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The Complete Works of Primo Levi
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and Library Journal
A Holiday Gift Guide Selection in the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsday
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection The Complete Works of Primo Levi , which includes seminal works like If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table , finally gathers all fourteen of Levi’s books―memoirs, essays, poetry, commentary, and fiction―into three slipcased volumes. Primo Levi, the Italian-born chemist once described by Philip Roth as that “quicksilver little woodland creature enlivened by the forest’s most astute intelligence,” has largely been considered a heroic figure in the annals of twentieth-century literature for If This Is a Man , his haunting account of Auschwitz. Yet Levi’s body of work extends considerably beyond his experience as a survivor. Now, the transformation of Levi from Holocaust memoirist to one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers culminates in this publication of The Complete Works of Primo Levi . This magisterial collection finally gathers all of Levi’s fourteen books―memoirs, essays, poetry, and fiction―into three slip-cased volumes. Thirteen of the books feature new translations, and the other is newly revised by the original translator. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison introduces Levi’s writing as a “triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction.” The appearance of this historic publication will occasion a major reappraisal of “one of the most valuable writers of our time” (Alfred Kazin). The Complete Works of Primo Levi features all new translations The Periodic Table, The Drowned and the Saved, The Truce, Natural Histories, Flaw of Form, The Wrench, Lilith, Other People’s Trades , and If Not Now, When? ―as well as all of Levi’s poems, essays, and other nonfiction work, some of which have never appeared before in English.
Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and Library Journal
A Holiday Gift Guide Selection in the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsday
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection The Complete Works of Primo Levi , which includes seminal works like If This Is a Man and The Periodic Table , finally gathers all fourteen of Levi’s books―memoirs, essays, poetry, commentary, and fiction―into three slipcased volumes. Primo Levi, the Italian-born chemist once described by Philip Roth as that “quicksilver little woodland creature enlivened by the forest’s most astute intelligence,” has largely been considered a heroic figure in the annals of twentieth-century literature for If This Is a Man , his haunting account of Auschwitz. Yet Levi’s body of work extends considerably beyond his experience as a survivor. Now, the transformation of Levi from Holocaust memoirist to one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers culminates in this publication of The Complete Works of Primo Levi . This magisterial collection finally gathers all of Levi’s fourteen books―memoirs, essays, poetry, and fiction―into three slip-cased volumes. Thirteen of the books feature new translations, and the other is newly revised by the original translator. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison introduces Levi’s writing as a “triumph of human identity and worth over the pathology of human destruction.” The appearance of this historic publication will occasion a major reappraisal of “one of the most valuable writers of our time” (Alfred Kazin). The Complete Works of Primo Levi features all new translations The Periodic Table, The Drowned and the Saved, The Truce, Natural Histories, Flaw of Form, The Wrench, Lilith, Other People’s Trades , and If Not Now, When? ―as well as all of Levi’s poems, essays, and other nonfiction work, some of which have never appeared before in English.
3008 pages, Hardcover
First published September 3, 2015
About the author
Primo Levi
156 books1,938 followersPrimo Michele Levi (Italian: [ˈpriːmo ˈlɛːvi]) was a chemist and writer, the author of books, novels, short stories, essays, and poems. His unique 1975 work, The Periodic Table, linked to qualities of the elements, was named by the Royal Institution of Great Britain as the best science book ever written.
Levi spent eleven months imprisoned at Monowitz, one of the three main camps in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex (record number: 174,517) before the camp was liberated by the Red Army on 18 January 1945. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his transport, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive.
The Primo Levi Center, dedicated "to studying the history and culture of Italian Jewry," was named in his honor.
Levi spent eleven months imprisoned at Monowitz, one of the three main camps in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex (record number: 174,517) before the camp was liberated by the Red Army on 18 January 1945. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his transport, Levi was one of only twenty who left the camps alive.
The Primo Levi Center, dedicated "to studying the history and culture of Italian Jewry," was named in his honor.
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September 2, 2021
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May 7, 2024I had not read anything by Primo Levi until this collection of his complete writings. Whatever little I previously knew about him was based on his first book, If This Is A Man, his autobiographical remembrance of surviving Auschwitz. I mistakenly thought that his writing focused on the Holocaust. It does, but it expands into all the things that inspire him, a survivor, a chemist, a philosopher, a historian, an Italian, a Jew, a husband, a speculator that somewhat distills into science fiction. He writing was indeed, as was often said about the music of Duke Ellington, beyond category.
Volume Two:
The Periodic Table
I still have two-thirds of his completed works to get to, but nothing so far underscores the baffling descriptions of The Periodic Table as reading summaries on Amazon and Goodreads. One would be led to believe that this is an autobiographical work and “an impassioned response to the Holocaust.” Don’t let this fool you, it is a collection of short stories, reminiscences, speculations, and most of all, tangents. There is no guiding theme other than the naming of each chapter after a chemical element. Where those stories lead really have nothing to do with each other than that.
