Primo Levi. The Periodic Table (1984)

     Primo Levi. The Periodic Table (1984) Tr. Raymond Rosenthal Part memoir, but meditation, part fiction, part sketches, this is wonderful book. It’s one of those books whose style reveals a charming mind, a beautiful person. The memoir is sketchy, partly because Levi wrote about many of his chief life events in other books, which I will look for. Each reminiscence and story appears under the head of an element, but despite the title, their arrangement does not follow that of the periodic table. Levi always completes his tales, but his digressions, sometimes merely a word or phrase, give them a richness and complexity that the otherwise spare style might prevent. That spare style makes it hard to summarise the book. I won’t attempt it. But this is a book I’d like other people to read. In many ways it reminds me of Oliver Sacks’ books. It hews to its subject, yet finds so many connections between that subject and so many other things that one comes away with the impression not only of a whole person, but of the wholeness of the universe. **** (2003)