The Periodic Table (Everyman'S Library Contemporary Classics Series)

The Periodic Table (Everyman'S Library Contemporary Classics Series)

The Periodic Table is largely a memoir of the years before and after Primo Levi?s transportation from his native Italy to Auschwitz as an anti-Facist partisan and a Jew. It recounts, in clear, precise, unfailingly beautiful prose, the story of the Piedmontese Jewish community from which Levi came, of his years as a student and young chemist at the inception of the Second World War, and of his investigations into the nature of the material world. As such, it provides crucial links and backgrounds, both personal and intellectual, in the tremendous project of remembrance that is Levi?s gift to posterity. But far from being a prologue to his experience of the Holocaust, Levi?s masterpiece represents his most impassioned response to the events that engulfed him. The Periodic Table celebrates the pleasures of love and friendship and the search for meaning, and stands as a monument to those things in us that are capable of resisting and enduring in the face of tyranny. Review ?I immersed myself in The Periodic Table gladly and gratefully. There is nothing superfluous here, everything this book contains is essential. It is wonderful pure, and beautifully translated?I was deeply impressed.? -Saul Bellow ?The best introduction to the psychological world of one of the most important and gifted writers of our time.?-Italo Calvino ?A work of healing, of tranquil, even buoyant imagination.? - The New York Times Book Review ?Brilliant, grave and oddly sunny; certainly a masterpiece.? - Los Angeles Times ?Every chapter is full of surprises, insights, high humor, and language that often rises to poetry.? - The New Yorker ?One of the most important Italian writers.? -Umberto Eco From the Inside Flap An extraordinary work in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and starting point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and fiction, history and anecdote, Levi uses his training as a chemist and his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz to illuminate the human condition. "From the Hardcover edition. From the Back Cover 'A work of healing, of tranquil, even buoyant imagination.' -New York Times Book ReviewThe best introduction to the psychological world of one of the most important and gifted writers of our time. Saul Bellow About the Author PRIMO LEVI