Some have profound sociopolitical commentary:
The Wrench
I was into four stories of this collection before figuring out what was going on. As the translator explains in his summary notes, these stories are about work,
Uncollected Stories and Essays: 1949-1980
We are back to a more Auschwitz-focused collection of uncollected stories and essays. It seems many of the later pieces are written for a regular column Levi had in La Stampa, a Turinese newspaper. Refuting and expressing exasperation about a growing denialism of the Holocaust itself, which had a moment in the late 1970s/early 1980s, became an overriding theme. And surely, fewer readers associated him with the writer of short stories about science fiction, work, or growing up. These are a great way to see a less practiced and edited Levi.
Lilith and Other Stories
One of the many beauties of these collected works is seeing the writer, Primo Levi, desperately trying to carve his identity apart from Primo Levi, the man. And I think there are two major parts to this writer. One, like the unwelcome wedding guest in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , feels compelled by history and responsibility to share both his experiences and insights, either through essays or episodic short stories. The other has no rules; he wants to share his fascination of chemistry, people he knows or experiences he has, and see where his speculations take him. This one is not bound by any duty other than that of the writer and a broad sampler of how Levi’s intellect is both wide and articulate. Very enjoyable.
If Not Now, When?
Along the way they link and separate with other groups, experience tragedies, minor triumphs, the foibles of human relationships before finally making their way to an empty rail car to take the thirty-or-so survivors to Italy. Having been forced to fight and live beyond the margins of society for years, assimilating to normalcy can only be achieved by arriving in Palestine. We are confident that they will, although it will be a different type of struggle awaiting them.
Next up:
Volume Three:
Collected Poems
Other People's Trades
Stories and Essays
The Drowned and the Saved
Uncollected Stories and Essays: 1981-1987
Volume One:
If This Is A Man
Levi's account of being torn from Turin before ending up in one of Auschwitz's satellite camps is preferable to most of the first-person narratives coming out of this era. I find it especially more enlightening than, for example, Elie Wiesel's Night. Levi describes what happened to him and him alone. He does not speculate or draw vast conclusions about humanity. His is an account of the grim day-to-day realities of life in the camp. He describes only what he sees and experiences. And frankly, even that, at times, is almost too much for the reader to bear. All in all, one of the more satisfying, if that is the right word, and enlightening works of concentration camp literature.
The Truce
Picking up from the liberation of Auschwitz, Levi recounts the roundabout, frustrating, and illogical trip back to Turin. Mostly forgotten among the stories of the liberation of concentration camps are the stories of what actually happened to the those freed. Many had the "rationality" of be being shuttled to and resettled through displacement camps, or as they were known at the time, DP camps. But most were left to their own devices and efforts, and the struggle to survive was as disconcerting and unsettling as life in the camps. Many died anonymous deaths, some never made it home and made do with what fate left them. Others, like Levi, lived by their wits, traveled and survived individual odysseys worthy of epic mythology, and reached their destinations in anti-climatic normalcy. Another understated classic of post-World War II writing.
Natural Histories
I had been aware of Levi as a writer of Holocaust survival. Until reading this collection of short stories, I had no idea of the inventiveness, the far-sightedness of his creative intellect. These stories are a complete departure from the previous two entries of this collection. Written in the 1960s, Levi has a crystal ball view, more science than fiction when read with hindsight, of his future and, as a reader in the early 21st century, our present. Many of the stories revolve around a salesman in Italy, a Mr. Simpson, who works for a far off American firm based in Ft. Kidawanee, Oklahoma. His company invents and manufactures items like machines that make copies of anything. One colleague modifies it to make a perfect copy of his wife, which leads to problems, but not as the reader might first imagine. The gadgets coming out of the home office disturb life and make the reader question if they are "improvements" or curses. Much like the reality of things we now take for granted, the frustrating mechanical and social inventions we couldn't imagine thirty years ago that are now part of the fabric of our personal and social lives.
Flaw of Form
This collection of short stories is the unquestionable highlight of Volume One of Levi's collected writings. It picks up the themes from the previous collection about changing technologies and their impact on individuals and society. But these are somehow deeper, some written from the perspective of civilizations, both terrestrial and beyond, to become about more than technology. They are social commentary which questions and conclusions not based in any era. A couple of the stories require repeated readings and reminders to read again in future years. Not for their complexity, but for their deep profundity.
Volume Two:
The Periodic Table
I still have two-thirds of his completed works to get to, but nothing so far underscores the baffling descriptions of The Periodic Table as reading summaries on Amazon and Goodreads. One would be led to believe that this is an autobiographical work and “an impassioned response to the Holocaust.” Don’t let this fool you, it is a collection of short stories, reminiscences, speculations, and most of all, tangents. There is no guiding theme other than the naming of each chapter after a chemical element. Where those stories lead really have nothing to do with each other than that.
