Primo Levi: A Life
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.61 (667 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0805073434 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 608 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-07-21 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Yet he lived an unremarkable existence, remaining until his death in the house in which he'd been born; managing a paint and varnish factory for thirty years; and tending his invalid mother to the last. Now, in a matchless account, Ian Thomson unravels the strands of a life as improbable as it was influential, the story of the most modest of men who became a universal touchstone of conscience and humanism.Drawing on exclusive access to family members and previously unseen correspondence, Thomson reconstructs the world of Levi's youth-the rhythms of Jewish life in Turin during the Mussolini years-as well as his experience in Auschwitz and difficult reintegration into postwar Italy. Finally, he
A Mae said excellent. As an autobiography, this read very well. I would recommend it to anyone already interested in Primo Levi. Fulsome research of This Man's motivations and his times Thomson's work is a wonderful read, well researched with telling detail and written in prose suitable to its subject. You can feel the struggle Primo endures to hack through the Auschwitz experience, his work as a chemist, his fathering,husbanding, literary aspirations and living in cramped circumstances within his mother's home. Highly recommended to the devotee of Levi's fascinating journey and written achievements. The research around the period, particularly th. carolinaislandgirl said This book is as tiresome as listening to some neighborhood gossip who cannot leave. It is difficult to give Primo Levi's biography a low rating, the man deserved a biography that shone with the careful use of language his own narrative work exemplified. This book is as tiresome as listening to some neighborhood gossip who cannot leave one speck of information undivulged. So our wonderful Primo Levi has been overtaken by a loquacious storyteller who manages to make the remarkable life of Levi Primo sink into utterly mundane prose and unimportant de
Thomson, who has translated the novels of Sicilian crime writer Leonardo Sciascia into English and wrote Bonjour Blanc, is particularly attentive to the often glossed-over later years of the author's life, tracing the twin courses of his publishing career and his deepening struggle with depression. Since Levi's tragic suicide in 1987, the search for the true man behind the mythic Holocaust survivor has only intensified; Levi biographers always find they must compete not only with each other but with their subject, whose immortal memoirs will inevitably have the final say. From Publishers Weekly Thomson's biography