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Etappe Napoli (Die Galerie) (1948)

von John Horne Burns

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339975,909 (3.83)10
"John Horne Burns brought The Gallery back from World War II, and on publication in 1947 it became a critically-acclaimed bestseller. However, Burns's early death at the age of 36 led to the subsequent neglect of this searching book, which captures the shock the war dealt to the preconceptions and ideals of the victorious Americans. Set in occupied Naples in 1944, The Gallery takes its name from the Galleria Umberto, a bombed-out arcade where everybody in town comes together in pursuit of food, drink, sex, money, and oblivion. A daring and enduring novel, one of the first to look directly at gay life in the military. The Gallery poignantly conveys the mixed feelings of the men and women who fought the war that made America a superpower"--Publisher's description.… (mehr)
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Burns has a unique voice—or I should say voices, as each individual piece, most written in the first person, has its own unique tenor and sense. For example, one is from the point of view of a well-to-do Italian lady of a certain age who owns and runs a Naples bar catering to military homosexuals. Burns renders her omniscience believable despite the fact that she is beset by chaos.

The book’s structure reminds me of Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition—a visit to an art gallery, during which we move from picture to picture, all of which bear some resemblance and relevance to the others, despite their wholly unrelated surface details. My tour showed me the various faces of American World War II experience in 1944 in southern Italy and northern African. Not surprisingly, it is often jarring, unfamiliar, grotesque, and exotically seductive.

The chapter entitled “Queen Penicillin” is at once gut wrenching, distressing, and amusing. It centers on an American army hospital devoted to treatment of venereal diseases, and one gets a glimpse of the intersection of disingenuous military and medical attitudes and practices with sufferers’ anguish and the humor they employ to cope with it. Neither has much to do with the other, and “compassion” isn’t part of anybody’s lexicon.

Many of the stories’ narrators inject what was probably widely used slang, and its startling presence revealed just how P.C. today’s writing and speech has become. References to “Eyetalians,” “Ginsos,” “Ayrabs,” and the like served to throw off concentration, but all I needed to get back on track was to recall that the book was first published in 1947. It also became evident a few chapters in that Burns uses this kind of terminology as a lightly veiled criticism of the demeanor and superiority endemic to American military men and women of that era and place.

I’ve read that, at the time of the The Gallery’s first publication, Burns came in for some scathing criticism because it deals fairly openly with gay people and lives. At that time, this was fully unexpected. Other than the crowd in the bar mentioned earlier, most members of which are out and out caricatures for bad behavior, the author bestows on the maybe-gay characters his clear-eyed understanding that is one part objectively critical and two parts compassionate. Even the shut-down, married, opportunistic, closet-case who heads up an office of letter-reading censor cannot be easily despised and dismissed, because Burns gives us such a precise vision of where he comes from and what he fears.

With only a dozen pages to go, this book has continued to hold my interest, even though it has sometimes tried my patience. Reading it has taught me many things, not just about the American in the southern European theater of World War II, but about thoroughly accomplished and honest writing. ( )
  Boito_2 | Jul 15, 2023 |
This book is said to be a novel, but could with nearly as much justification be considered a collection of short stories. Unity of location and time argue for treating it as one work, however.
The conceit at the heart of the book is the dual meaning of the word “gallery.” Much of the plot unrolls in the Galleria Umberto, an arcade where one can find, legally or illegally, nearly everything in this otherwise destitute city. But Burns uses the alternate meaning of the term to explore what is on display here. He alternates nine portraits, tales complete in themselves with no overlapping characters, and eight promenades. Unlike the portraits, which all take place in Naples in August 1944, the promenades, which could with equal accuracy have been called landscapes, follow the progression of the Allies from Casablanca to Naples. Unlike the portraits, there is a recurring character, the “I” of the narrator. Each begins “I remember.” There are also some recurring secondary characters, a mess sergeant, a corporal, and a pfc. Their dialogue reflects varying attitudes of the occupiers, from vulturous to well-meaning but ineffectual.
There is a third unity in the book, the relentless theme that war defiles. Is this an effect that war has on otherwise decent people, or does it rip off a thin veneer of civilization to reveal the ugly, underlying truth? The book doesn’t land clearly on either side of the question. The evidence of some stories would seem to point the book in the latter direction, but some others, such as the final portrait, Moe, portray how the war experience deepened the humanity of some.
Another theme emerges in the last few chapters: admiration for the Neapolitans, many of whom seemed, compared to the invaders, better able to maintain a semblance of dignity amidst the general rubble and corruption.
Each of the portraits is memorable. The book’s tone falters in the last two promenades, when the narrator arrives in Naples. Description and incident recede, editorial judgment intrudes. Overall, though, I found the book compelling. ( )
  HenrySt123 | Jul 19, 2021 |
This is a WWII novel, but not one that you would expect. This depicts the Greatest Generation through contemporary eyes, not misty revisionism. They're flawed, in turns cowardly, venal, brave, and compassionate. Combat rarely comes into it, the war is something they dread, or something that's already passed them by.

