Quotes from book
Naples '44

Naples '44
Norman Lewis

Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth is a military memoir of the Second World War written by the British travel writer and novelist Norman Lewis that was first published in 1978.

“It is astonishing to witness the struggles of this city so shattered, so starved, so deprived of all those things that justify a city’s existence, to adapt itself to a collapse into conditions which must resemble life in the Dark Ages. People camp out like Bedouins in deserts of brick.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“[…]since humanity is above partisanship, the Italians are no doubt equally kind to Germans who come to them for help in similar circumstances, and I find it deplorable that we should show anger and vindictiveness when cases of Italians showing even ordinary compassion to their one-time allies come to our notice.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“A year ago we liberated them from the Fascist Monster, and they still sit doing their best to smile politely at us, as hungry as ever, more disease-ridden than ever before, in the ruins of their beautiful city where law and order have ceased to exist. And what is the prize that is to be eventually won? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Benito Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared with this.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“A year among the Italians had converted me to such an admiration for their humanity and culture that I realise that were I given the chance to be born again and to choose the place of my birth, Italy would be the country of my choice.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“The facts are, as every Italian will admit, that the South is virtually a colony of the industrialised North.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“[…]everybody used the polite form of address lei instead of the Fascists’ forthright Roman voi.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“This was the greatest invasion in this war so far – probably the greatest in human history – and the sea was crowded to the horizon with uncountable ships, but we were as lost and ineffective as babes in the wood.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“A problem has arisen. Although I handed in my army rations to the cook, with the intention of living on these, nobody has taken me seriously, nor believed that any human being in his right mind and able to eat pasta would refrain from doing so.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“Inexplicably no boats are allowed out, but nothing is said in the proclamation about rafts. Everyone improvises and adapts.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“In this country there are fifty lawyers to every one policeman, and the lawyers expect to win.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“To my surprise, definite occupation was found for me on my last visit to HQ: to investigate the motives of a clandestine political party operating in this area… Some are regarded as more purposeful and sinister including the one to be investigated, called Forza Italia!, which is suspected of Neo-Fascist leanings. My contacts in Benevento dismiss it with scorn as just another maniac right-wing movement backed by the landlords and the rural Mafia, run in this case by a half-demented latifundista who proclaims himself a reincarnation of Garibaldi.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“There are no police to deal with the thousands of squalid little crimes like this committed every day in the city.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“He proved to be one of the four thousand lawyers of Naples, ninety per cent of whom – surplus to the needs of the courts – had never practised, and who for the most part lived in extreme penury.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“Naples is extraordinary in every way.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“If it is a fact that in Naples everything is for sale, how much more true must this be in Poggio Reale?”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“There is an inherent Mediterranean austerity much in evidence in the Naples area, in Sorrento and Capri, which seems to come from the sea, since it is hardly to be found inland.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

“Nothing, absolutely nothing that can be tackled by the human digestive system is wasted in Naples.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

Similar authors

Norman Lewis photo
Norman Lewis21
British travel writer 1908–2003
V.S. Naipaul photo
V.S. Naipaul34
Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry None
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Arthur C. Clarke207
British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, u… None
W. Somerset Maugham photo
W. Somerset Maugham158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer None
Italo Calvino photo
Italo Calvino44
Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels None
A.A. Milne photo
A.A. Milne169
British author None
Doris Lessing photo
Doris Lessing94
British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer … None
Elias Canetti photo
Elias Canetti43
Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist,… None
William Golding photo
William Golding79
British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Lite… None
Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Kazuo Ishiguro76
Japanese-born British author None