The Serpent Coiled in Naples by Marius Kociejowski

Author:Marius Kociejowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781909961814
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

What induces in Rocco Civitelli something approaching missionary zeal is, so I believe, for Marino Niola an old story told many times. Whereas the former is expansive in his responses, the latter abbreviates. As for Niola, I know from my own experience that what was once uppermost in my thoughts becomes a little patchier with each retelling, such that I begin to leave out the connecting threads altogether and leave my interlocutor with, yes, old bones. It’s what we do, we who make more journeys than one. It’s what they do, who stick to a single path of choice. I’m not saying one is better than the other, only that it makes getting at the core of things all that much harder, what with brevity on one side and, on the other, a surfeit of enthusiasm that creates its own obstacles. Sometimes one wants for a single sentence, a staccato burst that will light up the whole stadium at once. Civitelli is right when he says one has to figure out for oneself the meaning of this place. Niola is right when he speaks of a flowing, hidden river. It’s not that I think I’ll ever ‘crack’ Naples, but from time to time I need to tell myself and a few unfortunates that I am doing just that. It’s why I write. It’s why I tip my hat to the ghost of Giuseppe Marotta. Truth in Naples is always somewhere in the middle, only the middle is invisible. The middle is only what we suppose it to be, there being very little evidence for its existence. It’s like trying to plug a black hole in outer space. You get sucked into all sorts of imponderables. What is true everywhere, in Naples is twice as true.

Anna Maria Ortese, in her book Corpo celeste (‘Celestial Body’) writes, ‘I believe in all that I do not see, and I believe little in that which I do see.’ What she says, my friend Mariagrazia Barsanti amplified:

‘In order to understand the Neapolitan mentality, their attitudes, and behaviour, you have to consider always the two things together, life and death.’ The reasons for this, she explained, go back to the seventeenth century, which was a tough time for the Neapolitan people. They’d already had many different foreign sovereigns and rulers. Social conditions were horrible, and they continue to be so, but she emphasised this is the real Naples, not that of the bourgeoisie. If one is to know the city it is necessary to observe its people living in poor conditions. And so, to go back to the roots of the anime pezzentelle and the threats imposed by foreign rule, the religious curia, themselves under pressure and maybe just a little too solicitous of their own welfare, had to calm people. They did so by instilling in them a sense of guilt. The people could survive only by hoping that one day they would be accepted in heaven otherwise it was impossible to live under such pressure.

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