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Shirley Hazzard

Francis Steegmuller

The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples Hardcover – November 1, 2008

by Shirley Hazzard (Author), Francis Steegmuller (Author)

31 ratings

3.7 on Goodreads

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Born in Australia, Shirley Hazzard first moved to Naples as a young woman in the 1950s to take up a job with the United Nations. It was the beginning of a long love affair with the city. The Ancient Shore collects the best of Hazzard’s writings on Naples, along with a classic New Yorker essay by her late husband, Francis Steegmuller. For the pair, both insatiable readers, the Naples of Pliny, Gibbon, and Auden is constantly alive to them in the present.

With Hazzard as our guide, we encounter Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and of course Goethe, but Hazzard’s concern is primarily with the Naples of our own time—often violently unforgiving to innocent tourists, but able to transport the visitor who attends patiently to its rhythms and history. A town shadowed by both the symbol and the reality of Vesuvius can never fail to acknowledge the essential precariousness of life—nor, as the lover of Naples discovers, the human compassion, generosity, and friendship that are necessary to sustain it.

Beautifully illustrated by photographs from such masters as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Herbert List, The Ancient Shore is a lyrical letter to a lifelong love: honest and clear-eyed, yet still fervently, endlessly enchanted.

“Much larger than all its parts, this book does full justice to a place, and a time, where ‘nothing was pristine, except the light.’”—Bookforum

“Deep in the spell of Italy, Hazzard parses the difference between visiting and living and working in a foreign country. She writes with enormous eloquence and passion of the beauty of getting lost in a place.”—Susan Slater Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

“The two voices join in exquisite harmony. . . . A lovely book.”—Booklist, starred review

Print length

140 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Chicago Press
Publication date

November 1, 2008
Dimensions

5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

0226322017
ISBN-13

978-0226322018
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Hazzard is a highly acclaimed Australian novelist, her most recent book the celebrated and provocative World War II novel Great Fire (2003); the late Steegmuller was a renowned Flaubert scholar and Hazzard’s husband. Their book speaks in two different voices, Hazzard writing about the city of Naples as a “victim” of the still-active Mount Vesuvius, about why sensitive people gravitate to Italy, and about travel as a personal pilgrimage. Steegmuller, on the other hand, writes more personally, about a mugging he experienced in crime-prone Naples a few years back. But the two voices join in exquisite harmony to celebrate “those of us who first came to Italy in the 1950s and were more than lucky; we were blessed.” Blessed, that is, with indelible impressions, for “the day was an adventure of discoveries, mortal and immortal, inward or external, and occasionally somber.” A lovely book. --Brad Hooper

Review

“[An] exquisite companion for the armchair traveler who dreams in the languages of literature and art. . . . A love letter to an ancient Italian city by the sea. . . . By temperament, I incline toward the understated appreciations of art and people I find in The Ancient Shore. . . . Such passages, simple as they are, constitute the unalloyed traces of love.”

-- Mindy Aloff ― Washington Post Book World

“Much larger than all its parts, this book does full justice to a place, and a time, where ‘nothing was pristine, except the light.’”

-- Michael Gorra ― Bookforum

"This book speaks in two different voices, Hazzard writing about the city of Naples as a 'victim' of the still-active Mount Vesuvius, about why sensitive people gravitate to Italy, and about travel as a personal pilgrimate. [Her late husband Francis] Steegmuller, on the other hand, writes more personally, about a mugging he experienced in crime-prone Naples a few years back. But the two voices join in exquisite harmony to celebrate 'those of us who first came to Italy in the 1950s [and] were more than lucky; we were blessed.' Blessed, that is, with indelible impressions, for 'the day was an adventure of discoveries, mortal and immortal, inward or external, and occasionally somber.' A lovely book." -- Booklist ― starred review

“The Ancient Shore reads like an extended prose poem about one of the most beautiful and complex, yet also one of the least well known, cities in the world. Without ever removing the veils of enigma that surround Naples, Shirley Hazzard and her late husband Francis Steegmuller take us to the heart of the city’s historical, cultural, and aesthetic fascination. As we join them on this pilgrimage, they invite us to meditate on the deeper meaning of travel, hospitality, encounter, and expatriation. Even for those of us who think we know Naples well, this book takes us someplace we have not been before.”

-- Robert Pogue Harrison, author of Gardens

“Deep in the spell of Italy, Hazzard parses the difference between visiting and living and working in a foreign country. She writes with enormous eloquence and passion of the beauty of getting lost in a place.”

-- Susan Salter Reynolds ― Los Angeles Times

"Over those like Shirley Hazzard and her late husband Francis Steegmuller, who arrived immediately after hte Second World War, Naples spread a numinous enchantment which no other Italian city could match.Sadly the collection of brief essays and memoirs gathered here may represent the last in that small but significant array of books which have sought to capture this unique impact on foreign visitors. . . . Hazzard and Steegmuller insist that 'our own readiness to be pleased can never be mocked or repudiated.' Few readers would wish to do either, given the refinement and affetion with which both writers register their experience." -- Jonathan Keates ― Times Literary Supplement

"[Hazzard's notions of Naples are] limned gorgeously--by her painterly prose, her late husband's stylish reportage, and a somewhat unexpected (but thoroughly apt) complement: glowing photographs of Naples by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Herbert List, and others." ― Atlantic

"For anyone planning to visit Naples, not to read TheAncient Shore would itself be a crime. It could help you fall in love with the city, as Hazzard and her husband had done." -- Michael Hanlon ― Toronto Star

“A beautifully written apologia for Naples and the Campania region. . . . Hazzard’s writing is an often brilliant travelogue in which the reader is made to recognize what he or she may have missed in the elusive city.”

