Customer Reviews

The Periodic Table

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When I was 14, my high school chemistry teacher gave my class a writing assignment, which really pissed us off. We were in a chemistry class, why did Mr. Ellison expect us to write a short story? It wasn't actually an entire story: the first half was already written for us. It was about the 'adventures' of one atom of carbon. I felt like I was reading a book for small children on molecular chemistry because the writing style was simple, with no extra flourishes and long, scientific phrases. How demeaning to 14 year old me! In any case, I went home and wrote a completely uninspired ending to the carbon-atom fairy tale. If I remember correctly, the rest of the class did the same thing. Some were better than others, but none of them even began to come close to the original ending.

Mr. Ellison took our mediocre stories and, in a bargain where we definately got the better deal, gave us the end of Primo Levi's Carbon, the last chapter of The Periodic Table. Nothing had prepared me for it. That simple style that I had so despised the night before was in fact the work of a writer who had stripped off all of those unnecessary phrases that I had been looking for, who had left nothing but the unadorned truth. Struck by this, I went out and bought the book.

It consists of 21 chapters, each of which have an element of the periodic table as their themes. But in truth each chapter/story is based on one idea which is explored. Some stories are pure fiction, some are remembrances, and some are meditations. They range from family gatherings to amusing teenage chemistry mistakes to the threads that bind us all together. Levi was not only a gifted chemist and a gifted writer, but someone who had that rare talent of opening his personal philosphies to the reader, and you can't help but feel that you've gotten to know him by the end of the book, which certainly makes the read worth it.

Primo Levi was a gifted writer that happened to practice chemistry. In these short memoirs he tells the story of a chemist, a chemist that is living in Mussolini's Italy, a chemist that is Jewish and survived Auschwitz. Levi has written of Auschwitz previously and only a single chapter in "The Periodic Table" directly discusses Auschwitz.

To many readers the career of a chemist might seem as exciting as the career of an accountant or a tax attorney, essential to society, but better left to someone else. It hardly seems the subject for a remarkable literary work.

Levi paints an intriguing portrait of a chemist, a detective unraveling the secrets of matter, a philosopher searching for meaning. We learn much about the kinds of problems that excite a chemist and how a chemist goes about searching for answers. But we learn more about Levi himself, about life in a Fascist state, and about human relationships in difficult situations.

Primo Levi titled each chapter with the name of an element that either plays a role in that particular chapter or exhibits characteristics that are metaphorically descriptive of human relationships portrayed in that chapter.

Most chapters revolve about an important biographical event. However, the first chapter, Argon, tells a rather quiet (inert) story of the unexciting Levi family history and it might be best to skip chapter one until later. Hydrogen, the second chapter, is more exciting, almost explosive. Zinc, Iron, Potassium, Nickel, and others follow.

Three chapters - Lead, Mercury, and Carbon - are fictional. I was absolutely fascinated by all three. Levi is a great story teller. Lead should be read by students of history and Mercury likewise. Carbon should be mandatory reading for all students of chemistry and biology, probably for all humanities majors too.

I have read "The Periodic Table" several times and it remains one of my favorite books. It melds sadness and humor, offers prose that is almost poetry, and uniquely blends history, chemistry, and memoir. It is widely recognized as an exceptional work of literature.

This book, like all truly great books, can be viewed in many ways. A possible, rewarding one is to view it as the story of an education. Each chapter, named after the periodic table of the elements, tells about the acquisition of an important piece of the mosaic that was Primo Levi.There is the discovery of the "essential language" of science, as opposed to the void rethoric of fascism, the discovery of courage, in the chapter named "Iron", of rigor, in the "potassium". But this is not a didactical book. This is a series of wonderful tales, of exquisite poetry and of life, true life. I didn't read more than five books comparable to this one.

Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow said, regarding this book, "There is nothing superfluous here; everything this book contains is essential. It is wonderfully pure and beautifully translated."

Since I read this book in the original Italian, I cannot attest to the beauty of the translation. However, I would agree with Bellow that the book is wonderfully pure and lacking in the superfluous.

The Periodic Table, Primo Levi's fantasy regarding chemical elements and written in his elegant, spare style, is filled with images that animate the chemist's world. To a trained chemist, as Levi was, the molecular world is very real, and the its underlying events do not go unnoticed. This is the world that exists beneath the one we usually see; the world that gives matter its colors, tastes, smells, shapes and capacities. Levi's desire for a more complete understanding of the chemical world parallels his desire for a more complete understanding of the spiritual world of mankind.

In this book, Levi tells us, in part, of his years as a teenager and of his experiences with another young man named Enrico. Both boys wanted to become chemists, but for very different reasons. Enrico thought that chemistry would be the key to a more secure life. Levi, however, looked at chemistry as a way to understand and make sense of the universe. He says, "Chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black evolutes torn by fiery flashes." He goes on to describe his burning desire to find the truths hidden in chemistry by telling us that he would have grabbed Proteus, himself, by the throat and forced him to speak, so great was his hunger.

