(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
"The Periodic Table "is largely a memoir of the years before and after Primo Levi's transportation from his nati... read full description
"The Periodic Table "is largely a memoir of the years before and after Primo Levi's transportation from his nati... read full description
reviews
Mar 04, 2008
Rachel
rated it: 
You know how you read a sentence and copy it down because it's so good? In this book, I'd find a sentence, and go to copy it and realize it relied on the one before it, which relied on the one before that for its complete meaning. So I'd copy down whole paragraphs, whole pages, because Primo writes in integrated, seamless blocks of meaning. Which is enviable.
Other than that, I want to give Primo a big kiss, buy him a beer, and ride bikes with him in Italy.
Other than that, I want to give Primo a big kiss, buy him a beer, and ride bikes with him in Italy.
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Jan 25, 2009
Matt
rated it: 
Favorite passages:
It seemed to us an embarras de richesses, and it was instead a different embarrassment, deeper and more essential: an embarrassment tied to an atrophy of ours, of our family, or our caste. What were we able to do with our hands?… Our hands were at once coarse and weak, regressive insensitive: the least trained part of our bodies. Having gone through the first fundamental experiences of play, they had learned to write, and that was all… If man is a maker, we were not More...
It seemed to us an embarras de richesses, and it was instead a different embarrassment, deeper and more essential: an embarrassment tied to an atrophy of ours, of our family, or our caste. What were we able to do with our hands?… Our hands were at once coarse and weak, regressive insensitive: the least trained part of our bodies. Having gone through the first fundamental experiences of play, they had learned to write, and that was all… If man is a maker, we were not More...
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Dec 09, 2008
Joshua
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Primo Levy was a chemist, a poet, and a novelist--a man of luminous imagination and spirit, despite his forced descent into darkness as an Italian Jew during World War II. This book is a memoir, with each chapter named after an element culled from the periodic table.
In each chapter, Levy's awe for the alchemical power of the chemist shines through. But he has a poet's heart rather than a chemist's sterile exactitude. The opening chapter "Argon" describes how this element i More...
In each chapter, Levy's awe for the alchemical power of the chemist shines through. But he has a poet's heart rather than a chemist's sterile exactitude. The opening chapter "Argon" describes how this element i More...
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Dec 19, 2007
itpdx
rated it:
I was looking for books that would give me an idea of what WWII was like in Italy. This was highly recommended. I agree. But I have a difficult time explaining why I like this book. Each chapter is titled with the name of an element, which plays some part in the chapter. They are written almost as essays, but they do progress in time and follow the author's life from young chemistry student to middle aged (?) chemical philosopher. But the incidents that are included all have to do with che
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(1 person liked it)
Oct 01, 2011
Emanuela
rated it:
La mia adolescenza è stata contrassegnata dallo studio della chimica. Ho avuto docenti bravi, precisi, innovativi, umani. Non posso dire altrettanto di quelli delle materie umanistiche che, ancora oggi a scuola, vedo così ottusi nei confronti delle scienze e della tecnologia.
Primo Levi è il "prof" che, raccontandoci della materia, le restituisce dimensione poetica in "UNA conoscenza" che non distingue tra classificazioni artificiose.
Tra tutti i brani spesso autobi More...
Primo Levi è il "prof" che, raccontandoci della materia, le restituisce dimensione poetica in "UNA conoscenza" che non distingue tra classificazioni artificiose.
Tra tutti i brani spesso autobi More...
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Jan 17, 2012
Katie
rated it:
The Periodic Table is Primo Levi's autobiography. Levi was an Italian chemist and engineer; he also happens to be a wonderful writer. He writes simply and powerfully, he isn't trying to prove anything, he's just trying to help you understand how it was.
The book is a group of stories from his life; all of them are related to an element (Periodic Table, get it?) In one of the most powerful stories, he is working as an engineer at a paint factory. Batches of paint are randomly congeal More...
The book is a group of stories from his life; all of them are related to an element (Periodic Table, get it?) In one of the most powerful stories, he is working as an engineer at a paint factory. Batches of paint are randomly congeal More...
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Dec 08, 2011
An odd-ball blend of autobiography and short fictions, organized around a motif that would be almost cute if Levi didn't approach everything in his life with somber, intelligent reflection. As odd as it sounds, this is exactly the sort of writing I would expect from a life-long chemist. Even when he waxes heavy on entomological minutia, (something which I think he gets from his fellow Italian, Vico), this is all clearly the product of a highly analytical mind. He barely touches on what happened
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Nov 15, 2010
Maurizio
rated it:
Come sapete, Primo Levi era ebreo, deportato ad Auschwitz dai nazisti nella seconda guerra mondiale; ha scritto di quei terribili anni in Se questo è un uomo e La tregua. Ma Levi è stato anche un chimico; e mentre la sua appartenenza razziale non l'ha certo scelta lui, quella professionale sì. E in questo libro esce appunto fuori l'inimitabile stile dello scrittore. Tecnicamente Il sistema periodico è un'autobiografia sotto forma di vari flash – tranne la parte della prigionia, visto che come lu
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Mar 11, 2009
Tim
rated it:
Primo Levi was a chemist. He was also a Jewish Italian from the Piedmont region near Turin. He was a Holocaust survior, one of the few to return from Auschwitz. Though he wrote much elsewhere of his experience in Auschwitz and of his journey home, 'The Periodic Table' takes a larger view of his life and the matter of life generally. To the extent it is self-referential, it is a work of autobiography in a narrow, conventional sense. But Levi's writing of his life exposes elements of our shared
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Nov 21, 2011
Erica
rated it: 
This book was not quite what I was expecting. It seems to be a mix of autobiographical commentary and fiction. I was expecting there to be more focus on the elements, but it was more that provided a theme (sometimes somewhat loose) for a story.
