Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist [Paperback]

Myriam Anissimov (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2000

The landmark biography of the Italian writer and Holocaust survivor who helped shape our understanding of humanity.

Myriam Anissimov's major biography of Primo Levi delves deeply into the life and mind of this controversial writer, philosopher, and Holocaust witness, exploring the complex nature of a man who was both a strong-spirited survivor and a sufferer of severe bouts of depression, a man who felt misunderstood. His experiences at Auschwitz resulted in some of this century's most remarkable literature, which includes The Periodic Table and Survival at Auschwitz. He was haunted not only by his own experiences, but by the fear that future generations would inevitably forget and even deny the Holocaust. On April 11, 1987, Levi committed suicide, throwing himself down the staircase of the building where he was born.

By bringing Levi's life into focus with material gathered from exhaustive research, interviews with his friends and relatives, and numerous unpublished texts and testimonies, Anissimov's biography is an invaluable contribution to Holocaust scholarship and a crucial companion to the writings of this tortured genius.

"Myriam Anissimov's biography of Primo Levi is masterfully evocative and will serve as a companion volume to his own books. It helps explain their depth and greatness."-- Elie Wiesel

"An important event. . . . a serious, lively, and at times fervently told story that is always sympathetic to Levi's shy personality and restrained tone."-- front page, The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1987, the literary world was shocked when the Italian writer and chemist Primo Levi died after falling down the stairs in the very home where he had been born 78 years earlier. The reason his death caused such surprise was the widely held suspicion that it was suicide--Levi, a man who had lived through 18 tortured months in Auschwitz, was known as a survivor.

What kept him alive through the Holocaust was an intense yearning to tell the world exactly what had happened, and when the war was over he immediately began writing. His books about the horrors he had lived through include If This Is a Man and the brilliant The Periodic Table. Levi also lectured, gave interviews, and led tours to Auschwitz, yet he always wondered if he had done enough. Once, pointing to the number tattooed on his arm, he said, "That is my disease." His tombstone in Turin bears his name; his dates of birth and death; and his number, 174517.

Myriam Anissimov, a Paris-based writer and journalist, painstakingly recorded Levi's life using hitherto unpublished letters and poems. She also consulted archives and interviewed Levi's colleagues and friends. Levi believed writers should be concise and clear, avoiding embellishments and convolutions, and that's exactly what Anissimov has accomplished. Her work will prove to be an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers, but readers who desire some insight into Levi's personality may be disappointed. His marriage is dealt with in just a few paragraphs and there's barely a mention of his children or any other significant relationships in his life. After reading this 450-page book, readers will have gained an excellent understanding of Levi's work, but little of him. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

At Auschwitz, Levi once broke off an icicle to relieve his desperate thirst, only to have it snatched away by a German guard. "Warum?" he asked, and the guard retorted, "Here there's no why." This first biography of Levi, who died an apparent suicide in 1987, begins with the compelling problem of why a man who was able to turn even his Auschwitz experience into a reason to live (in his mission to bear witness to others), would suddenly choose to end his own life. Unfortunately, this is another "why?' that can't be answered, or at least isn't here, as this book swerves away from close attention to Levi's later life, which might have supplied the most relevant material. The story is extraorindary, nonetheless. Levi was an assimilated Jewish chemist in a prewar Italy mostly free from anti-Semitism; it was only after Mussolini's accommodation of the Nazis that his yellow star and tattoo made him a Jew (as the hideous irrationality of the gas chambers made him a writer). Even at Auschwitz, Levi recorded observations like a good chemist, furnishing Anissimov with her best source material. One thing is clear: the camps left Levi scarred and suffering from "the survivors' disease," as he came to feel at times that "the best all died" in the camps. Although Anissimov usefully identifies the creative fictionalizations in Levi's wartime narratives, she fails to delve into his troubled postwar years. Levi's wife, Lucia, remains a shadow, and the couple's family life?they cared for their 90-ish mothers, one senile, the other blind, in their flat in Turin until the end?is never clearly evoked.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 604 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585670200
• ISBN-13: 978-1585670208
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,253,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Spotty insights but helpful contexts, June 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Primo Levi: The Tragedy of an Optimist (Hardcover)

