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katenetz's review
4.0
This took me a long time to read because Saviano doesn't like to use paragraphs and the thousands of Italian names were incredibly difficult to distinguish from one another. But the overall effect of the book was completely devastating. The scope, breadth, and depth of organized crime in the world is truly unbelievable. The mob runs the southern Italian dairy industry, for heaven's sake. Toxic masculinity, systematic poverty, corrupt political systems, and a strangely perverted morality. Eye-opening, paradigm-crushing, depressing, and yet so so compelling.
codalion's review
5.0
But the walls don’t defend the city; on the contrary, it’s the city that defends the walls. Yet there are no armies of longshoremen, no romantic riffraff at the port. One imagines it full of commotion, men coming and going, scars and incomprehensible languages, a frenzy of people. Instead, the silence of a mechanized factory reigns.
When I think about the earnest words of people on my own side--other socialists enraged and disheartened by governance and criminal justice--who often say, "What do we have to lose by abolishing all this? It couldn't get worse."--I think about organized crime.
I have kind of a tired script in me that says, of course, that organized crime is hand in hand with tyrannical governance and policing. And it is, kind of, sometimes more than kind of. But it also kind of isn't, and this kind of book pulls some of the wool away from bright eyes that eagerly want to attribute all evils to the same evil.
Gomorrah is a fairly notorious book about a lot of evil people, and the gaps in Italian (and European) (and global) society they fill, and the ways they profit and the ways others, less directly bloodthirsty, profit and live comfortably because of their existence. I see a lot of people complain about the translation; I agree it's got some issues but I suspect a greater source of disengagement is that, er, well, it's hard for American readers to feel invested in an expose of political and business figures in a country where they don't live--I'm not even criticizing that, I'm the same way, it's just not something I think we should be docking stars for. Anyway, manufacturing and shipping are industries of profound exploitation but most people are not interested in hearing about dull, grinding, massive exploitation. It's depressing. It's numbing. It's indefatigable. People like defatigable demons. Poverty, brutality, labor exploitation, human trafficking--everybody wants to be in a resistance, nobody wants to be constantly trying to stem an unstemmable tide.
I don't know. Obviously I don't enjoy the notion either, but it's a little surreal to me to see people trying to rebrand haute couture and the fashion industry as subversive, or the anything industry as subversive, for that matter.
Okay, this is a book review, though. Gomorrah, dense lists of Italian stuff aside, is actually rather beautiful in a horrifying way. I would honestly recommend it to anyone interested in thinking viscerally about the relationship between immigrant labor, human trafficking, organized crime, and cheap manufacturing, not just in numbers but also in scenes and in anecdotes. There's a rationalist essay on Slate Star Codex, Meditations on Moloch, that I go back to (literally or inwardly) now and again; like many rationalist things it has this disappointing gloss of exceptionalist hope (I also try to maintain hope, I just don't found it in the exceptionalism of educated young people from the Bay Area!) but it revisits the central problem of short-sighted human selfishness and greed through the conceit of the prisoner's dilemma and an embodied demon, Moloch--I think about Moloch a lot, but also, Scott Alexander's Moloch is an educated American's demon for sure. What brings about organized crime and the conditions in factories is a demon much bloodier and gorier than Moloch.
I don't really have any answers or takeaway here. I do really like Gomorrah though. I've wavered between four and five stars for it (this year has definitely had more stars in it reading-wise than usual) and decided that anything I've thought about and referenced as much as I have in the past few months as I have this deserves five.
It's really good if you want to read angry nonfiction about organized crime in a country that buckles underneath it. And if you don't, I hope you do end up wanting to someday.