Argon: an unreactive gas that is only mentioned in the first few sentences, then a description on a variety of different characters.
Hydrogen: two teenage boys 'borrow' keys to a chem lab in a shed and have fun experimenting with glassbl More...
Argon: an unreactive gas that is only mentioned in the first few sentences, then a description on a variety of different characters.
Hydrogen: two teenage boys 'borrow' keys to a chem lab in a shed and have fun experimenting with glassbl More...
Aug 12, 2011
Dave
rated it:
Levi, in his book The Drowned and the Saved, discusses how the skills people had in their pre-lager lives might have helped them as they tried to survive in the extermination camps. Levi mentions his training as a chemist. He received a direct benefit by obtaining work at one point that was not hard physical labor and was sheltered from the elements in a chemical laboratory, but he mentions a far more subtle skill being a chemist gave him: his training as an analyst--not just physical material,
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Jul 21, 2009
Erica
rated it:
The most striking element of the novel was the verbal prowess displayed by the author. I know this is a novel in translation, but the limits to which the English language was stretched, not only in vocabulary but syntax, metaphor and punctuation absolutely floored me. Each sentence was thick with meaning. The tone betrayed the author’s primary occupation of chemist. The account of events, while by de facto emotionally charged, was written in a precise, factual manner. Also, every word had
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May 31, 2011
Jeff
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 06, 2011
Steve
rated it:
I was expecting a book about, well, the Periodic Table, instead it is a collection of partly autobiographical, partly fictitious, partly historical short chapters about individual elements through the eyes of a chemist. It is very cleverly, wittily written, though at times rambles on incoherently. The chapters occasionally relate to each other and in general are chronologically sequential, while still being self contained. Lead, Mercury and Titanium do not really fit into this narrative which le
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Apr 11, 2011
The opening essay, "Argon," is such a poignant damn thing. It's a portal into a lost world and a lost language, and into human lives that were snuffed out on principle.
This sets the tone of The Periodic Table. Primo Levi comes off, ultimately, as a damaged person. Maybe that's all he went through, but he mostly recounts his professional and romantic failures, but rarely his successes. He doesn't come off as a whiner-- rather, I think, most of us can realize how we'd r More...
This sets the tone of The Periodic Table. Primo Levi comes off, ultimately, as a damaged person. Maybe that's all he went through, but he mostly recounts his professional and romantic failures, but rarely his successes. He doesn't come off as a whiner-- rather, I think, most of us can realize how we'd r More...
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Oct 11, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
Finally, an argument in favor of being forced to read books! I hated the beginning of this and fell asleep twice during the first chapter, so I never would've kept on going if I hadn't had to for school. But The Periodic Table got progressively better then finally peaked at the end, as is my personal preference for books. I cried for like twenty minutes after I finished this, though I'm not sure if that had to do more with Primo Levi or with my own lady hormones.
In any case, though i More...
In any case, though i More...
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(11 people liked it)
May 06, 2010
Oldesq
rated it:
An unforgettable read with sardonic chemical references. Primo Levi writes about his life before and after Auschwitz, including his Piedmontese childhood, and various early jobs in the insular world of a work-bench chemist as the racial purity laws circumscribe his world with the ever increasing force of a distillation process. Each chapter of this book is named after an element on the periodic table and the story in each corresponds to the characteristics of that element. Although the author
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Nov 01, 2011
Taylor
rated it:
The translation is very well done, so the prose flow with ease. What is nice for a layman like myself is that the book isn't about chemistry explicitly (Levi even says this explicitly), but each chapter has an elemental theme (e.g. chapter one is entitled argon). It's just snippets of Levi's life as a chemist (with some fictional chapters as well). But what makes it enjoyable for me is that Levi doesn't get caught up in chemist jargon, and leave the reader in the dark. The heart of it is sim
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Aug 03, 2011
Nicholas
rated it:
Highly recommend. The best book I can remember reading (I read it in 2010 sometime), although I haven't read a great many books recently.
It recounts various episodes of the author's life and some fictional episodes using selected elements from the periodic table as a thematic structure.
Levi studied and practiced as a chemist, and spent some time in Nazi concentration camps as a working prisoner. Some of the episodes pertain to this time.
There is a light scientific, even invest More...
It recounts various episodes of the author's life and some fictional episodes using selected elements from the periodic table as a thematic structure.
Levi studied and practiced as a chemist, and spent some time in Nazi concentration camps as a working prisoner. Some of the episodes pertain to this time.
