[.ca] The Periodic Table (ISBN 0805210415)

From Amazon.com:
Writer Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian Jew, did not come to the wide attention of the English-reading audience until the last years of his life. A survivor of the Holocaust and imprisonment in Auschwitz, Levi is considered to be one of the century's most compelling voices, and The Periodic Table is his most famous book. Springboarding from his training as a chemist, Levi uses the elements as metaphors to create a cycle of linked, somewhat autobiographical tales, including stories of the Piedmontese Jewish community he came from, and of his response to the Holocaust.

Strangely inspiring:
I started this book expecting a story of how a Jew survived the Holocaust in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. I thought that I'd read about tragedy and misfortune, but I didn't get what I expected. What I got was a tale of subtle defiance and quiet resiliency to the war that looms in the background of the book. The author hints at the drama and struggle of the war through his many short vignettes--each related to an element from the Periodic Table--but he is never overcome by it, remaining distant from the events, submitting helplessly to the way things were, but looking brightly toward the future. This was altogether a very interesting book. Strangely inspiring, aloof but aware, it provided me a view of the second world war that I never would have imagined.

Sensational!!! Deserves 10 stars:
I read this book for the first time about five years ago, but since then I've read it many times (and as a matter of fact, all Primo Levi's books). The special thing about THE PERIODIC TABLE is that brings the joy of life ans science, and also of lecture, to everyone who reads it. I know this is the greatest book ever written: it's simplicity deserves every acclamation.

Science for Humanity:
Levi is one of my heroes - a scientist who overcame a horrific life experience (the Holocaust camp experience), losing friends and relatives yet did not become bitter or carry his anger for ages. The writer is the face of Western humanism and his Jewish Italian roots seem to make him almost humble in tone. The idea of naming each chapter after an element then creating a life story around it is exactly the kind of writing to which I and apparently many others are drawn. Besides dispensing scientific facts along the way, Levi teaches us the meaning of life and living and even humor. One of the best and most approachable "science" books around.

Primo Levi's way out book:
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is quite a fascinating book. Although the first chapter is slow (as pointed out in other reviews) the other chapters are pretty interesting. Although only one chapter directly relates to Auschwitz there is another about Primo's involvement with the partisans in Italy (including the bit about the gun he doesn't know how to use), and a very interesting chapter called Vanadium which is the second last chapter. This chapter is based on Primo's dealings with a German chemist (Dr Muller) in 1967. Dr Muller was a head of the Buna Rubber plant at Auschwitz where Primo worked. Basically Primo has business dealings with this person as well as personal correspondence although it's not as insightful as you might think because by Primo's own admission Dr Muller does not make a perfect protagonist because he was a civilian (business chief of Buna which was part of IG Farben I believe) and not a member of the SS, and therefore Primo realises that he won't get answers to questions like "Why Auschwitz?" (Although Primo corresponding with one of the butchers of Auschwitz could be a bit too weird). Nonetheless Primo's dealings with this person are very complex/interesting/multilayered/etc. The tale about the centuries long journey of a carbon atom from being part of limestone to being part of Primo's brain is pretty way out too.

Disturbing and Trivial:
I happened to read this book shortly after reading a book about a character struggling to come to terms with his wife's suicide (from depression) - 'The Dogs of Babel'. And that made me wonder about the signs the character had missed in his wife's decline that lead to her suicide. Should he have seen them? Did the writer plot them into the story in a meaningful way? Did I miss them? So I got off to a bad start with 'The Periodic Table' when I read that Promo Levi ended his life in suicide. Should I try and see the indicators in this novel that were pointing to that - as it turned out - inevitability? What a task to put on oneself! Much of 'The Periodic Table' is entertaining in the quirky way of modern fiction; quirky and annoying for me. Even trivial. It may be interesting to learn a bit about a chemist's occupation, especially a chemist of the past, but this does seem to be an artifice to carry the novel - unless it carries some deeper allegory. And allegory is important for me here. I have a story to tell myself but I will not tell it the way survivors of Auschwitz keep telling theirs. I need an allegory and I have yet to find a satisfactory one. I don't doubt that we did need stories of Auschwitz to inform the world - stories from survivors, stories from workers in the camps, stories from the liberators, even imagined stories from those who did not survive. But 'The Periodic Table' was written in 1975 by an author who had already written of his experiences. It seems to me that this is too late to keep telling the stories - it is time for allegories. 'What happened to me is described elsewhere (p122)' is an annoying quote for me. I also take issue at comments like 'so this is what it meant to be different: this was the price for being the salt of the earth (p104)'. I don't doubt that Jewishness does carry a weight that imposes especially on young people. And Jews like Levi experienced terrible times. But then so did Gypsies, so do people in today's times in many places all over the world. For me everyone is 'different' and has to accomodate their own special differentness and cope with the constraints it imposes on them. Finally, I return to the matter of Levi's suicide (and you can probably guess that the whole notion of suicide is anathema to me, inconceivable - but perhaps I am lucky in that). There is no doubt that the best chapter for me in this book was the second last one in which Auschwitz does impose on the time of Levi's writing in an entirely justifiable way. I leave it to the reader of this review to decide for themselves when they read the chapter if they can see any pointers to the author's suicide. Other recommendations: Schubert's song cycle 'Die Winterreise'