Without a doubt Primo Levi’s most famous book.
Given the topic (the author’s experience in the Nazi concentration camps) it’s
really hard to write anything about it, and even more to offer any sort of
vague critique. We were strongly encouraged to read the book in high-school (by
the time I had already read it), but I think we should have all been forced to
do so.
From a sociological and anthropological point
of view, the book offers a unique insight into human relations in the direst of
situations. Yet, at the same time, the book ultimately doesn’t cast a moral
judgement on the persecutors, something that I found extremely surprising.
I first read it when I was 13 or 14, and I
remember being really shocked when I realized that often in concentration camps
the ones more likely to die soon were the strongest men, capable of doing the
hardest jobs and incapable of doing them without using their full strength. The
frequent references to the Divine Comedy made
me want to read some of its key “Canti” already then, when I was surely too
young to understand them.
I don’t think that someone who has survived to
tell this tale then decided to kill himself more than 40 years later. But maybe
I’m just naive...
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