Capri and No Longer Capri

Capri and No Longer Capri
by Raffaele LA Capria, Elizabeth A. Petroff, Richard J. Pioli

Capri and No Longer Capri
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Book Summary Information

Author: Elizabeth A. Petroff, Raffaele LA Capria, Richard J. Pioli
Edition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2003-08-31
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 168

Book Reviews of Capri and No Longer Capri

Book Review: An Essential Book
Summary: 5 Stars

Capri and No Longer Capri is not a guide book, nor is it a history of the island: it is the reflections of the author, novelist Raffaele La Capria, on his long relationship with Capri. Mr. La Capria has a summer home on Capri but has visited the island, on and off, since he was a teenager. The book consists of chapters that were, for the most part, published elsewhere first. The book begins with Capri's past with chapters on the imperial period, the Blue Grotto, Fersen and the creation of his famous villa, Krupp and his sad end and how Norman Douglas and other writers related their experiences. These are informative chapters that provide the author's perspective and relate his own experiences. The chapter on the Blue Grotto is marvelously descriptive and Mr. La Capria provides his own experiences on visiting the famous tourist site as he waits for all the boats to depart so he can have the place to himself.

The concluding chapters of the book relate the changes that have come to Capri over the years; the hoards of tourists that descend on the island in huge groups, the speedboats and huge yachts that anchor off the island and spread their garbage into the sea. More serious is the disappearance of the fish for pollution and over fishing. This is so serious that sea gulls can not longer feed themselves from the sea any longer. It is the consequences of these unwelcome changes that Mr. La Capria is most eloquent about: the beauty of Capri slowly being eroded by over development and environmental degradation. I have visited Capri twice with my wife, going by ferry to the island and preferring to see the natural beauty of the place instead of shopping. It had always seemed to us that Capri was a small paradise but from this book one understands that this is merely an appearance and that environmental disaster is also looming over such magnificent places.

This is a very well written book that has been translated from Italian and it offers a different perspective of Capri that a visitor is usually exposed to. The book will appear most to people who have visited the island since I doubt that it would make much sense to someone who has not been there and knows nothing about the places and people described. For those who have seen Capri this is an invaluable book that also serves as a warning: we are destroying the places we love and need to be aware that our actions, such as uncontrolled building, over fishing of the seas and polluting the land an sea all come with a terrible cost.


Summary of Capri and No Longer Capri

Raffaele La Capria creates a portrait of Capri that begins in the time of Ulysses and moves to our present complex and hectic reality, and composes an elegy for a Nature blasted by human negligence and error. Americans have now been visiting Capri for many years, and La Capria?s book will offer much to newcomers to the island that they would not otherwise have at their disposal, for his slim volume is a guidebook of a special kind, something like a novel and a local Italian guide. Capri has had a long history as a place of retreat, of sensual license, and of unparalleled natural beauty. Without running through the usual list of sights, La Capria gives his reader the sensation of having peered beneath each stone, and of giving an appreciation of what such a place has done to others, some of whom, once under Capri?s spell, gave their lives over to their dreams.

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