The fifth book, part memoir, part travel journal, by Alan Ross. It is based on his long acquaintance with the islands in the Gulf of Naples. Demobilised from the Navy, the war still fresh, Ross made a series of journeys in 1948 on foot all over Ischia, producing a kind of anatomy. He spent summers there in the 1950s and 1960s, a period when Moravia, Koestler, Auden and William Walton among others, made Maria's Bar in Forio a centre of gossip. More recently he returned: Capri in winter, Ischia at the end of the summer, the Aeolian islands in spring. This book, as well as being a description of the islands themselves, recalls some of those who brought fame by their presence - Gorky, Lenin, and Bunin; Pablo Neruda and Walter Benjamin; Rilke, Malaparte and Alex Munthe; D.H. Lawrence, Norman Douglas, and Compton Mackenzie. Naples, too, is an important part of Ross's experience and he records his pleasure in recalling it through the writings of Lewis and Burns.

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Bibliographic Details

Title: Reflections On Blue Water: Journeys In The Gulf Of Naples & In The Aeolian Islands
Publisher: Harvill Press
Publication Date: 2000
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1860466915
ISBN 13: 9781860466915
Binding: Hardcover
Illustrator: Rye, Jane
Condition: New

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In 1948, having recently finished serving as a naval officer in post-war Germany, Alan Ross visited Capri and the islands in the Gulf of Naples. Europe was in ruins; "Naples and the islands of the Gulf seemed in comparison something akin to paradise." 50 years later, Ross, now editor of the London Magazine and a literary powerhouse, returned to the islands. "I became curious again about these half-forgotten islands: how much had they changed, been spoiled?" Reflections on Blue Water counterpoints Ross's 1948 notes on the islands with his 1998 observations, tracking the effects of the passage of time on both the islands and the author.

It's easy to see why Ross was drawn to these islands. Their history is rich with writers, poets and artists, from Neruda to Rilke, Gorky and Durrell. Ross describes natural features evocatively ("as we sailed slowly between Stronbolicchio and Punta Frontone the last layers of pistachio, cobalt and yellow faded from the sky") and he writes with the savvy of a seasoned traveler ("One of the pleasures in revisiting places is that the "sights" can be taken for granted"). But he's most interested in exploring the islands' intellectual legacy, applying his powers of analysis to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Pablo Neruda's poetry and Norman Lewis's Naples 44, among other texts. "In these islands you have to bring your own ghosts with you", Ross writes of his travel experience: his lyrical travel prose is equally full of ghosts and spectres of a literary bent. --Tamsin Todd

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