The Ancient Shore, by Shirley Hazzard and Francis Steegmuller
Variety of impression, diversity of atmosphere and mood, incongruities of many kinds, these are only to be expected in books on travel, and perhaps particularly in one concerning Naples. But The Ancient Shore is by two hands, and there is a radical difference in style and method that makes it virtually impossible to discuss the book as if it were of a piece. There are the sections written by Shirley Hazzard, which form much the larger part, meditative, nostalgic, static, full of literary and historical reference; and there is the single episode narrated by her husband, Francis Steegmuller, in which he tells of a day in 1938 when he was mugged on a Naples street and badly hurt, and of the aftermath of medical care he received in the two Neapolitan hospitals he was taken to.
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