Levi's burning desire for a deeper understanding of the universe and all it contains is not new. The ancients, such as Aristotle, and later, Newton, also searched for the key to the mysteries of life. But Levi's desire was perhaps more pure, more essential. He writes, "Conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves."

Although chiefly a Holocaust memoir, the book is not without its lighter moments. In school, Levi had decided that chemistry alone could no longer fulfill his needs and he resolved to pursue physics. As an assistant, he was called upon to prepare pure dry benzene for an experiment by distilling the solvent over sodium. However, using potassium instead of sodium, Levi caused a laboratory fire.

The quest for knowledge of the universe is ongoing. Levi, however, sadly found himself spurred on by the prejudices that only man can inflict on man.

Frankly, the problem with most great writers is this: outside of their craft, they don't have a life. They look down their noses at us and treat us like pathetic ants, often with no insight into our lives and our work. Here then is Primo Levi, on one hand, an accomplished chemist, on the other, someone who lived to speak of the Death Camps. This experience allows him to write the twenty one gems in "Periodic Table". Each one of these stories crystallizes around a seed element. The seeds form the basis for a detective story into the chemical mystery of a failed paint, an ancient plumber's life ruined by lead, and work in a chemistry lab inside Auschewitz. Levi has a dramatic literary style built for the short story. His writing is pithy and to the point. He builds the stories to encapsulate and expose a single core idea. Each one is about something, entering into the experience of one of the millions of people who lead lives worthy of examination.

Hey look, I'll help Amazon sell a book here, how much does it say you'll pay for it, $9.00 maybe? If you have a scientific bent, you'll surely find the stories here entertaining and interesting. Primo Levi was a unique person and that, coupled to his excellent style, makes this book a very good read.

I first read The Periodic Table in a college course on 20th century Italian literature. Since then I have reread it perhaps a half dozen times. Parts of it -- the chapter about Sandro, for instance, and the last chapter -- I have reread many more times than that.

It is such a great book -- such a clear-eyed, deeply felt, wide-ranging look at the human cost of Fascism and the Holocaust -- that anything I could possibly say about it would be idiotically trite. All I can really say, in honesty, is that I think it is one of the greatest books ever written. In any language. In any century. On any topic.

Having never read it in translation, I have trouble imagining how a translator could capture the poetry and the rich literary resonances of Levi's deceptively simple writing style. It is the kind of writing where you read sentences over again, sometimes aloud, just for their rythm and sound. However, friends who have read it in English say the translation is excellent. Even if it weren't, it's a book no thinking person should go without reading. It has a beauty and a gripping quality that goes far, far beyond style.

Just read it. Unlike most books you hear this about, it REALLY WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

This was one of the ones that separated the men from the boys (so to speak)-- everyone thought the first chapter was slow, but the REAL readers kept going and those people loved it. The lame readers complained it was boring and then, guess what, it turned out that NONE of them had gotten beyond chapter 1! Well, I am not a great writer myself, but I do love well-written, gripping stories, and Periodic Table is all of that. I cried more than once, I savored many chapters and I have this book with a few others on a small shelf next to my bed so that I can read parts of it over and over again. Wonderful, special book!

This is not a breazy read. The writing style is often deceptively simple, but the thoughts are deep and require slow, deliberate attention. This is a book worth repeated readings. I feel like I've only mined about 10% of what I could from it so far.

We read this as the subject of a monthly book circle at our church recently and it was very rewarding.

Many of the previous 31 reviews are very good, and I won't reherse their insights. Just a few more random observations:
* 21 chapters (correspondng to 21 of the elements) and the middle one is gold.
* Levi does not convey the horrors of the Holocaust with the same pathos as others (Weisel; Corrie Ten Boom; Mark Rigg; etc.). His account of Aushwitz has the feel of an ordinary prison camp more than the hell it was.
* "tales of militant chemistry" p. 78.
* His account of purity and impurity -- personal and chemical -- is fascinating. p. 35.
* The translation seems wonderful. I wonder if those who has read it in both Italian and English would regard the English as faithful to the original.
* I bet if we were to look up more about the properties of each element, we'd find a lot of more subtle hidden insight Levi has imbended in his stories.

Anyway, a truly wonderful book. I hope to read it again very soon.

This book is a series of stories, each with an element from the periodic table as its theme. Many of the stories are from the autho's life, but a few are fictional. All are amazing. This book is not about the holocaust, it's not about the author's life as a partisan, it's a story about people and life and love and everything that makes people human. It's amazing that an author who has been through so many extraordinary things can write about his life in such a way that the rest of us can relate COMPLETELY to his story. This is simply an AMAZING book.

"You got a new book? What is it?" my roommate asked.

"It's called 'The Periodic Table,' by Primo Levi. He was an Italian Jew who went through Auschwitz." I had just gotten the book in the mail; that was all I knew about it.

Later, she interrupted my reading. "You keep laughing. That book is supposed to be funny?"

I knew why she was surprised. Levi led a serious, sometimes troubled life, but "The Periodic Table" isn't limited to seriousness. It's fascinating and often funny to read his stories about his early obsession with matter (and the trouble it caused), his fiction inspired by alchemists and elements, and his anecdotes from a professional double life as a chemist and writer.