The Periodic Table
"I listened — in the silence of curfew one could hear the murmur of the Dora, lost friend, and all friends were lost, and youth and joy, and perhaps life"
This is a sad little book. Primo Levi’s mostly out-in-the-open autobiography¹ tenderly collects the memories of a life, like all lives, full of loss. It is a quiet, understated sadness that runs both through the fragmentary history of his Jewish roots (Argon), and the invitation he received for a university reunion 25 years after graduation (Silver). Even when it comes to Auschwitz, the author sticks to Cerium and how it prosaically saved his life, a quiet reflection only appearing later (Vanadium), in an awkward chapter covering the unexpected encounter he had with his allegedly innocent superior at the laboratory where he (Levi) was a slave. Even then, the triumph of the prosaic; no grand gestures, some clichéd words, some honest, some not so much.
True to its title, there is much about chemistry, too. Levi is completely enamoured with matter and Man’s struggle to tame it. Indeed, a good portion of the book is dedicated to this, oftentimes very futile, endeavor. When nature is so wonderful and mysterious, even the hardest headed of chemical engineers can find themselves thinking of alchemy instead of atomic structure. To the trained eye, all elements have magical properties; the sections of the book most connected to chemistry have an air of magical realism to them. The wonders of Levi’s youth are the wonders of discovering his trade.
With the passing of time, both sweet and bitter become bittersweet; such is the power of nostalgia. The ever so slightly bitter contemplation of what could’ve been, if only; the sweet remembrance of happy, undefined years. It is not hard to find great poetry in struggles long behind, in what was once familiar and will forever remain so, despite seeming forgetfulness. It’s true: ‘Troubles overcome are good to tell’.
As opposed to the mostly not-out-in-the-open autobiographies that pose as novels