Some have profound sociopolitical commentary:
This Bortolasso was a middle-aged laborer, strong as a mule and dirty as a boar. He couldn’t have been a pure idiot: it’s more likely that he belonged to that human type of which it’s said in Piedmont that they play the fool in order not to pay taxes. Sheltered by the immunity granted to the weak of mind, Bortolasso performed his job as a gardener with extreme negligence. It was a negligence that bordered on a primitive astuteness: all right, the world had declared him irresponsible, no it must put up with him as such, in fact provide for and take care of him.Perhaps the most endearing is a story about a prehistoric wanderer who has a gift of finding and manipulating lead as he shares it with the world during his travels. And of the few truly autobiographical stories is one about being in Italy after Mussolini fell and before he was sent to Auschwitz, when he described the real effects of fascism, a timely lesson for today:
To write melancholy, crepuscular poems, and not even very good ones, while the world was in flames, seemed to us neither strange nor shameful: we proclaimed ourselves enemies of fascism, but in fact fascism had worked in us, as in almost all Italians, alienating us and making us superficial, passive, and cynical.And his thoughts about what the administrative, bureaucratic trivialities of working do to us, often without our cognition, become literary:
.…at that time I hadn’t yet become acquainted with the frightening anesthetic power of company papers, their capacity to hamper, muffle, blunt every flash of intuition and every spark of intelligence.As one who never really “got” science, Levi goes on to write with a passion about chemistry, had I been exposed to it as a young person, still wouldn’t have led me to study science, but it would have sparked a respect for the beauty and poetry behind it. Much like, as one who is not a musician, the sounds of Duke Ellington and the music that inspired him have meant so much to me.
The Wrench
I was into four stories of this collection before figuring out what was going on. As the translator explains in his summary notes, these stories are about work,
Work is fiction’s greatest blind spot. Work occupies more of our hours than sleep, love, and family, yet it’s rare to find a novel that takes as its main subject the daily routines, obligations and petty indignities that consume most of our lives…The earliest novels, written by people wealthy enough not to have to work, tended to be about the lives of people wealthy enough not to have to work. The subject of work has been largely avoided ever since…This is a fun collection, mostly consisting of extended monologues of his colleague, Faussone, a construction specialist who gets to travel the world. I get the sense that Levi used this as a writing exercise, to force himself within certain literary constraints. Not classic literature, but an interesting addition to a comprehensive anthology.
Uncollected Stories and Essays: 1949-1980
We are back to a more Auschwitz-focused collection of uncollected stories and essays. It seems many of the later pieces are written for a regular column Levi had in La Stampa, a Turinese newspaper. Refuting and expressing exasperation about a growing denialism of the Holocaust itself, which had a moment in the late 1970s/early 1980s, became an overriding theme. And surely, fewer readers associated him with the writer of short stories about science fiction, work, or growing up. These are a great way to see a less practiced and edited Levi.
Lilith and Other Stories
One of the many beauties of these collected works is seeing the writer, Primo Levi, desperately trying to carve his identity apart from Primo Levi, the man. And I think there are two major parts to this writer. One, like the unwelcome wedding guest in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner , feels compelled by history and responsibility to share both his experiences and insights, either through essays or episodic short stories. The other has no rules; he wants to share his fascination of chemistry, people he knows or experiences he has, and see where his speculations take him. This one is not bound by any duty other than that of the writer and a broad sampler of how Levi’s intellect is both wide and articulate. Very enjoyable.
If Not Now, When?
“Come to think of it, you look Jewish, too. We’ve seen some strange things, but this beats them all: a band of Jews wandering around Poland with weapons stolen from the Poles, passing themselves off as partisans, the sons of bitches!”How is it possible that this, Levi’s only novel, has never come to my attention before? That it hasn’t been made into a movie? Perhaps because it was published in the early 1980s. Had it been in the 1960s, it would have fit in nicely with WWII-themed movies of the decade; Richard Burton or Clint Eastwood and a bunch of other stock actors come to mind. And it’s a story that few know about. Small gangs of partisans fighting invading Nazis and collaborating locals. In this case it’s in the closing year of the war and the first months of peace and an amalgamation of Jews as they make their way from Russia to Italy in hopes of one day making it to Palestine.
Along the way they link and separate with other groups, experience tragedies, minor triumphs, the foibles of human relationships before finally making their way to an empty rail car to take the thirty-or-so survivors to Italy. Having been forced to fight and live beyond the margins of society for years, assimilating to normalcy can only be achieved by arriving in Palestine. We are confident that they will, although it will be a different type of struggle awaiting them.
Next up:
Volume Three:
Collected Poems
Other People's Trades
Stories and Essays
The Drowned and the Saved
Uncollected Stories and Essays: 1981-1987
Volume One:
If This Is A Man
Levi's account of being torn from Turin before ending up in one of Auschwitz's satellite camps is preferable to most of the first-person narratives coming out of this era. I find it especially more enlightening than, for example, Elie Wiesel's Night. Levi describes what happened to him and him alone. He does not speculate or draw vast conclusions about humanity. His is an account of the grim day-to-day realities of life in the camp. He describes only what he sees and experiences. And frankly, even that, at times, is almost too much for the reader to bear. All in all, one of the more satisfying, if that is the right word, and enlightening works of concentration camp literature.
The Truce
Picking up from the liberation of Auschwitz, Levi recounts the roundabout, frustrating, and illogical trip back to Turin. Mostly forgotten among the stories of the liberation of concentration camps are the stories of what actually happened to the those freed. Many had the "rationality" of be being shuttled to and resettled through displacement camps, or as they were known at the time, DP camps. But most were left to their own devices and efforts, and the struggle to survive was as disconcerting and unsettling as life in the camps. Many died anonymous deaths, some never made it home and made do with what fate left them. Others, like Levi, lived by their wits, traveled and survived individual odysseys worthy of epic mythology, and reached their destinations in anti-climatic normalcy. Another understated classic of post-World War II writing.