Hardly any of the younger generation become clan members; they work for the clans without ever becoming Camorristi. The clans don’t want them. They merely employ them, take advantage of the offering. These kids have no skills or commercial talent. A lot of them work as couriers, carrying backpacks filled with hashish to Rome. Motorcycle muscles flexed to the max, after an hour and a half they’re already at the capital gates. They don’t get anything for these trips, but after about twenty rounds they’re given a present—a motorcycle. To them it’s precious, beyond compare, out of reach with any other job available around here. They’ve been delivering goods that bring in ten times the cost of the motorcycle, but they don’t know that, can’t even begin to imagine it. If they get stopped at a roadblock, they’ll get less than ten years. The clan won’t cover their legal costs or guarantee assistance to their families. But there’s the roar of the exhaust in their ears and Rome to reach.
kingkong's review against another edition
3.0
I liked the part where the guy was obsessed with meeting Mikhail Kalashnikov and how all the gangster idiots held their guns sideways because of Quentin Tarantino
catherine2001's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
masciock's review against another edition
3.0
It's a book that opens your mind, but is hard to read (Saviano writes every fact happening, every single murder and describes them).
seashelly's review
4.0
You have to find something that fuels the stomach of your soul in order to carry on. Christ, Buddha, civil commitment, ethics, Marxism, pride, anarchy, the fight against crime, cleanliness, persistent and everlasting rage, southernness. Something. Not a hook to hang on. More like a root, something underground and unassailable.
4.5? In the middle it really felt like names were being thrown out constantly without taking the time to make you fully understand their role.
Beautiful writing, though. I could start (and might actually do it) a quote journal just from this book.
azreads_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
4.0
"𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕, 𝒈𝒖𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓."
- 𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒐
.
Imagine a person living their life under police protection. The death threats are common and the normal life just doesn't exist. All this because they wrote a book. Gomorrah is one such book which changed how Saviano now lives his life.
The book starts with frozen bodies falling out of a container at the port of Naples. Crane operator lowers it. Some people put the bodies back and everything goes on as usual.
Camorra or The System, as it is known there, is a group of different clans each with its own bosses which deals in the illicit activities. The System has a influence everywhere from drug trade, fashion, construction, waste disposal and even politics in some regions. They balance legal and illegal businesses well.
Unlike other mafia groups, they don't have a concrete organisation structure which leads to war among different factions inside Camorra. The Scampia feud which led to killing of hundreds of people was one such war.
The System not only functions in Italy but are also influential Internationally in UK, France, Spain etc. They work in alliances with other groups - 'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra, Chinese Triads, South American drug cartels etc.
Due to lack of options young boys (age 10-12) start working for them. They go to school but work for them afterwards by being lookouts, giving information etc. Girls don't have have much options too, they either marry or get pregnant so that the clan provides some money if the husband/father dies. There are high ranking female members who handle the entire business for the clans and eliminating anyone unnecessary.
While a lot of efforts are going on to fight the organised crime in Italy, the loser every time are the common people who are puppets in the hand of the powerful. Those who resist like Father Peppino are brutally murdered.
Though the book was published in 2006, it is still very popular. The book may be difficult to read considering the violence and murder described.
- 𝑹𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒐
.
Imagine a person living their life under police protection. The death threats are common and the normal life just doesn't exist. All this because they wrote a book. Gomorrah is one such book which changed how Saviano now lives his life.
The book starts with frozen bodies falling out of a container at the port of Naples. Crane operator lowers it. Some people put the bodies back and everything goes on as usual.
Camorra or The System, as it is known there, is a group of different clans each with its own bosses which deals in the illicit activities. The System has a influence everywhere from drug trade, fashion, construction, waste disposal and even politics in some regions. They balance legal and illegal businesses well.
Unlike other mafia groups, they don't have a concrete organisation structure which leads to war among different factions inside Camorra. The Scampia feud which led to killing of hundreds of people was one such war.
The System not only functions in Italy but are also influential Internationally in UK, France, Spain etc. They work in alliances with other groups - 'Ndrangheta, Cosa Nostra, Chinese Triads, South American drug cartels etc.
Due to lack of options young boys (age 10-12) start working for them. They go to school but work for them afterwards by being lookouts, giving information etc. Girls don't have have much options too, they either marry or get pregnant so that the clan provides some money if the husband/father dies. There are high ranking female members who handle the entire business for the clans and eliminating anyone unnecessary.
While a lot of efforts are going on to fight the organised crime in Italy, the loser every time are the common people who are puppets in the hand of the powerful. Those who resist like Father Peppino are brutally murdered.
Though the book was published in 2006, it is still very popular. The book may be difficult to read considering the violence and murder described.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Murder