5385: Response to Part One of Gomorrah

I feel incapable of writing a response to this book. It's a book that, every time you turn the page, you are utterly shocked again--from ex-girlfriends executed in burning vehicles to Angelina Jolie's counterfeit Oscar dress. I'm struck every time by the truths that Saviano uncovers and displays for us (and his courage in putting it on the page in the first place). This is not a book you can pretend is fiction, that you can analyze without considering that these events were seen, experienced, and continue to occur in the country we  are studying in right now. Given that, I think it's apt to discuss the morals behind what he is doing and question blame/guilt. The text does a reasonably good job of describing horrendous acts in detail and still remaining fairly objective. He by no means pardons the men that murder and torture for product. However, the inclusion of their wire-tapped pleas to their loved ones to stay off the streets, or the nickname system (bringing you in on the lingo), or the way he never outright condemns what he says, plays at casting a full image of these people (the reader, of course, comes to like some of these characters, particularly Pasquale). The passion behind the book, the constant desire, is the journalistic drive to get more and more of the story put down. More than once, Saviano admits that he knows he should not be a X place at X time, but that it is necessary if he wants the truth, if he wants to be able to create a whole image. While the initial response probably would be to color them solely as monsters, he goes in to deep detail, deep enough that you might begin to understand their drive for more money, more territory, more product and success. This drive is something we, as Americans in a highly materialistic/capitalistic society, can easily understand on a basic level, minus the obscene violence. That said, what do we do with the "horrible" in this text? How do we read a scene in which he tells us of a phone call request to "dissolve two [people] in acid" and not feel instant, constant revulsion and separation?

More than that--how do we pardon Saviano? He stands watching this: "After a bit he started to sway, frothing lightly at the corners of his mouth. he fell to the ground, jerked around and then stretched out flat, closed his eyes, and went stiff. [...] He began pounding on the Visitor's chest with his boot: a violent cardiac massage. Next to him the girl was blithering something, the words hanging on her lips" (Saviano 71). I think we have to question his involvement in this. If you stand watching this (and hundreds of other incidents like this, things that he is privy to), aren't you in some way a component? In a way, he whitewashes the obvious blame from these men by not outright calling them monsters and holds the guilt out toward the reader, and maybe himself, to take a piece of. I think that is the question Saviano asks. If we are buying these products, are we consumers of this obscene violence?