Natural Histories
I had been aware of Levi as a writer of Holocaust survival. Until reading this collection of short stories, I had no idea of the inventiveness, the far-sightedness of his creative intellect. These stories are a complete departure from the previous two entries of this collection. Written in the 1960s, Levi has a crystal ball view, more science than fiction when read with hindsight, of his future and, as a reader in the early 21st century, our present. Many of the stories revolve around a salesman in Italy, a Mr. Simpson, who works for a far off American firm based in Ft. Kidawanee, Oklahoma. His company invents and manufactures items like machines that make copies of anything. One colleague modifies it to make a perfect copy of his wife, which leads to problems, but not as the reader might first imagine. The gadgets coming out of the home office disturb life and make the reader question if they are "improvements" or curses. Much like the reality of things we now take for granted, the frustrating mechanical and social inventions we couldn't imagine thirty years ago that are now part of the fabric of our personal and social lives.
Flaw of Form
This collection of short stories is the unquestionable highlight of Volume One of Levi's collected writings. It picks up the themes from the previous collection about changing technologies and their impact on individuals and society. But these are somehow deeper, some written from the perspective of civilizations, both terrestrial and beyond, to become about more than technology. They are social commentary which questions and conclusions not based in any era. A couple of the stories require repeated readings and reminders to read again in future years. Not for their complexity, but for their deep profundity.
September 29, 2015
The Complete Works of Primo Levi is a very highly recommended three volume set of the works of Primo Levy. Years in the making, this set represents a monumental endeavor and fitting tribute to Primo Levy. This is the definitive English translation collection.
Known to English-speaking readers mainly for his writings on the Holocaust, Primo Levy "did not want to be characterized only as a Holocaust writer, and the label does him a regrettable injustice, for he was also a prolific writer of stories, essays, novels, and poems, on a wide range of scientific, literary, and autobiographical subjects."
As the introduction from the editor says, "These new volumes, by presenting Levi in all his facets, will enable English-speaking readers to encounter for the first time the entire range of his versatile, inventive, curious, crystalline intelligence, will enable English-speaking readers to enrich their knowledge of Levi. In doing so, they will discover a writer they may not have known, one whom Italo Calvino called among 'the most important and gifted writers of our time.'" The volumes are arrange chronologically and contain many works that were hard to find or previously left untranslated into English. There are notes from the translators after many of the selections.
The three volumes include:
VOLUME I
Editor's Introduction
Ann Goldstein Chronology
Ernesto Ferrero Editor's Acknowledgments
1. IF THIS IS A MAN Translated by Stuart Woolf
2. THE TRUCE Translated by Ann Goldstein
3. NATURAL HISTORIES Translated by Jenny McPhee
4. FLAW OF FORM Translated by Jenny McPhee
VOLUME II
1. THE PERIODIC TABLE Translated by Ann Goldstein
2. THE WRENCH Translated by Nathaniel Rich
3. UNCOLLECTED STORIES AND ESSAYS: 1949-1980 Translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli
4. LILITH Translated by Ann Goldstein
5. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? Translated by Antony Shugaar
VOLUME III
1. COMPLETE POEMS Translated by Jonathan Galassi
2. OTHER PEOPLE'S TRADES Translated by Antony Shugaar
3. STORIES AND ESSAYS Translated by Anne M. Appel
4. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED Translated by Michael Moore
5. UNCOLLECTED STORIES AND ESSAYS: 1981-1987 Translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli
Primo Levi in America
Robert Weil Notes on the Texts
Domenico Scarpa About the Translators
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Liveright Publishing for review purposes.
Known to English-speaking readers mainly for his writings on the Holocaust, Primo Levy "did not want to be characterized only as a Holocaust writer, and the label does him a regrettable injustice, for he was also a prolific writer of stories, essays, novels, and poems, on a wide range of scientific, literary, and autobiographical subjects."
As the introduction from the editor says, "These new volumes, by presenting Levi in all his facets, will enable English-speaking readers to encounter for the first time the entire range of his versatile, inventive, curious, crystalline intelligence, will enable English-speaking readers to enrich their knowledge of Levi. In doing so, they will discover a writer they may not have known, one whom Italo Calvino called among 'the most important and gifted writers of our time.'" The volumes are arrange chronologically and contain many works that were hard to find or previously left untranslated into English. There are notes from the translators after many of the selections.
The three volumes include:
VOLUME I
Editor's Introduction
Ann Goldstein Chronology
Ernesto Ferrero Editor's Acknowledgments
1. IF THIS IS A MAN Translated by Stuart Woolf
2. THE TRUCE Translated by Ann Goldstein
3. NATURAL HISTORIES Translated by Jenny McPhee
4. FLAW OF FORM Translated by Jenny McPhee
VOLUME II
1. THE PERIODIC TABLE Translated by Ann Goldstein
2. THE WRENCH Translated by Nathaniel Rich
3. UNCOLLECTED STORIES AND ESSAYS: 1949-1980 Translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli
4. LILITH Translated by Ann Goldstein
5. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? Translated by Antony Shugaar
VOLUME III
1. COMPLETE POEMS Translated by Jonathan Galassi
2. OTHER PEOPLE'S TRADES Translated by Antony Shugaar
3. STORIES AND ESSAYS Translated by Anne M. Appel
4. THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED Translated by Michael Moore
5. UNCOLLECTED STORIES AND ESSAYS: 1981-1987 Translated by Alessandra Bastagli and Francesco Bastagli
Primo Levi in America
Robert Weil Notes on the Texts
Domenico Scarpa About the Translators
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Liveright Publishing for review purposes.