There is a light scientific, even invest More...
Aug 02, 2011
I read most of Primo Levis work years ago. Not only does he write about a critically important and increasingly distant dark period of European history but he does so with incredible literary skill. The Periodic Table has been no exception being difficult to put down once started. Each chapter relates to an element in the Periodic Table [hence the title] and is in itself self contained while still linked to the other chapters. The book has a strong autobiographical feel to it [although Levi appa
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Aug 25, 2011
Irene
rated it:
Very difficult-- almost deliberately so-- to become immersed in, but persistence here pays off. I'll have to delve a little into the criticism of this book, because beneath the surface of its beauty it is so rich in insight into the human condition (a lofty phrase but appropriate here). It's too bad I have to read it in translation, perhaps one day...
Most striking especially in the final chapters is Levi's ability to abstract from imperceptible elements such grand, beautiful ideas abou More...
Most striking especially in the final chapters is Levi's ability to abstract from imperceptible elements such grand, beautiful ideas abou More...
Feb 01, 2010
Janet
rated it:
Rock-splittingly profound and deceptively simple, this collection of short pieces, both fiction and non-fiction, by Italian-Jewish author Primo Levi, former chemist, holocaust survivor, and brilliant litterateur, is a tour de force. It centers around the chemist's alchemical art, a masterful amalgam of science memoir and metaphor, equal parts matter and meaning.
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Feb 26, 2011
Kim
rated it:
I read the Periodic Table only knowing that Levi was a chemist and a Holocaust survivor. I had not read his autobiographical works about life in Auschwitz. I'm actually glad that I read this book first because it gives such great insight into Levi's personality, especially his intelligence, ability to observe the world around him, and great love of life. You can take this understanding of him into your reading of Life in Auschwitz (original title: If This Is a Man).
In the Periodic T More...
In the Periodic T More...
Mar 27, 2010
Karen
rated it:
Profound, hard to describe, and difficult book to read as it is written by a chemist using many references to chemistry. Each chapter title is the name of an element which relates directly or indirectly to the story being told in the chapter. Most interesting is the use of elements to incorporate a story of deep meaning including understanding the universe as well as philosophy of survival and the meaning of life. The first chapter, Argon (common, inert) is his Jewish ‘family’ history. Followed
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Dec 31, 2008
Evan
rated it:
INSTRUCTIONS (for making this one of the best books you've ever read):
1. Skip the first chapter. The chapters aren't connected. Chapter One is didactic and uncharacteristic of the book. Read the rest in its entirety.
2. Read Chapter One.
YIELD: One of the best books ever.
1. Skip the first chapter. The chapters aren't connected. Chapter One is didactic and uncharacteristic of the book. Read the rest in its entirety.
2. Read Chapter One.
YIELD: One of the best books ever.
Sep 17, 2010
Courtney
rated it:
How on earth does one attempt to assess Primo Levi?
I have the feeling that 'The Periodic Table' is a book I'll return to over and over again, understanding it a little better each time. I found myself dogearing pages (a habit I've developed since starting to write these commentaries) with alarming frequency.
The first extract I marked was this, from Iron:
"Today I know that it is a hopeless task to try to dress a man in words, make him live again on the pr More...
I have the feeling that 'The Periodic Table' is a book I'll return to over and over again, understanding it a little better each time. I found myself dogearing pages (a habit I've developed since starting to write these commentaries) with alarming frequency.
The first extract I marked was this, from Iron:
"Today I know that it is a hopeless task to try to dress a man in words, make him live again on the pr More...
Feb 14, 2009
Heather
rated it:
This is somewhat tangential, but it is something I noticed with this book and have noticed with other books as well--when an author uses big words in the beginning chapters and then the use of such words fades away when, I believe, the author really begins to write. I mean those big words come from a part of the brain too caught up with thought; they seem unnatural, especially when the author doesn't sustain their use throughout the book, but, I have to admit, this doesn't necessarily bother me.
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Jul 28, 2011
Andrew
rated it:
This is a strange and compelling book and i am sure there are those out there who will give it a full rating. Basically its the author reliving aspects and episodes of his early life as a Jew and a chemist through the second world war living in Italy. Each chapter is named after an element which closely resembles the tone or key aspect of that chapter. As a chemist myself i can see many interesting aspects both in his exploits and in his career. However because they are condensed in to chapters
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Jul 13, 2010
Kelley
rated it:
A unique and original approach to revisiting a life. The author, a chemist by training, is an Italian Jew who came of age in the late 1930's and early 1940's and lived through internment in the Nazi concentration camps. He has used the characteristics of a number of elements from the periodic table to reflect on people and events in his life. Most vignettes are nonfiction and autobiographical, but several entries are very clever fiction. While an interest in and some knowledge of science is
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Apr 23, 2010
Matt
rated it: 
While I give this book 2 stars, it does have the potential for more. I must say the chapters were very cleverly written following the theme of the chapter title – an element from the periodic table. Everything just fit very well together (chapter titles, stories within the story, character personalities, etc.) – I give props to the author for being so clever in his writing. The author’s wittiness was also somewhat similar to my own, which I found welcoming (and funny). At the same time, though,
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