A revealing companion to Levi’s own considerable body of work, and an uncommonly thoughtful example of biography as...
English biographer Angier (Jean Rhys, 1991) gracefully explores the life of the great Italian writer and Holocaust survivor.
“Auschwitz killed him 40 years later,” declared newspaper headlines when Primo Levi committed suicide in 1987 at the age of 68. Elie Wiesel, Bruno Bettelheim, and other witnesses to genocide concurred, as if to say “even Primo Levi could not survive Auschwitz after all.” But Levi, who chronicled his concentration camp years in such books as The Truce and If This Is a Man, was not driven to kill himself by the haunting memories of that horrible time, writes Angier. Instead, she reveals, the fear of infirmities brought on by advancing years, a gnawing unhappiness over the state of the world, a difficult relationship with an imperious mother, and a lifelong tendency to melancholy all combined to drive the writer to fatal despair. The author knows her subject well and has brought exhaustive research to her task—a difficult one, given Levi’s famous reserve. Angier does not share his reticence, and if there’s a flaw here, it’s that she too often inserts herself as an actor in the narrative. As she wrestles with questions of how much to reveal of Levi’s life, for example, she describes it as a story that “upset some of the clearer ideas of good and evil, some of the higher hopes of human nature that he’d helped us to hang on to, despite everything.” Still, this is a rich, nuanced portrait of a man who lived through the worst horrors imaginable without betraying his fellow sufferers, who carried those memories for four decades, and who survived for as long as he did, as Angier says, “because he decided from the beginning or very near it to observe, understand, and remember every detail of this world.”
A revealing companion to Levi’s own considerable body of work, and an uncommonly thoughtful example of biography as literature in its own right.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-11315-7
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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