April 15, 2017
This three-volume set presents Levi’s entire body of published work: his recollections of life before, during and after his incarceration in the Buchenwald Lager; his fiction, including his novel If Not Now, When? and his science fiction short stories; his poetry; and a great deal of other stories, essays, book reviews and letters. For someone like me, who has for years venerated Levi's writings on life in the camps and their aftermath along with his science-memoir masterpiece The Periodic Table, this collection reveals the astonishing breadth of Levi's literary output.
Perhaps most interestingly for those searching for ways to know Levi, the set includes many published and unpublished letters. For example, Levi addresses the misguided question "why was there no resistance in the camps?” (in fact, amazingly, there were acts of resistance, both violent and more subtle, but the question would not be asked by anyone who understood the conditions of the Lagers). The core of Levi's work remains the incomparable If This Is A Man, supplemented by The Truce and The Drowned and The Saved. Start with these, and enjoy Levi's unsentimental, clear, beautiful descriptions of a monstrous world:
Perhaps most interestingly for those searching for ways to know Levi, the set includes many published and unpublished letters. For example, Levi addresses the misguided question "why was there no resistance in the camps?” (in fact, amazingly, there were acts of resistance, both violent and more subtle, but the question would not be asked by anyone who understood the conditions of the Lagers). The core of Levi's work remains the incomparable If This Is A Man, supplemented by The Truce and The Drowned and The Saved. Start with these, and enjoy Levi's unsentimental, clear, beautiful descriptions of a monstrous world:
To reenter Bude, we have to cross a space cluttered with piles of girders and metal frames. The steel cable of a winch cuts across our path, and Alex [the Kapo in charge of Levi's Kommando or squad of prisoners] grabs hold of it to climb over: Donnerwetter, he looks at his hand, black with thick grease. In the meantime I have joined him. Without hatred and without contempt, Alex wipes his hand on my shoulder, both the palm and the back of the hand, to clean it; he would be amazed, the innocent brute Alex, if someone told him that today I judge him on the basis of this action, him and Pannwitz and the innumerable others like him, great and small, in Auschwitz and everywhere.
Currently reading
September 8, 2020So far I've read:
– The Drowned and The Saved
– The Wrench
– If Not Now, When?
– Natural Histories
– Collected Poems
– If This Is a Man
– The Truce
– Flaw of Form
– Other People's Trades
– The Periodic Table
– The Drowned and The Saved
– The Wrench
– If Not Now, When?
– Natural Histories
– Collected Poems
– If This Is a Man
– The Truce
– Flaw of Form
– Other People's Trades
– The Periodic Table
September 29, 2019
I might right a more formal review later, but for now - you can see why he was such a great writer. I love that he embraces Sci-Fi as well as the short stories that are interviews with animals.
The poetry is good too.
Toni Morrison's intro is her standard brilliance.
The poetry is good too.
Toni Morrison's intro is her standard brilliance.
March 3, 2016
Levi was a survivor of Auschwitz who lived in Italy and worked as a chemist by training and profession much of his life. I read and highly recommend 4 pieces from Levi's 2500 pages of complete works: If this is a Man, The Truce, The Periodic Table, and Drowned and the Saved. Much of his work provides a calm (dispassionate?) yet moving account of his year's imprisonment and more general reflections on Nazi Germany and human nature.
The details and minor anecdotes he provides are memorable--to give one example, many of the prisoners spoke little or no German and were thereby at a disadvantage because their failure to comprehend order barked at them by the authorities were often met with various degrees of violence.
The Truce is the story of Levi's circuitous and lengthy journey (with others) back to Italy after liberation by the Russians which, remarkably went through the Ukraine and Hungary. It reminds me of the uncertainties and perils faced by current Mideast refugees.
An intriguing postscript--Levi may or may not have committed suicide in 1987 when he went over the staircase of his 4th floor apartment where he was born and lived most of his life. Google New Yorker Primo Levi for a more complete review of his works.
The details and minor anecdotes he provides are memorable--to give one example, many of the prisoners spoke little or no German and were thereby at a disadvantage because their failure to comprehend order barked at them by the authorities were often met with various degrees of violence.
The Truce is the story of Levi's circuitous and lengthy journey (with others) back to Italy after liberation by the Russians which, remarkably went through the Ukraine and Hungary. It reminds me of the uncertainties and perils faced by current Mideast refugees.
An intriguing postscript--Levi may or may not have committed suicide in 1987 when he went over the staircase of his 4th floor apartment where he was born and lived most of his life. Google New Yorker Primo Levi for a more complete review of his works.
September 26, 2016
Primo Levi's short stories were excellent reads, as were his poems. I was surprised to see he had written as many poems as he did.
His science fiction stories were fantastic, IMO, and I found a bit of humor within some of them. As always, his stories leave one to ponder the content, including his science fiction stories.
Whether metaphysical, theological, transcendental, or otherwise, I recommend The Complete Works of Primo Levi.
