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Few places on earth have escaped the singular eye of Norman Lewis, but always, in the course of his long career, he has come back to Sicily. From his first, wartime visit - to a land untouched since the Middle Ages - through his frequent returns, he has watched the island and its people as they have changed over the years. In 1998 he returned yet again to write this book, the result of a sixty-year-long fascination with all things Sicilian. In Sicily reveals this fascination on every page. Throughout there is the Mafia, and Lewis's friendships with policemen, journalists and men of respect. But more, he writes of landscape and language, of his memories of his first father-in-law (professional gambler, descendant of princes and member of the Unione Siciliana), of Sicily's changing sexual mores, of the effects of African immigration, of Palermo and its ruined palaces - and of strange superstitions, of witches and bandits and murder.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Debbie Murphy
reviewed In Sicily on September 05, 2010
In Sicily
Norman Lewis writes of Sicily:
"[T]his is a Mediterranean island where the majority of public happenings are seen in one way or another to be bizarre."
No question, it's a weird place. The book is an overview of Sicily's peculiarities, with special emphasis on how and why the Mafia ("the Honoured Society") was able to flourish there. Much of the Mafia's success was directly related to the extreme poverty of most of the island's inhabitants.
Lewis' subtle wit is conspicuously missing from this selection, hence my removal of one star. I have no other complaints. The book was thoroughly fascinating and informative.
Although apparently unconfirmed, I found this tidbit from page 62 particularly interesting:
"An investigator into the origins of the word mafia was of the opinion that it dates back to the Norman conquest of the island and is derived from ma fia--the 'place of refuge' of Arab peasants of the times, when they were rounded up for slavery on the invaders' new estates."
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