If This Is A Man by Primo Levi

[Freewheeling Andy]

I've been meaning to start a thread on this book for a while. After reading the thread on "Books you must read before you die", it occurred to me that really Primo Levi's If This Is A Man is possibly the only book that I know of that I really think this of.

 

This is the book that anyone concerned with history, with the human condition, with man's inhumanity to man, must read. It's book that best described possibly the iconic, core event of the 20th century.

 

As Levi himself has to explain in the preface, everything in the book is true. Primo Levi was an Italian jew, working as an industrial chemist in the late 1930 and early 40s. Jews were tolerated by the fascist Mussolini government and he was, basically, getting on with his life. Until the US liberation of Southern Italy, which forced the Germans to retaliate and take much of the north. Suddenly Levi was no longer tolerated, and before he could act, really, he was in a train to Auschwitz.

 

The book tells the story of his survival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also gives the most dispassionate, clear, frightening description of the overall experience.

 

You may think you never need read (another) book about the holocaust, but this is the one book you must read. It is written by a man who was there, who lived through it, who survived. It is written by a brilliant author. It describes the event that characterises Nazism and fascism, the second world war, the use of totalitarianism and of concentration camps -the iconic, defining, features of the 20th century. The ones that shaped the world we now live in.

 

I think it's hard to underestimate how important this book is.

 

It's not easy to read. It's horrific in places, it's not always leavened by humour (which is no surprise, I guess). But it is genuinely essential. It is, unlike Dave Eggers' piece of junk by the name, a genuine Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

 

That Levi survived is astonishing testament to the human capacity for resilience. The final winter in Auschwitz with the Russians advancing is a bizarre mix of horror and hope. That hope is transformed in what is often the companion book The Truce which tells of Levi's journeys across Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and elsewhere as he tries to return home as a refugee across war ravaged Europe. In many ways a more enjoyable book to read. But it makes little sense without If This Is A Man, and whilst important carries nothing like the same weight.

 

I really can't recommend the book enough. I would say it should be on every school curriculum, but I think perhaps a 15 year old would just not have the depth of experience to properly appreciate what they are being told.

 

It's probably 5 years since I last read the book, so some of the details may be wrong in that semi-review. But the very fact that I've remembered this much, given my porous memory for books, should tell you how much I rate it.

[shelbel]

This is such an interesting and informative review, I have read bits and pieces about Primo Levi over the years, but have never endeavoured to read any of his work; but now after reading your review I think I will definitely add If This is a Man to my TBR pile.

 

I understand he is a prolific writer on this topic; Have you read any of his other work?

[Freewheeling Andy]

The only other book of his that I've read, other than these two, is The Periodic Table which is a beautiful book, relating as much to his life as an industrial chemist as anything else. It takes elements of his life that aren't directly the Auschwitz period (he says that he's written enough about them elsewhere), and correlates them to chemical elements he's worked with. A fantastic memoir, but very, very different to If This Is A Man.

[wordsgood]

Thank you! That is a review I can't resist. *Toddles off to add it to Mount to be Read.*

 

And yes, I agree these kinds of stories never stop being told. Never be forgotten. I so wish our current generation of "ME" kids were capable of understanding life without a bloody cell phone and knock-off jeans is really not all that tragic! Sometimes I want to smack the ones I run across...sorry, mean but true.