His science fiction stories were fantastic, IMO, and I found a bit of humor within some of them. As always, his stories leave one to ponder the content, including his science fiction stories.
Whether metaphysical, theological, transcendental, or otherwise, I recommend The Complete Works of Primo Levi.
Read
November 24, 2015Review by Martin Green for the Jewish Book Council.
September 29, 2017
OK i didn't read the ENTIRE works, but I did read the main novels which was my main aim here. I really enjoyed the Holocaust ones, and the Periodic Table is brilliant.
Want to read
December 20, 2019One hundred years after the birth of Primo Levi, the Italian chemist, writer and Holocaust survivor, his work remains as powerful as ever.
Famous for his book If This Is a Man (or Survival in Auschwitz) — a searing account of the year he spent in a Nazi death camp — he is also widely admired for his idiosyncratic literary memoir, The Periodic Table, which was named the best science book ever written by The Royal Institution of Great Britain. In 2015, his writing was newly translated and published in The Complete Works of Primo Levi, a three-volume set edited by Ann Goldstein with an introduction by Toni Morrison.
Famous for his book If This Is a Man (or Survival in Auschwitz) — a searing account of the year he spent in a Nazi death camp — he is also widely admired for his idiosyncratic literary memoir, The Periodic Table, which was named the best science book ever written by The Royal Institution of Great Britain. In 2015, his writing was newly translated and published in The Complete Works of Primo Levi, a three-volume set edited by Ann Goldstein with an introduction by Toni Morrison.
September 15, 2019
This is a brilliant discovery, Primo Levi and his collected works. The anchors of the book include: If This is a Man, The Truce, If Not Now, When?, and the Periodic Table. There is also a vast collection of poems, essays, letters, criticism and other works by Primo Levi.
If This Is A Man was his first and most popular work. It is a touchstone entry in the annals of the Holocaust record, along with Elie Wiesel's Night, Olga Lengyel's Five Chimneys, and Hermann Langbein's definitive People in Auschwitz. If This is a Man is a harrowing yet reflective narrative on Levi's time in Auschwitz. His touch is objective and light, underscoring a flinty resolve to capture the experience for all of posterity. It covers his capture as a two-bit “partisan” , the journey to Auschwitz, and internment in the Lager until liberation by the Soviets. He glosses over nothing: the daily humiliations, wanton murder and destruction, savagery of the SS men, block leaders, and other functionaries. Levi admits early that he was not special and would almost certainly not have survived without the aid of good luck. He gained employment at the IG Farben Works at Buna, an indoor job that provided some respite from backbreaking hard labor and scant clothing that typically meant death within weeks or months of Jews arriving at Auschwitz. He also credits his life to the fortuitous meeting with Lorenzo, a fellow Italian worker who provided an extra ration of bread to Levi every day for six months. It’s hard to overstate how seminal this book is, and for good reason. It’s one of the major works in existence that captures the experience at Auschwitz. It’s accurate, objective and excellently authored, a categorical classic in the genre.
The Truce turns out to be a rollicking tale of his time between liberation in Auschwitz and a circuitous arrival back home to Turin, Italy. It's probably Levi's best work but his is a high standard throughout the collected works. His recall and powers of observation of his fellow travelers are in peak form here; think Chaucer's Canterbury Tales albeit a voyage conducted in the shadow of the Holocaust. That dread followed him home to Turin when Levi wakes from "a dream within a dream", with all devolving into the Lager--it's a dream that may very well have literally followed him to the grave.
If Not Now, When?, is a fictional work that follows in tone the aforementioned works and tells the story of Jewish partisans who manage to resist, survive the War, and contemplate establishing themselves in the new State of Israel. It's a serviceable narrative; the pace is a bit maudlin but with interesting characters and an inspiring storyline. The book is still a welcome reminder of the often-overlooked Jewish resistance throughout the Holocaust and is not out of place here.
The Periodic Table is a sterling piece of work that stands apart from most of Levi's collected works. A career chemist by trade, Levi links chemical elements to significant events in his life, most of them autobiographical and bearing increasing relation to his trials leading up to internment in Auschwitz. Every story isn't linked directly to this experience but there hangs about most of the entries a residue of inexorable melancholy. Like most of Primo's prose, these stories are crisply written in such a way that in lesser works might induce a brisk reading pace but his purposeful and precise diction startle the reader into re-reading lines. In one of the more arresting stories, perhaps the best of them all, "Iron", Primo comments about his friend, the martyred Sandro, and his rugged outdoor ability and reticent manner, "It seemed that, as with climbing, no one had taught him to speak; he spoke the way nobody speaks, saying only the essence of things"; this is story telling of the highest order. Most of these stories are heartbreaking; the aforementioned "Iron" and "Cerium" may compel one to weep. "Phosphorus" is absolutely exhilarating; Giulia, Levi's crush is a whirlwind and the story, in the space of a few pages, has the range and sweep of an epic but like most things in the late 30's/early 40's, is cut short by the Third Reich.
