The Double Bond: Primo Levi, A Biography (Hardcover)

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Review
Carole Angier's biography of Primo Levi is a monument to the tortured life and brilliant work of one of Italy's and the 20th century's most distinguished writers. Born into a Jewish family in Turin in 1919, Levi was physically slight and painfully shy. At university he immersed himself in the study of chemistry which, he felt, could not be 'distorted by ideology, rhetoric and lies' - unlike the Fascism which was beginning to take hold of his country - and he went on to have a successful and life-long career in the chemical industry. This was interrupted, however, by what was to be the turning point in his life - his deportation to Auschwitz and a year in which he and his fellow prisoners suffered the most unimaginable degradation of spirit and physical suffering. His obsession with the idea that it was his duty to 'study, record and report' all that he had seen gave him the will to survive and those horrific experiences are the basis for his first great book, If This Is a Man. By the time The Periodic Table was published he had received world-wide acclaim, but his later years were clouded by recurring bouts of depression, culminating in his premature, and probably suicidal, death in 1987 when he plunged down the stairwell from his third-floor apartment. Angier's biography is enormous in scope, describing in well-researched detail the events of Levi's life, but also providing colourful portraits of the many friends and associates who influenced him and critiques and explanations of his work. Levi's papers have not been made available to her with the result that much of what she says is, by her own admission, conjecture, but in spite or perhaps because of this she has been able to delve deeply into the mind of the man, laying bare some of the great contradictions of his character such his fear of women and of fame, but his immense longing for both, and his persistent but scarcely credible claim that he was a reluctant writer. Despite its great length, this book makes compulsive reading, partly owing to its structure, which follows Levi's own literary style, abandoning chronology and logic in favour of the 'order of urgency', and partly as a result of the immense sympathy which Angier clearly feels for her subject and communicates to her readers. (Kirkus UK)

Product Description
This is a biography of Primo Levi, the noted Italian philosopher, writer and scientist. The book examines the man within his life in Turin, before, during and after World War II and the particular place of the Jew in Italy. It looks at Primo Levi as a European as well as a notable survivor of Auschwitz and at the influence he had on people all over the world. What kind of man was this private, modest author, whose books made of him an icon of human dignity and justice? Did Auschwitz make him a writer at 27 and kill him at 67, or is the truth more complicated than that?

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2 Reviews 5 star:    (0) 4 star:  (2) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   6 of 7 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars The Double Bond, 15 Oct 2002 By A Customer Carole Angier's superb biography of Primo Levi has received, in equal measure, high praise and angry condemnation. There is a reason for this. Those who think the biographer should stay on the sidelines and not play a part in the unfolding story have criticised Angier for her unapologetically personal engagement with Levi and his world. Those, like myself, who read biography for its narrative excitement and psychological insights have been thrilled by the energy of her prose and the page-turning qualities of the story she tells. Reading Angier's biography reminds us why Primo Levi matters, and why he needed this biographer to celebrate his life and work. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   4.0 out of 5 stars incisive portrait of one of literature's most important writers, 25 Aug 2008 By  Mandy Mulholland, Yorkshire - See all my reviews This review is from: The Double Bond: Primo Levi, a Biography (Paperback) Primo Levi was one of the most important writers ever to have written. A chemist by training, he applied his rigorous logical, analytical mind to his experience as an inmate at Ausschwitz. His portrait of that horror and his escape from it, is both one of the most terrible and most inspiring stories of our time. For Levi wasn't broken by that experience. Nor was he embittered. He went on on to have a fulfilling career as a scientist which ran in parallel with his life as a writer. After his major works of witness Levi went on to publish essays, short stories, and a novel that cemented his reputation as a major literary talent. Carole Angier has produced the definitive work on this complex man. She has interviewed everyone of importance and also examines the work with a forensic eye. She is very good on proving that it wasn't simply that Auschwitz made Levi a writer, but that Levi already knew that he was a writer and was able to draw on these embryonic gifts in setting down his story. She is good too on showing how the writer in Levi took command of the witness project, allowing him to shape, craft and dramatise his subject. Levi died, possibly from an impulsive suicide, at the age of 67 and Angier shows very clearly how depression and a special kind of self-loathing and disappointment shaped Levi's life from before he entered the camps. Most affecting of all for a fan of Levi is learning how Primo made a 'Lagar out of his own home.' A marriage that became loveless, the domination of his mother, the oppression of his fame in his later years... all of this grew steadily more unbearable. That Primo inspired great love is clear from this excellent biography and the reasons for that love come through clearly too. I would perhaps have liked some words from Lucia and Rina (Levi's wife and mother respectively) but this was clearly not possible. But Angier has gone to great lengths to produce a thorough, incisive and fair-minded literary biography. One of the best I have read. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 2 customer reviews...		Ad feedback   Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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