The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi (****)
I'm not a science person and certainly not a chemist, but The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is really a wonderful explanation of the author's 40-year career as a chemist, with each chapter explaining a specific incident in the author's life by linking it to a specific element on the periodic table. For example, one chapter describes a client with a mysterious substance to identify who came to Levi, who was managing a chemical analysis business at the time. Levi did some chemical testing and discovered the substance was laced with arsenic, and that identification ended up solving an interesting mystery that helped the client prevent a murder.
But The Periodic Table is infinitely more than a simple science text, because Primo Levi lived as a Jew in Fascist Italy and many of the chapters describe, via chemistry, his efforts to stay away from being sent to a concentration camp. But, sadly, after joining the Italian resistance movement, Levi was captured and transported to Auschwitz. Some of the chapters describe how chemistry helped save Levi's life, as his Nazi captors utilized his chemistry knowledge to work on war projects in the camp. He and a camp mate discovered an un-inventoried supply of cerium in the lab which they stole with the hope that this pilfered element might be used to create cigarette lighters which they could exchange for small scraps of food which they hoped would keep them alive in the horrendous conditions of Auschwitz.
Not all the chapters are filled with the dreadful events of Levi's life. There are also a couple wonderful essays on how his knowledge of chemistry helped his efforts at finding romance. The reflection on the element "Iron" honors the resistance hero who put iron in Levi's young student soul. In essence, this book is an autobiography as told through 21 elements of the periodic table and I found it an incredible book which successfully merges science and humanity.
The horrors of the Holocaust troubled Levi's soul so profoundly that he never fully recovered from the trauma and, tragically, he committed suicide in 1987 (although some recent commentators suggest that his death might have been an accident). The Periodic Table is a special book that is readable, profound, informative, touching, and philosophical. I strongly recommend it and I hope that, in the future, I will be able to read some of Levi's other works, including his Auschwitz memoirs.
Other books I read in April.
Asleep by Banana Yashimoto (***)
Three novellas about young Japanese women facing issues of spiritual sleep--the title story is particularly profound.
Maladies of the Soul by Isa Kamari (** 1/2)
A collection of short stories by a Singaporean writer addressing the fragmented state of our lives, causing the stories' characters to be alienated from society--many of the stories are interesting and most of them possess an extreme degree of strangeness.
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