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#26 in Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > L > Levi, Primo
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"* 'I consider Primo Levi one of the most important Italian writers' Umberto Eco * 'What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable but also... his delight in what made the world exquisitive to him... The most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known,' Philip Roth, Observer"

Ronald Hayman, Daily Telegraph, 23 June 2001

'Levi's search for roots is a rediscovery of printed words that helped to form him...most of the extracts seem either to prefigure the Holocaust or to look back on it'

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15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another wonderful posthumous translation from Levi, 3 Aug 2001

By	Jason Parkes "We're all Frankies'" (Worcester, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

I was not aware of this book until I read about it in a Sunday Paper...I felt compelled to purchase it in hardback and had a feeling that I HAD to read it as soon as possible...Despite the fact the man, Primo Levi, is dead; his voice is still very much with us...It was a voice I had grown accastomed to, from 'If this is a Man?'/'The Truce' to 'The Mirror Maker' to the truth of his feelings about the Germans & the Holocaust ('The Drowned & The Saved')...My favourite work of his is 'The Periodic Table', to which this book could be seen as a close relation (as I re-read 'The Periodic Table', I wanted a list of the books Levi valued in his 'indulgence of literature'. Here is that very wish...)...This is not one of his vital, important works- such as the key texts mentioned above, which should be read by all. This book adds another layer of the rich human that was, is Primo Levi...Peter Forbes translation & introduction is excellent (though not reading Italian I would not be able to assess the translation)...There is an insightful afterword by the late, fantastic writer Italo Calvino, that serves as a fitting conclusion. The Calvino link is stressed further by Levi's inclusion of Marco Polo's 'Travels'; having recently read Calvino's 'Invisible Cities' I am now doubly intrigued by this tome...I have always loved 'word of mouth' recommendations, apart from the critical tides of fashion and here are thirty such recommendations...I intend to re-read both 'Gullivers Travels' & 'Moby Dick'...and I will finally approach something bigger than 'Death in Venice' by Mann (the extract from 'Joseph & Brothers' suggests this text to be of interest)...The Book of Job next to 'The Odyysey' (I didn't like 'The Iliad' much either!)next to Darwin to the chemistry book that gave Levi his trade...To Conrad's 'Youth', to writers I haven't heard of (but will pursue) to Arthur C. Clarke to a play by TS Eliot...These are an intrigueing choices, given informative, concise introductions by Levi...This book is highly recommended and documents a deep love of literature. It shows the powers that literature holds- to transcend, to evoke laughter, to increase one's perception of life...This book can only lead you to other books- which you will read (as I read this book)-and say to yourself "I am so happy I have read this". You cannot imagine yourself not having read it; wonder what your life would be without it...I know that my perceptions of life have been greatly enriched by Primo Levi, whose works I intend to read until the end of my time (and those years in which I'll force his works on friends, who'll read them and will wonder what their lives would have been without it...)Another wonderful posthumous translation from Levi; one of the brilliant writers of the 20th Century.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Stimulating, 9 Mar 2008

By	Nicholas Whyte (Oud Heverlee, Belgium) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Search for Roots: A Personal Anthology (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

A series of extracts ranging from one page to six of thirty favourite pieces of reading. I only knew four of them (The Book of Job, Gulliver's Travels, Moby-Dick and Murder in the Cathedral) and some of the others I think lose rather in translation (the Italian vernacular poetry of Giuseppe Belli) but there were a few pieces here from authors I would like to follow up for myself some time (Thomas Mann, Rabelais).

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