Included are also collected poems, which often speak to dire feelings and reflections. Levi’s verses are even more incisive than his prose (which is saying something), and he seems only to have resorted to poetry when prose simply wouldn't do. Of course, much of this subject matter has to do with the misery, alienation, death, and Destruction at the ends of the earth--the German concentration camps. In "Buna 1" Levi is unquestionably speaking of the endless, gray death of the masses in the gas chambers, millions ground down by unspeakable hostilities and cruelties. "Gray companion, you were a strong man/A woman traveled next to you/Empty comrade who has no more name . . . If we were to meet again/Up in the sweet world under the sun/With what face would we confront each other?" In February 25, 19441, he writes, "I'd like to believe something beyond/Beyond death destroyed you"; the notes state that this might have been a poem to a beloved also from Turin who perished at Auschwitz in Oct '44. The poems are generally suffused with longing, despair, and death even. They can make for difficult, but what ought to be, required reading.
As stated, there are vast amounts of letters, essays, stories, and even books (The Wrench) that Primo Levi left to us, gratefully compiled here in the Completed Works. They are all-important and warrant reading, study, and reflection. Added to that, his works are less written than crafted. Here and there one will read critics that state Primo Levi was not a great writer, on the order of, say, a Hemmingway, Norman Mailer, etc. That opinion is certainly debatable but Levi was a writer with different things to say and I'm not sure that anyone else could have bested him in that regard. Levi documented his experience in the worst man-made destruction that has ever befallen humanity and felt compelled to make a record of it, not only for himself, but for the millions of victims and all of posterity. He captured the merciless prosecutors of this crime at Auschwitz, the conniving, thieving, murderous members of the Third Reich. Somehow he managed to do it almost dispassionately, with the rigor of his scientific mind, the better to take an accurate measure of the scope and scale of this crime against all of humanity in If This Is A Man. In subsequent writings, his narrative ability, intelligence, humility, wit and even humor remained as sharp as ever in documenting the human experience at its best, its worst, and all that is in between. The Collected Works by Primo Levi are a credit to him, and thankfully, remain a gift to us, one of the most gifted minds of his or any generation. Speaking of gifted minds, as an added treat to this singular collection from Primo Levi, we get an introduction from the legendary, dearly parted, Pulitzer Prize winning Toni Morrison. They both are resting in good company.
If This Is A Man was his first and most popular work. It is a touchstone entry in the annals of the Holocaust record, along with Elie Wiesel's Night, Olga Lengyel's Five Chimneys, and Hermann Langbein's definitive People in Auschwitz. If This is a Man is a harrowing yet reflective narrative on Levi's time in Auschwitz. His touch is objective and light, underscoring a flinty resolve to capture the experience for all of posterity. It covers his capture as a two-bit “partisan” , the journey to Auschwitz, and internment in the Lager until liberation by the Soviets. He glosses over nothing: the daily humiliations, wanton murder and destruction, savagery of the SS men, block leaders, and other functionaries. Levi admits early that he was not special and would almost certainly not have survived without the aid of good luck. He gained employment at the IG Farben Works at Buna, an indoor job that provided some respite from backbreaking hard labor and scant clothing that typically meant death within weeks or months of Jews arriving at Auschwitz. He also credits his life to the fortuitous meeting with Lorenzo, a fellow Italian worker who provided an extra ration of bread to Levi every day for six months. It’s hard to overstate how seminal this book is, and for good reason. It’s one of the major works in existence that captures the experience at Auschwitz. It’s accurate, objective and excellently authored, a categorical classic in the genre.
The Truce turns out to be a rollicking tale of his time between liberation in Auschwitz and a circuitous arrival back home to Turin, Italy. It's probably Levi's best work but his is a high standard throughout the collected works. His recall and powers of observation of his fellow travelers are in peak form here; think Chaucer's Canterbury Tales albeit a voyage conducted in the shadow of the Holocaust. That dread followed him home to Turin when Levi wakes from "a dream within a dream", with all devolving into the Lager--it's a dream that may very well have literally followed him to the grave.
If Not Now, When?, is a fictional work that follows in tone the aforementioned works and tells the story of Jewish partisans who manage to resist, survive the War, and contemplate establishing themselves in the new State of Israel. It's a serviceable narrative; the pace is a bit maudlin but with interesting characters and an inspiring storyline. The book is still a welcome reminder of the often-overlooked Jewish resistance throughout the Holocaust and is not out of place here.
The Periodic Table is a sterling piece of work that stands apart from most of Levi's collected works. A career chemist by trade, Levi links chemical elements to significant events in his life, most of them autobiographical and bearing increasing relation to his trials leading up to internment in Auschwitz. Every story isn't linked directly to this experience but there hangs about most of the entries a residue of inexorable melancholy. Like most of Primo's prose, these stories are crisply written in such a way that in lesser works might induce a brisk reading pace but his purposeful and precise diction startle the reader into re-reading lines. In one of the more arresting stories, perhaps the best of them all, "Iron", Primo comments about his friend, the martyred Sandro, and his rugged outdoor ability and reticent manner, "It seemed that, as with climbing, no one had taught him to speak; he spoke the way nobody speaks, saying only the essence of things"; this is story telling of the highest order. Most of these stories are heartbreaking; the aforementioned "Iron" and "Cerium" may compel one to weep. "Phosphorus" is absolutely exhilarating; Giulia, Levi's crush is a whirlwind and the story, in the space of a few pages, has the range and sweep of an epic but like most things in the late 30's/early 40's, is cut short by the Third Reich.