'The Gallery' is a novel about an anonymous American G.I. crossing the Atlantic and North Africa with the Allied Army, forever behind the lines, and becoming ever-more disillusioned with his country and the future. This stream-of-consciousness narrative, labeled as a "promenade" is framed with nine "portraits" of American and Neapolitan men and women in August 1944. The titular gallery is the Galleria Umberto I, a public shopping gallery, frequented by the Allies and Italians alike.

Naples has been devastated by years of war and the recent bombings. American G.I.'s are exploiting the need of the Italians and the greed of their fellow soldiers, contributing and encouraging an economy where sexual favors are bought with chewing gum, tobacco, and bed sheets.

I found Burns' writing easy to sink into, and each promenade and portrait is extensive enough that I felt satisfied with each as it came to an end. Not that I couldn't have read a hundred, two hundred, more pages of "Momma", the proprietress of a thriving bar in the Galleria that caters to the gay men of the Allied Army and some Italians. It was a generous and funny cross-section of people that were rendered with real love. This was published in 1947 and there's none of the tragic melodrama that I found in 'The City and the Pillar' or 'The Fall of Valor', published shortly before and after 'The Gallery'.

The G.I. of the promenade reminds me the most of Ford Madox Ford's Tietjens when Tietjens muses:

“Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not merely here. And there aren't enough bathrooms and white enamel in the world to go round.”

The questioning of America's attitude and approach to the outside world is a cornerstone of the book. Burns holds with no romanticizing of the war effort or its being worthwhile if children witness their liberators throwing away tons of food while they and their families starve or are forced to prostitution to eat.

Other characters include a cowardly Southern man manipulating the system for honors and promotions for himself and cronies, a young woman holding onto traditional love in the face of the debasement of her home city, a Jewish-American officer on the eve of his return to the front desperate to leave kindle hope in the girl he leaves behind in Naples. I wasn't sure what I was expecting from this novel, but this was amazing. ( )
  ManWithAnAgenda | Feb 18, 2019 |
THE GALLERY is considered to be John Horn Burns' best book. Admittedly it is well written but it lacks a compelling plot so I couldn't get into it. The prose is clean and appealing but without a compelling story i gave up about half way. But don't let this discourage you because it is worth trying it. It may well satisfy your needs. ( )
  SigmundFraud | Aug 1, 2014 |
Unfortunately, the platitudes outnumber the brilliant passages. This is really a series of short stories, set in occupied Naples in summer 1944, inter-woven with a series of first person narratives about Burns' own experiences in North Africa and Italy during the war. These "promenade" sections were particularly tedious to me. Throughout, Burns often strains to be profound, making broad generalizations about Americans and Italians that seem more suitable perhaps for a sociology textbook. Mr. Author, please show, don't tell us!

Among the short stories, "Momma," set in a Neapolitan "gay bar" frequented by American servicemen, is quite good. I also liked "Queen Penicillin," which relates the experience of a GI undergoing treatment for syphllis. Perhaps they could be anthologized, because they could really stand on their own. ( )
1 abstimmen yooperprof | Mar 22, 2014 |
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AutorennameRolleArt des AutorsWerk?Status
John Horne BurnsHauptautoralle Ausgabenberechnet
Fussell, PaulEinführungCo-Autoreinige Ausgabenbestätigt
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"John Horne Burns brought The Gallery back from World War II, and on publication in 1947 it became a critically-acclaimed bestseller. However, Burns's early death at the age of 36 led to the subsequent neglect of this searching book, which captures the shock the war dealt to the preconceptions and ideals of the victorious Americans. Set in occupied Naples in 1944, The Gallery takes its name from the Galleria Umberto, a bombed-out arcade where everybody in town comes together in pursuit of food, drink, sex, money, and oblivion. A daring and enduring novel, one of the first to look directly at gay life in the military. The Gallery poignantly conveys the mixed feelings of the men and women who fought the war that made America a superpower"--Publisher's description.

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