, it's a perfect anecdote, which makes me suspect it may be partly made up. And if that's made up, what other truths have been stretched?
Overall, a great read.
If you, like the members of the Camorra, Cosa Nostra, and others, have romanticized images of Don Corleone and Donnie Brasco, Tony Montana and Tony Soprano, this book quickly puts those notions to rest. It looks at how Camorra is an economic force that is truly global, like a corporation - except employees can be literally disposed of, rather than simply fired. The book shows how Camorra influence is felt in the Italian economy, Italian politics, and the communities it operates from.
Saviano beats you with relentless facts and figures, stories of murders and the raw power of its machinery, how it stretches its influence through legal businesses like garbage disposal, construction, real estate, tourism, and more. You're left feeling like the Camorra is an unstoppable entity, and that even if it was somehow wiped out from existence, another variation of the Camorra would spring up into existence from another part of the world (indeed, there are hints that a Camorra-like structure exists in Hong Kong, as Saviano mentions several separate anecdotes of Chinese immigrants learning the skills the Italians put on display).
That said, there were a few anecdotes in the story that felt a little too perfect, that it can be hard to digest sometimes. An example is how a tailor made a dress for an Italian fashion house that Angelina Jolie wound up wearing at the Oscars. Ok, I'll buy that - but the author happened to be with the tailor when he saw the dress for the first time on TV? That he later saw the tailor leave behind a wallet, which included a clipping of Jolie at the Oscars? Like I said, it's a perfect anecdote, which makes me suspect it may be partly made up. And if that's made up, what other truths have been stretched?
Overall, a great read.
A staggering, frankly dizzying analysis of a massive system of organized crime and its complex material, economic, and cultural networks that mark the Camorra as one of the most radical offshoots of neoliberal capitalism.