Included are also collected poems, which often speak to dire feelings and reflections. Levi’s verses are even more incisive than his prose (which is saying something), and he seems only to have resorted to poetry when prose simply wouldn't do. Of course, much of this subject matter has to do with the misery, alienation, death, and Destruction at the ends of the earth--the German concentration camps. In "Buna 1" Levi is unquestionably speaking of the endless, gray death of the masses in the gas chambers, millions ground down by unspeakable hostilities and cruelties. "Gray companion, you were a strong man/A woman traveled next to you/Empty comrade who has no more name . . . If we were to meet again/Up in the sweet world under the sun/With what face would we confront each other?" In February 25, 19441, he writes, "I'd like to believe something beyond/Beyond death destroyed you"; the notes state that this might have been a poem to a beloved also from Turin who perished at Auschwitz in Oct '44. The poems are generally suffused with longing, despair, and death even. They can make for difficult, but what ought to be, required reading.
As stated, there are vast amounts of letters, essays, stories, and even books (The Wrench) that Primo Levi left to us, gratefully compiled here in the Completed Works. They are all-important and warrant reading, study, and reflection. Added to that, his works are less written than crafted. Here and there one will read critics that state Primo Levi was not a great writer, on the order of, say, a Hemmingway, Norman Mailer, etc. That opinion is certainly debatable but Levi was a writer with different things to say and I'm not sure that anyone else could have bested him in that regard. Levi documented his experience in the worst man-made destruction that has ever befallen humanity and felt compelled to make a record of it, not only for himself, but for the millions of victims and all of posterity. He captured the merciless prosecutors of this crime at Auschwitz, the conniving, thieving, murderous members of the Third Reich. Somehow he managed to do it almost dispassionately, with the rigor of his scientific mind, the better to take an accurate measure of the scope and scale of this crime against all of humanity in If This Is A Man. In subsequent writings, his narrative ability, intelligence, humility, wit and even humor remained as sharp as ever in documenting the human experience at its best, its worst, and all that is in between. The Collected Works by Primo Levi are a credit to him, and thankfully, remain a gift to us, one of the most gifted minds of his or any generation. Speaking of gifted minds, as an added treat to this singular collection from Primo Levi, we get an introduction from the legendary, dearly parted, Pulitzer Prize winning Toni Morrison. They both are resting in good company.
February 25, 2016
Read portions of Vol II only:
The Periodic Table: 30 Dec 2015 - 31 Jan 2016
The Wrench: 1 - 5 February 2016
from The Periodic Table p.880 "Chromium"
...the frightening anesthetic power of company papers, their capacity to hamper, muffle, blunt every flash of intuition and every spark of intelligence. Besides, the experts know that all secretions are harmful or toxic: in pathological conditions, it's not unusual for paper, a company secretion, to be reabsorbed to an excessive degree, and to put to sleep, paralyze, or even kill the organism that exuded it.`
The Periodic Table: 30 Dec 2015 - 31 Jan 2016
The Wrench: 1 - 5 February 2016
from The Periodic Table p.880 "Chromium"
...the frightening anesthetic power of company papers, their capacity to hamper, muffle, blunt every flash of intuition and every spark of intelligence. Besides, the experts know that all secretions are harmful or toxic: in pathological conditions, it's not unusual for paper, a company secretion, to be reabsorbed to an excessive degree, and to put to sleep, paralyze, or even kill the organism that exuded it.`
July 27, 2016
I read the novel "If Not Now, When? Which included in this complete works. It presented a different view of WWII than I had ever read before. It was about a band of Jewish men and women from Russia and Poland, outcasts in their homelands. This band fought the Germans through sabotage and surprise attacks. They were tough fighters and ultimately survivors.
March 26, 2016
This title was an Honorable Mention for the 2016 Sophie Brody Award. For a complete list, please visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/brody.
July 24, 2016
Didn't read it all (because I've read most of Primo Levi in other editions) but I was grateful to read the previously uncollected stories and essays. One of the 20th century's great writers.
November 4, 2019
This complete works is a real gem, published in a very nice three volume box set which I will no doubt return to in the years to come. For now, I've started with "If This Is a Man" (published in the US as Survival in Auschwitz, much to the annoyance of its original English translator, Stuart J. Woolf). This book gives a vivid account of the year Levi spent as prisoner 174517 in Auschwitz. It is extremely well written, and gives the reader a real sense (to the extent of what is possible without having experienced it) of what it was like to try to survive is this death camp. This edition has some additional updates from Woolf and includes an Appendix by Levi, originally written in 1976 for the school edition, in which he answers questions he received continually from both student and adult readers.
Read
October 2, 2021This book is a necessary read in order to grasp the dehumanizing dimension of the Shoah. It cast a direct light on the events, making us witnesses to the immense suffering they entailed. The content of the current public renditions of the same events is so far from the survivors' stories that we should make a point of having any potential writers first read Levi.
March 11, 2020
Consistently thoughtful, thought provoking and well written.
It might seem daunting to read everything published but one person but I enjoyed virtually all of it.
It might seem daunting to read everything published but one person but I enjoyed virtually all of it.
July 8, 2020
What did I think?
I thought I'd only begun to know how to think.
I thought I'd only begun to know how to think.
December 22, 2021
If This is a Man
The Truce
The Truce
February 24, 2016
Can you rate Primo Levi as less than a 5? I think not.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews