by Primo Levi
Writing the novel, I felt the need to give form to a mute polemic against literary people, who, unlike technicians, often do not feel responsible for their “products.” A badly made bridge and a defective pair of eyeglasses have immediate negative consequences. A novel, no.35
1979
The Wrench wins the Strega Prize.
1981
At the suggestion of Giulio Bollati, the editorial director of Einaudi, Levi puts together a “personal anthology,” that is, a selection from writers who have been especially important in his cultural development, or, more simply, with whom he has felt some kinship. The volume appears under the title The Search for Roots. Levi writes in the Preface:
While writing in the first person is for me, at least in intention, a clear, conscious, and daytime job, I realized that choosing one’s roots is night work, visceral and largely unconscious. . . . I have to observe that really my deepest and most lasting loves are the least explicable: Belli, Porta, Conrad.36
Even I was astonished by my choices. For example, my heavy past, the past of a prisoner, which is what made me a writer, doesn’t have much to do with them. The anthology presents an image of me that I would say is not distorted, but different.37
Levi finds among his notes a story that his friend Emilio Vita Finzi had told him ten years earlier. In 1945 Finzi was volunteering in the Assistance Office on Via Unione, in Milan. A group of Russian Jews arrived, members of a partisan band that had formed in Russia and crossed Europe, fighting, and had ended up temporarily in Italy. Levi decides to give novelistic shape to this adventure, but before starting he spends a year doing research.
The research was useful in determining that there was a much more substantial Jewish resistance movement—in number but also in moral value—than is generally thought. And the groups weren’t made up exclusively of Jews; there were also Soviet groups, led by Jewish officers or soldiers. There is considerable Soviet documentation to prove it.38
NOVEMBER: Einaudi publishes Lilith and Other Stories, thirty-six short pieces written between 1975 and 1981.
Sometimes, before a blank page, I find myself in a state of mind that I would call sabbatical: then I feel pleasure in writing odd or quirky things, and I cultivate the illusion that my reader feels a corresponding pleasure. It’s true that some critics, and many readers, prefer my serious writings: it’s their right, but it’s my right to stray, if for no other reason than a kind of self-reimbursement; and also because, generally, I like being in the world.39
1982
APRIL: Einaudi publishes If Not Now, When?, with immediate success.
JUNE: The novel wins the Viareggio Prize; three months later, in September, it wins the Campiello Prize.
I certainly didn’t want to write a moral book. If it is, that’s a by-product. I wanted to write an adventure story, a Western. . . . It’s a real novel. It’s a transgression in a positive sense. . . . It seemed to me that I had crossed a barrier. I spent a happy year writing this book. I’ve never felt so free to do whatever the hell I wanted on paper, to give birth not to one but to fifteen children, at once, and start them off: bring them into the world, let them fight, let them die.40
The subjects of my book are essentially four: memory, pity, journeys, and the stories people tell. . . . Percentagewise I would say that the book is 40 percent humorous and epic, while I would say that only 20 percent is lyrical.41
Levi makes his second return visit to Auschwitz.
There were only a few of us, and this time the emotion was profound. I saw for the first time the monument at Birkenau, which was one of the thirty-nine camps in Auschwitz, the one with the gas chambers. The railroad has been preserved. A rusty track enters the camp and ends at the edge of a sort of void. In front of it there’s a symbolic train, made of blocks of granite. Every block has the name of a nation. That’s the monument: the track and the blocks.
I rediscovered certain sensations. For example, the smell of the place. An innocuous smell. I think it’s the smell of coal.42
SUMMER: Israel invades Lebanon. Massacres take place in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila. Levi takes a position in, among other places, an interview in La Repubblica on September 24.
There are two arguments that we Jews of the Diaspora can oppose to Begin, one moral and the other political. The moral argument is the following: not even a war justifies the bloody arrogance that Begin and his men have demonstrated. The political argument is equally clear: Israel is rapidly falling into total isolation. . . . We must choke off the impulses toward emotional solidarity with Israel to reason coldly on the mistakes of Israel’s current ruling class. Get rid of that ruling class. Help Israel find its European origins, or rather the equilibrium of its founding fathers, of Ben Gurion, of Golda Meir. Not that they all had clean hands, but who of us does?43
If Not Now, When? is translated into French.
At the invitation of Giulio Einaudi, Levi undertakes the translation of Kafka’s The Trial, for a new series, Writers Translated by Writers.
I didn’t find it difficult, but it was very painful. I fell ill doing it. I finished the translation in a deep depression that lasted six months. It’s a pathogenic book. Like an onion, one layer after another. Each of us could be tried and condemned and executed, without ever knowing why. It was as if it predicted the time when it was a crime simply to be a Jew.44
1983
Levi translates The Way of the Masks, by Claude Lévi-Strauss.
APRIL: The translation of The Trial is published.
1984
Levi translates The View from Afar, by Claude Lévi-Strauss.
OCTOBER: Garzanti publishes the collection of poems At an Uncertain Hour, which includes the twenty-seven poems from The Beer Hall in Bremen, and thirty-four others that appeared in La Stampa, plus translations of poems by Heine, Kipling, and an anonymous Scot.
I’m a man who doesn’t much believe in poetry and yet I write it. There are reasons for this. For example, when I publish a poem in La Stampa, I receive letters and phone calls from readers expressing approval or disapproval. If a story of mine is published, the response is not so animated. I have the impression that poetry in general is becoming a marvelous instrument of human contact.
Adorno wrote that after Auschwitz there can be no poetry, but my experience is the opposite. At the time (1945–46) it seemed to me that poetry was more suitable than prose to express what weighed inside me. When I say poetry, I’m not thinking of lyric poetry. In those years, if anything, I would have reformulated Adorno’s words: after Auschwitz there can be poetry only about Auschwitz.45
When Levi is asked in an interview whether the frequent presence of plants and animals in his poetry is a result of his scientific training, he answers:
It’s the result of unsatisfied curiosity. I’ve quoted at various times the essay in which Aldous Huxley says that the novelist should be a zoologist. For me there is this one-sided love, which is satisfied only in part. Love for nature as a whole and in particular for the fruschi, as Carlo Levi said, using a term from the Lucanian dialect, meaning the poor beasts. Among the animals there is the huge and the tiny, wisdom and folly, generosity and cowardice. Each one of them is a metaphor, an essence of all the vices and all the virtues of men.46
NOVEMBER: The American edition of The Periodic Table is published by Schocken Books. The critical reception is extremely favorable. The enthusiasm of Saul Bellow inspires a series of translations of Levi’s books in various countries.
1985
JANUARY: In a volume entitled Other People’s Trades, and published by Einaudi, Levi collects some fifty essays, most of which had appeared in La Stampa.
FEBRUARY: Levi writes the introduction for a new paperback edition of the memoirs of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz.
APRIL: Levi visits the United States on the occasion of the publication of the translation of If Not Now, When?, which has an introduction by Irving Howe. He gives talks and readings in New York; Cl
aremont, California; Bloomington, Indiana; and Boston.
1986
MAY: Einaudi publishes The Drowned and the Saved, Levi’s reflections, decades later, on the experience of the Lager. That same month, he goes to London (where he meets Philip Roth) and to Stockholm.
Traveling is very hard for me, both for family reasons and because I’ve ended up internalizing the difficulties, and now it’s become unpleasant. Ten years ago, it was different, I had much more energy, and the desire to follow many more things. Now I’m tired. And then I ask myself, “What’s the point?” Once, when the translation of a book arrived, it was a day of celebration; now it has no effect on me. And even reviewing translations in the languages I know—English, French, and German (a clause I’ve had inserted into all my contracts)—has become just a boring extra job. You grow indifferent. Anyway, what is there to say, the organization of culture is extremely random, it functions haphazardly.47
The translations of The Wrench and of a selection of stories from Lilith (those based on the experience of the Lager), with the title Moments of Reprieve, are published in the United States. The German translation of If Not Now, When? is published.
SEPTEMBER: Levi is visited in Turin by Roth, with whom he has arranged a long, written interview, to be published in The New York Times Book Review. The interview comes out in October, and in November it appears, in Italian, in La Stampa.
NOVEMBER: The book-publishing arm of La Stampa brings out a collection of Levi’s contributions to the paper between 1977 and 1986, under the title Stories and Essays. It includes a recently published piece, “Hatching the Cobra,” in which he speaks about the responsibility of the scientist. It’s the last book published by Levi in his lifetime.
1987
JANUARY 22: With arguments of historical revisionism gaining strength in Germany, Levi publishes an article, “The Black Hole of Auschwitz,” on the front page of La Stampa.
MARCH: The French and German editions of The Periodic Table are published. The same month, Levi has a prostate operation.
APRIL 11: Levi dies, a suicide, in his apartment building in Turin.
I think that anyone, any sort of human being, can create a fundamental work. Not necessarily a book. . . . In fact, it’s just a tiny minority who can write a book, but something, certainly, for example bring up a child, heal the sick, comfort the afflicted. I don’t feel embarrassed or constrained about repeating phrases from the Gospel.48
NOTES
1.Primo Levi and Tullio Regge, Dialogo (1984; rev. ed., Turin: Einaudi, 1987). In English, Dialogo (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989).
2.Santo Strati and Franco Pappalardo La Rosa, “Lo specchio del cielo” (radio broadcast), RAI, Turin, January 27, 1985; transcribed in Riga no. 13 (1997).
3.Giuseppe Grieco, “Io e Dio: ‘Non l’ho mai incontrato, neppure nel “Lager,” ’ ” in Gente 27, no. 48 (December 9, 1983), and reprinted in Conversazioni e interviste 1963–1987, edited by Marco Belpoliti (Turin: Einaudi, 1997). In English, “God and I,” in The Voice of Memory: Interviews 1961–1987, edited by Marco Belpoliti and Robert S. C. Gordon (New York: The New Press, 2001).
4.Levi and Regge, Dialogo.
5.Primo Levi, La ricerca delle radici (Turin: Einaudi, 1981). In English, The Search for Roots (New York: Ivan R. Dee, 2003).
6.Levi and Regge, Dialogo.
7.Levi, La ricerca delle radici.
8.Giorgio De Rienzo, “In un alambicco quanta poesia,” Famiglia Cristiana, July 20, 1975.
9.Levi, La ricerca delle radici.
10.Annamaria Guadagni, “Prima del grande buio,” Diario l’Unità, April 2–8, 1997.
11.Ferdinando Camon, Conversazione con Primo Levi (Milan: Guanda, 2006). In English, Conversations with Primo Levi (Marlboro, Vt.: Marlboro Press, 1989).
12.Ibid.
13.Anna Bravo and Federico Cereja, eds., Intervista a Primo Levi, ex deportato (1983; repr., Turin: Einaudi, 2011). In English, this book became a chapter, “The Duty of Memory,” in The Voice of Memory.
14.Marco Vigevani, “Le parole, il ricordo, la speranza,” in Primo Levi: Conversazioni. In English, “Words, Memory, Hopes” in The Voice of Memory.
15.De Rienzo, “In un alambicco.”
16.Philip Roth, “A Man Saved by His Skills,” The New York Times Book Review, October 12, 1986.
17.Ibid.
18.Camon, Conversazione.
19.Primo Levi, foreword to La vita offesa: Storia e memoria dei lager nazisti nei racconti di duecento sopravvissuti, edited by Anna Bravo and Daniele Jalla (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1986).
20.Bravo and Cereja, Intervista.
21.Levi and Regge, Dialogo.
22.Nico Orengo, “Come ho pubblicato il mio primo libro,” in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni.
23.Roth, “A Man Saved by His Skills.”
24.Giorgio Calcagno, “Primo Levi: Capire non è perdonare,” La Stampa, July 26, 1986. In English, “The Drowned and the Saved,” in The Voice of Memory.
25.Alfredo Barberis, “Nasi storti,” Corriere della Sera, April 27, 1972.
26.Primo Levi, “Note on the Dramatized Version of If This Is a Man,” from the dramatized version of If This Is a Man (Turin: Einaudi, 1966).
