In 1948, having recently finished serving as a naval officer in post-war Germany, Alan Ross visited Capri and the islands in the Gulf of Naples. Europe was in ruins; "Naples and the islands of the Gulf seemed in comparison something akin to paradise." 50 years later, Ross, now editor of the London Magazine and a literary powerhouse, returned to the islands. "I became curious again about these half-forgotten islands: how much had they changed, been spoiled?" Reflections on Blue Water counterpoints Ross's 1948 notes on the islands with his 1998 observations, tracking the effects of the passage of time on both the islands and the author.
It's easy to see why Ross was drawn to these islands. Their history is rich with writers, poets and artists, from Neruda to Rilke, Gorky and Durrell. Ross describes natural features evocatively ("as we sailed slowly between Stronbolicchio and Punta Frontone the last layers of pistachio, cobalt and yellow faded from the sky") and he writes with the savvy of a seasoned traveler ("One of the pleasures in revisiting places is that the "sights" can be taken for granted"). But he's most interested in exploring the islands' intellectual legacy, applying his powers of analysis to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Pablo Neruda's poetry and Norman Lewis's Naples 44, among other texts. "In these islands you have to bring your own ghosts with you", Ross writes of his travel experience: his lyrical travel prose is equally full of ghosts and spectres of a literary bent. --Tamsin Todd