Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #278531 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Synopsis
Naples is largely unknown to outsiders and many of its most important monuments are not even signposted. Richard Lamb read Agricultural Economics and History at Merton College, Oxford. He spoke fluent Italian and played an important role in the Italian Army's operations on the Allied side during WW11. He loved Naples and became well acquainted with every corner of the city during his war service. In this unique guide book, this Oxford historian shares little known knowledge and facts with everyone seriously interested in visiting and learning about the magnificence and history of one of the great cities of the world.

Customer Reviews

Naples – What most tourists never see” by Richard A. Lamb
It is only a few months ago that there was published about Venice the highly successful “the City of Falling Angels” by John Berendt. Now there has been published about Naples at the other end of Italy “Naples – What most tourists never see” by the late distinguished historian Richard Lamb. His last work and plainly a labour of love, it has been published posthumously. It is written in a very different style from John Berendt’s book but is equally gripping.

Perhaps the two best books about Naples published in English in the 20th Century were “The Gallery” by John Horne Burns and “Naples ‘44” by Norman Lewis, both the product of wartime experiences in Naples. That was then. Fifty years on Richard Lamb has added to the store of books about Naples. He, too, was brought to Naples by the fortunes of war and, like so many before him, he, too, fell in love with Italy, returning repeatedly and spending some of the last months of his life in Naples researching this book.

“Naples – What most tourists never see” is no ordinary guide-book, although there is much useful information about hotels and restaurants, shops, buses and trains scattered throughout the book. The author is concerned with the history and the riches of Naples and the surrounding region.

We are told baldly that Naples has 350 churches. Be not daunted by this statistic. Richard Lamb is a sure-footed guide to the important historic churches. And not only the churches. We are conducted round palaces and museums and libraries. The author wears his erudition lightly.

We are also told that today tourists tend to shy away from staying in Naples itself, the treasure house of art within the city being largely neglected. John Berendt, who had made frequent brief visits to Venice, decided to come to Venice for a longer period in the off-season, when Venetians had Venice all to themselves, and to see the real Venice in leisurely fashion. With Richard Lamb for your companion you could profitably spend weeks in Naples. If you were already planning to visit Naples, read this book well in advance, with a notebook by your side, then take it with you. If you had no such plans, this book may well decide you to make plans.

This seems a good place at which to make the point that the title “Naples – What most tourists never see” is something of a misnomer. All Campania is spread out before the reader, with even a small incursion into Calabria.

The author treats of Capodimonte, Caserta and Capua, Pozzuoli, Posillipo and Portici and many other towns and villages. And everywhere a splendid view.

Pompeii and Herculaneum merit a chapter each. The graphic descriptions illuminate the excavations for the armchair archaeologist.

Capri is “an ideal holiday island, quite the most beautiful in Italy, full of old-fashioned charm”. Ischia is “a lovely island, surpassing even Capri in beauty”. Procida is “a lovely tiny island quite unspoiled with a slow pace of life”. And everywhere a splendid view.

Sorrento “has not lost its charm in spite of development and the old walled town remains a joy”. Amalfi “is bewitching” and Ravello “is a dream town”. The author quotes Bernard Berenson, who has written, “The landscape between Salerno and Sorrento, the Amalfitano especially, one would not believe in a picture. Indeed it recalls Mantegna to such an extent one can almost believe that he had studied it in some of his pictures ……you have to see it to believe it”.

From start to finish Richard Lamb’s almost conversational style makes him a friend who tries to imbue the reader with something of his own enthusiasm.

Read this book with the pleasure with which is was so obviously written.
Written by Brian Killick

A book and its cover.
This is one book that deserves to be judged by its cover. It's a view of dull masonry walls - some brick apparent, and a lot of grey mortar, on a grey day. The photograph isn't even in focus. It may be a corner of Pompeii, but the publisher forgot, or didn't think it necessary to inform us. Not a promising start to the guide that is going to tell us what most tourists to Naples never see.
Sadly, the front cover is of a piece with the overall production standards. Richard Lamb has been woefully served by his editors: no illustrations (fuzzy or otherwise); not a street-plan nor a map; sloppy type-setting; occasional mis-spellings; idiosyncratic punctuation, notably in the use of commas and near-total absence of hyphens; no bibliography; an index that is far, far from adequate.
It would have taken a remarkable text to rise above these editorial weaknesses - something like 'Naples '44', which is lit up by Norman Lewis's humanity, humour and humility. But Richard Lamb isn't Norman Lewis. (Lamb just doesn't get - on p.55 - the comic irony of Lewis's account of the 'miracles' of 1944.) Lamb's description of Naples and Campania is uninspired, a bit of a trudge. He pronounces readily on the architecture and religious art of Naples, in terms of 'interesting', 'good', 'splendid' and 'fine', but it's not clear whether these are his own opinions or those of Anthony Blunt, on whom he leans heavily. 'For many people's taste,' we learn, 'Gesu Nuovo is too brightly coloured. My daughter did not care for the inside.' Naples: What most tourists never knew! Naples deserves to be visited, but there must be better guide-books than this. I don't like the cover. Nor, if I may paraphrase the author, did I care for the inside.

Dire - do not waste your money
I have to agree with the review submitted by Basil. The editing of this book is so poor as to make it virtually unreadable - idiosyncratic punctuation is putting it mildly. The author and/or editor have no idea how to use commas and parentheses, the book is littered with spelling mistakes and there is inconsistent spelling of place names. Furthermore, although the introduction says that the author's last trip abroad was to visit Naples and that he died in 1999 shortly after completion of the manuscript, there are comments, descriptions & references in the book which tend to suggest that the information was compiled rather earlier than the late 1990's. For example, the railway station for the site at Herculaneum is named as "Pugliano in Resina" but in fact is Ercolano Scavi and I am pretty sure that pre-dates 1997 and may in fact go back to the late 1980's. The absence of maps, plans and diagrams is disappointing - there is one hilarious point in the chapter on Pompeii where the text refers to "the following diagrams" but there aren't any! One is left with the feeling that this is a vanity publishing project and I for one am angry that I wasted both time and money on this poorly produced, poorly researched book. There are much better guide books for Naples and the surrounding areas.