I started this post way back before Christmas but found myself sidetracked by other things… one of which was, of course, Christmas itself. I found myself a little reluctant, however, to just let it go – for reasons that will become apparent later. It has thus sat here in very embryonic draft form for nearly two months.
I think that it is time that I put it to bed.
Back at the tail end of the 70s the slim volume illustrated at the top of this piece – “Napoli ’44” – was published by William Collins (and later – in 1983 – as a paperback by Eland Books). It was written by the British travel writer and novelist – Norman Lewis.
Lewis had been a sergeant in the Field Security Service of the British Army Intelligence Core during the Second World War and had kept a diary – the which forms the basis of this book – from September 1943 to October 1944, on his posting to southern Italy following the allied landings there. For much of this period he was based in Naples – hence the title of the book.
As though being part of the British/American administration in the chaotic wake of the invasion and observing the Neapolitans struggling to make their lives work again in the ruins of the heavily bombed and water-less city were not a sufficiently apocalyptic experience already, on the 19th March 1944 Vesuvius erupted in spectacular fashion, shadowing all other concerns with clouds of ash and streams of molten lava. Lewis was sent out by his masters to check on military installations under threat from the lava flows. On arrival (under volcanic bombardment) in San Sebastiano he found that a lava wave was forcing its way relentlessly down the main street, consuming buildings large and small as it went and with the cupola of the church riding on its crest.
I find it difficult enough to imagine what living through such a traumatic and disorientating period must have been like without the volcano, but the point at which Mother Nature ran out her cannons and added her own destructive power to the show must truly have convinced some that the end of days was at hand.
Lewis’s account has been much praised over the years and is all the more remarkable for not having been written for nearly three and a half decades after the events that it memorialises.
Now – I must admit at this point that I have not actually read the book (nor indeed have I found a copy – shame on me!) – and the gentle reader may thus at this point be chafing at the bit somewhat. Patience – patience – and I will explain just how and why I come to be writing about it.
That needs must, however, await the second part of this post…
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