― Rain Taxi

"A book you don't so much read as inhale. . . . A perfect present as a thank-you to a dinner host or to anyone passionate about Italy." -- Ann Geracimos ― Washington Times

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; 1st edition (November 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 140 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226322017
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226322018
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,272,082 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,431 in general Italy Travel Guides
- #6,652 in Travelogues & Travel Essays
- #12,130 in Literary Movements & Periods

Customer Reviews:
31 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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D. R. L. F.

Canta Napoli

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 19, 2008

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Ms. Hazzard and Mr. Steegmuller have written a most astute and heart-warming book about Naples, Italy. They have felt the pulse of Naple, the temperament of the locals and written about it in beautiful prose.

Naples is always a mixture of chaos and calm; of shouting and respect; of colors and light. As they write, ". . . Neapolitans move among their extraordinary architecture as in a natural element: Even the gradest edifices are not "monuments" but expressions of temperament in their nobility, their strangeness or sweetness, their theatricality." Thankfully Naples is still relatively unvisited by hordes of tourists and remains our personal, secret jewel. Thank you to these authors for capturing its essence and loving (most) all of it !

17 people found this helpful

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Jennifer

A beautiful book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 9, 2010

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Having lived in a suburb of Naples for two and a half years I could relate to much of what was written. The writing is so poetic and delicious that you will want to reread some of it to others just to enjoy it again. I only wish I had read this book before I moved to Naples so I could have pondered that unique perspective before facing the angels and demons that awaited me.

2 people found this helpful

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Ruth

Highly visual in language

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 21, 2013

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I love Shirley Hazzard's writing style - she is vivid in descriptions, adding to my limited imagination and expanding my view point. It is interesting that she writes in the first person as a man, yet one does not get the feeling of femineity or overt heroism. There is good balance although tedious plotting. It's a very good read.

3 people found this helpful

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LR2003

Beautifully written by two people who make you love Naples as they do

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 17, 2012

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The book is immediately cativating and heart-warming. Shirley Hazzard and Francis Steegmuller take the reader along with them to love Naples and I never looked back. I willingly let them force me to love their City just as I imagine they love it.

One person found this helpful

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sd

Ms. Hazzard has done it again- great read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 28, 2010

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I love her books- her style, the language, the contents (never dull, yet never heavy)- just perfect! I love her fiction and now, also her essays! Must read if you love Napoli and surroundings... Brava!

One person found this helpful

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Jed Fielding

The best!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 26, 2008

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An incredibly poetic book of essays by a wonderful writer -- you don't even have to have been to Naples to enjoy these!

One person found this helpful

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Rob Fitzgibbon

Literay journey to the Naples of the mind

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 23, 2011

The Ancient Shore is a very erudite collection of meditative essays on Naples, that ancient, mysterious Italian city that combines the ancient, the beautiful, the comedic, the diabolical and the grotesque into an admixture both arcane and awesome. Shirley Hazzard is an erudite author and her prose is learned and languid like the city she admires, although at times her writing can seem more somnambulant than sophic. The book includes a nice collection of black and white photographs.

5 people found this helpful

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William Hanson

A demonstration of vocabulary. Opportunity lost.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 24, 2012

It is not difficult to be impressed with Shirley Hazzard's command of the english language. But to weigh down one's writing with unnecessary complication is counter productive, if you seek to gain a wide audience. It might be me but I struggled with this book. It was, as I put it, over written with a surprising number of adjectives used to place the reader in the moment. Francis Steegmuller was as we know, a literary scholar, famous for his study of Flaubert. I can see his influence in this book. You could be forgiven for thinking that the sheer volume of historical information about Haples and particularly its history, was unnescssary to convey a reader's view of the place. I enjoyed Ms Hazzard's "Greene on Capri" book for it simple but effective descriptions of places and her's and Greene's time on Capri. Why not that simplicity here in her Naples book?
A demonstration of one's vocabulary is not needed to paint the picture. The flowing elegance of Gore Vidal is proof enough of this. Ezra Pound used to tell Hemingway "to avoid adjectives at all cost". Not bad advice as his economical, pared down style was effective in letting the reader fill in where needed with imagination. His success was put down to ease of reading as one reason for him to successfully reach the widest possible audience.
Academic writing has its place I suppose, maybe in college but not on the pages destined for general readership.
Two stars for cleverness. I really did want this to flow, as I looked forward to a study of Naples, a place I wanted described to me in easy to read prose.

Bill Hanson.

5 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

K Knights

Evocative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 17, 2014

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Five stars for Shirley Hazzard even though there are more than a few purple passages. There is so much more here than the usual guide book Pompeii/ Amalfi/Positano. Do read. Would love more of her stuff to be available on Kindle.

Richard

Exquisite

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on January 20, 2020

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A cameo of long forgotten Naples. An unadorned picture of the not so distant past now swamped by smartphones and ubiquitous Chinese tourists.

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