Benjamin Taylor is the author of two acclaimed novels—The Book of Getting Even and Tales Out of School—and the editor of Saul Bellow: Letters. He lives in New York City.
“Splendid.” - Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A
Life
"There is no more witty, worldly, cultivated or amiably candid
observer imaginable than Benjamin Taylor. This book belongs
on the shelf of the very best literary travel guides."
- Phillip Lopate, author of Waterfront: A Journey Around
Manhattan
"Erudite and charming, Naples Declared is a remarkable book; it's
about place and history and survival; it's fresh, it's wise, and
it's not to be missed." -Brenda Wineapple, author of White
Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth
Higginson
“From novelist/essayist/editor Taylor, an idiosyncratic,
atmospheric portrait of ‘the great open-air theater of Europe.’ The
author wears his formidable erudition lightly as he cites classical
authors and 20th-century travel writers with equal zest and acuity.
Yet some of his most enjoyable pages are present-day encounters
with a fervently communist doctor, with a chain-smoking student of
Faulkner, and with novelist Shirley Hazzard, one of Naples many
devoted longtime, part-time residents. Packed with elegant apercus
and vibrant with the author’s rueful understanding that ‘Naples the
glorious and Naples the ghastly have always been one place,” [in
his] highly personal book the Neapolitan spirit is
palpable.”—Kirkus starred review
“Taylor’s book, like his subject, Naples, is a lot of things at
once; there are lengthy discussions of history, philosophy,
religion, art, culture, literature, customs. The book
meanders between past and present, wanders in stream-of-thought
fashion through the Naples streets, delves deeply into the city’s
stories, lives, and lore, and drops in for conversations with
locals; it is an accurate representation of what travel is and what
it means. Scholarly and insightful and balanced with wit and
levity, [Naples Declared] is written with an effortless
poeticism.”—Library Journal
"Superb . . . What Chatwin did for Australia and Mathiessen for the
Himalayas, Taylor now does for the storied city of Naples.
I will steal a line from Leon Wieseltier's review of Taylor's
previous book, "Saul Bellow: Letters" to describe his newest
one: "an elegantissimo book." [In Naples Declared,]
Taylor deftly sums up more than 3,000 years of history, ranging
from the establishment of a Mycenaean entrepôt in 1800 B.C.E. to
the signal event of 2011: “Renewed garbage crisis.” Like all
great travel memoirs, however, “Naples Declared” owes some of its
best moments to the firsthand experiences of the author in the
place he writes about. He is a watchful traveler and a
charming raconteur, and so we are treated to accounts of his
successful effort to cure the hiccups of an aristocratic
Englishwoman known to the hotel staff as “Lady So-and-So,” his
inventory of the cast-off items and the poignant graffiti that he
spots in an ancient aqueduct used as a bomb-shelter during World
War II . . . Taylor’s book offers a full measure of history and
reportage. “My modus operandi,” he explains, “has been to walk a
knowledge of Naples into my bloodstream.” But the book is also a
reverie. “In this place, my dream said, trust to the promise of
renewable wonder,” he concludes, “every lover’s hope and prayer.”
There is no better way to sum up what Taylor has captured in
“Naples Declared,” a wholly delightful example of what the literary
travel memoir can achieve."--Jonathan Kirsch, JewishJournal.com
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