As many reviewers have noted, this English translation whittles down the original French two-volume work, so perhaps an English-language reader's perspective is likewise narrowed; perhaps the publisher and translator of the English version are also responsible for the admittedly scattershot coverage given by Anissimov to Primo Levi's inner complexity. Again, Levi was certainly not the most forthcoming of men, even as he was a writer most famous for his autobiographical accounts. His wife and children receive little more than fleeting mention in the hundreds of closely-printed pages, and inevitably her treatment serves sometimes more as a commentary on the works of Levi himself than a fresh work. How difficult it must be, after all, to write the biography of an autobiographer! Yet, having pointed out some faults, this biography is worthwhile for its picture of the Piedmontese Jewish community into which Levi was born and returned to; its explanations of how Fascist Italy differed from Nazi Germany in its anti-Semitic actions; and most of all how the inner workings of the lager--Auschwitz-Birkenau--played out in Levi's classic accounts as well as the larger context of the privations endured by many of his fellow inmates. Here, the two lengthy chapters on the camp are astoundingly detailed and intimately rendered, and would make an ideal follow-up to readers who have read Levi's own descriptions, for Anissimov is alert to what Levi says and what he leaves out. Apparently the child of refugees herself, the sensitivity and acumen with which Anissimov describes how and why Levi gave the famous accounts for which he is justly famed makes her biography--especially in these two long chapters which themselves comprise almost a monograph--necessary for those who have first read Levi's own works. Her book will not tell you much new about the content of these works, but you will understand better why they were written when in his career, and why such a reticent man remained so in his own life while his books spoke for--only some part--of the pain and hope he carried within and guarded carefully.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb biography and contribution to Holocaust studies., August 6, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist (Paperback)

Primo Levi: Tragedy Of An Optimist is a major biography which delves deeply into the life, mind and work of an influential writer, philosopher, and Holocaust witness. Drawing from exhaustive research, interviews with friends and relatives, as well as numerous unpublished texts and testimonies, biographer Myriam Anissimov explores the complex nature of a most singular, shy, intelligent, and diffident man who was both a strong-spirited survivor and a sufferer of depression, a man who felt misunderstood, certain that future generations would inevitably forget, and even deny, that the Holocaust happened. Indeed, on April 11, 1987, his self-deprecating depression was to lead him to suicide by throwing himself down the staircase of the building in which he was born. Primo Levi is a superbly presented biography and an important, singular contribution to Holocaust studies.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing account of a beloved writer., April 30, 1999

By 

David Light (Maynard, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Primo Levi: The Tragedy of an Optimist (Hardcover)

I bought this book with great expecations--partly on the strength of Victor Brombert's NYT review and partly because I was midway through the wonderful Periodic Table when the biography came out. My hopes were disappointed--big time. The problem is, the writer has collected a lot of details, only to be confronted with the necessity of doing something with the details. She was not up to the task. In many cases, information is put forth without any attempt to integrate it into Levi's life story. The reader asks, What does this have to do with Levi? How did it have an impact? How should we interpret the information--should we interpret it at all? Alas, one senses that the author dug up some fact or other and said, well, now I'm going to cram it into my book. You figure it out, reader. Another problem with the author's treatment of detail is her very annoying repetition of facts. Sometimes the language is close to verbatim in different places throughout the book. Levi's books are constantly being published and then, a few pages later, published again (and I'm not talking about different translations). A third problem is that much of the information seems to have been gleaned from Levi's published books. And yet there are no new interpretive glosses that add anything to what Levi himself wrote. Finally, as the Amazon review notes, Levi the man does not emerge from the pages. If you want to know about Levi, stick with Survival in Auschwitz, the Periodic Table, and his other works. Wait for a better biography than this one.