The Monkey's Wrench [Paperback]

Primo Levi (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Summit Books; First edition (January 1, 1986)
• ASIN: B0027Q5BP4
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wise, moving, shame about the title, April 14, 2006

By 

Luder (Saddam City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Monkey's Wrench (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

I finished this book and read it all the way through again less than a month later. There are lots of things to like about it. Mainly, though, I like it because it conveys a sense of joy in work, in writing, in the less spectacular aspects of life that can be as much a source of happiness as can the great gifts that come along once or twice in a lifetime. And the stories are told in such an engaging way you don't really realize Levi is showing you a way to make life bearable. The sad thing is that Primo Levi apparently couldn't do for himself what he did for so many of his readers.

I also like that though a good part of the novel takes place in the former Soviet Union, Levi, with the exception of one chapter in the book, says nary a word about communism. The Soviet regime is, for the purpose of his book, completely irrelevant. Lesser writers would have stuck to the "one-man-against-the-regime" template.

That said, I do have some gripes, mostly to do with the translation. Levi has been very badly served either by his translators or, more likely, by his American publishers. Why this book was called _The Monkey's Wrench_ is beyond me. There's a wrench, and there's a monkey all right, but there's nothing so patently ridiculous as a wrench belonging to a monkey. _The Wrench_, plain and simple, like Levi's prose, would have sufficed.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, Poingnant, Haunting Barely Begin to Describe Levi, September 19, 2000

By 

Prof. N. von Woland (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Monkey's Wrench (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

There are some people who you can never hear enough of. Levi is certainly one of those. He combines one of the greates talents as a writer in this century with a wisdom uncommon for any age.

This book is not an adventure story in the typical sence of the word, but reading it is an adventure, and I for one am a better man for having opened its covers.

I don't think that Levi has ever written a book that I would only read once. This book, I look forward to revisting many times over. The maximum length of this review is one thousnd words. If all those words were supperlatives, I would not come close to doing this book justice.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH DELIGHT, February 28, 2002

By 

david eisenman (Portland, OR, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Monkey's Wrench (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Mass Market Paperback)

Excellent series of vignettes/stories generally related within the novel by a crane/derrick rigger to the author, a chemist. For those with no inclination to industrial engineering and chemistry, this book makes the two subjects seem interesting, and uniquely identifies them with the human condition. Quite beautiful.