27.Strati and Pappalardo La Rosa, “Lo specchio del cielo.”
28.Roth, “A Man Saved by His Skills.”
29.Pier Maria Paoletti, "Sono un chimico, scrittore per caso," in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni. In English, "The Truces," in The Voice of Memory.
30.Giulio Nascimbeni, "Levi: L'ora incerta della poesia," in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni.
31.“La chiave a stella di un operaio,” Giornale di Brescia, February 17, 1979.
32.Roth, “A Man Saved by His Skills.”
33.Levi and Regge, Dialogo.
34.“La chiave a stella di un operaio.”
35.Alfredo Cattabiani, “Quando un operaio specializzato diventa un personaggio letterario,” Il Tempo, January 21, 1979.
36.Levi, La ricerca delle radici.
37.“Primo Levi: Un modo diverso di dire io,” Notiziario Einaudi, June 1981.
38.Rosellina Balbi, “Mendel, il consolatore,” La Repubblica, April 14, 1982.
39.Giovanni Tesio, “Credo che il mio destino profondo sia la spaccatura,” in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni.
40.Roberto Vacca, “Un western dalla Russia a Milano,” Il Giorno, May 18, 1982.
41.Fiona Diwan, “Sono un ebreo ma non sono mai stato sionista,” Corriere Medico, September 3–4, 1982.
42.Nascimbeni, “Levi: L’ora incerta.”
43.Giampaolo Pansa, “Io Primo Levi, chiedo le dimissioni di Begin,” in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni. In English, “Primo Levi: Begin Should Go,” in The Voice of Memory.
44.Germaine Greer, “Germaine Greer Speaks to Primo Levi,” in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni.
45.Nascimbeni, “Levi: L’ora incerta.”
46.Tesio, “Credo che il mio destino profondo sia la spaccatura.”
47.Roberto Di Caro, “Il necessario e il superfluo,” in Belpoliti, ed., Primo Levi: Conversazioni. In English, “The Essential and the Superfluous,” in The Voice of Memory.
48.Strati and Pappalardo La Rosa, “Lo specchio del cielo.”
ERNESTO FERRERO
Contents
PREFACE
The Journey
On the Bottom
Initiation
Ka-Be
Our Nights
The Work
A Good Day
This Side of Good and Evil
The Drowned and the Saved
Chemistry Examination
The Canto of Ulysses
The Events of the Summer
October 1944
Kraus
Die Drei Leute vom Labor
The Last One
The Story of Ten Days
APPENDIX TO THE SCHOOL EDITION
TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD
Prefac
e
It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944, that is, after the German government had decided, because of the growing scarcity of labor, to lengthen the average life span of the prisoners destined for elimination; it allowed noticeable improvements in the camp routine and temporarily suspended killings at the whim of individuals.
Hence, as an account of atrocities, this book of mine adds nothing to what readers throughout the world already know about the disturbing subject of the death camps. It was not written in order to formulate new accusations; it should be able, rather, to furnish documentation for a detached study of certain aspects of the human mind. Many people—many nations—can find themselves believing, more or less consciously, that “every stranger is an enemy.” For the most part, this conviction lies buried in the mind like some latent infection; it betrays itself only in random, disconnected acts, and is not the basis of a system of thought. But when this happens, when the unspoken dogma becomes the major premise in a syllogism, then, at the end of the chain, stands the Lager. It is the product of a conception of the world carried to its logical consequences with rigorous consistency; as long as the conception exists, the consequences remain to threaten us. The story of the death camps should be understood by everyone as a sinister signal of danger.
I recognize, and ask indulgence for, the structural defects of the book. Its origins go back, if not in practice, as an idea, an intention, to the days in the Lager. The need to tell our story to “others,” to make “others” share it, took on for us, before the liberation and after, the character of an immediate and violent impulse, to the point of competing with other elementary needs. The book was written to satisfy that need: in the first place, therefore, as an interior liberation. Hence its fragmentary character: the chapters were written not in logical succession but in order of urgency. The work of linking and unifying was carried out more deliberately, and is more recent.