levi presentation 2009

8/3/2019 Levi Presentation 2009

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Periods of Transition:

Primo Levi and the Classification ofUnclassifiable Works

Tony Murfin

Lancaster University (DLMA)


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Primo Levi

Industrial Chemist

Holocaust survivor & witness

Author of If This is a Man The Truce

The Periodic Table

The Wrench Other Peoples Trades

The Drowned and the Saved


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Aim

To show that we can better understandPLs works if we understand him also as a

chemist. The Periodic Table is a key tool of science-it organised what was previouslyunclassifiable.


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Primo Levis Status

At least 3 major biographies andnumerous studies and conference

proceedings Rightly acknowledged

Jewish identity

Writer

Memory and testimony

Primo Levi centre in Turin


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Yet I am he, the B.Sc. of Turin, in fact, at this particular moment it is

impossible to doubt my identity with him, as my reservoir of

knowledge of organic chemistry, even after so long an inertia,

responds at request with unexpected docility. And even more, this

sense of lucid elation, this excitement which I feel warm in my veins,

I recognise it, it is the fever of examinations, my fever of my

examinations, that spontaneous mobilization of all my logical faculties

and all my knowledge, which my friends at university so envied me.

PL, Chemistry Exam, If This is A Man:

An Examination which took place in Auschwitz


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Il Sistema Periodico [1975]

Rosenthal's translation pub. 1984

21 sections each headed with the name of achemical element where in each case theelement plays a physical role

The publication which transformed PLsinternational reputation

After a few pages I immersed myself in TheP

eriodicTable gladly and gratefully. There is nothingsuperfluous here, everything this book contains isessential. Saul Bellow


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An Unclassifiable Work

The Periodic Table is a book which ishard to label. It is not an autobiography,because it is highly selective about Levispast and also because it contains so manydifferent ingredients as well asrecollection: fables set in another age,essays, brief fiction-sketches and dreamypassages which ramble off into anynumber of digressions. Ascherson, ISP intro,Everyman


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Primo as ChemistThe bond between a man and

his profession is similar tothat which ties him to hiscountry; it is just as complex,

often ambivalent, and ingeneral it is understoodcompletely only when it isbroken: by exile oremigration in the case of

one's country, by retirementin the case of a trade orprofession.

Rare picture of PL in the lab


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Something Missing?

One SoulReinterpreting PL being a chemist in the worlds eyes, and

feeling a writers blood in my veins, [Ihave] two souls in my body, and thats toomany. [Narrator, The Wrench]

I felt hugely relieved when I reached

retirement age and could resign, and sorenounce my soul number one. [A ManSaved by his Skills, Philip Roth]


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Understand PLs 2 souls

What does it add to literary understanding?

ISP : Unclassifiable yet titled for a

system of classification Not consistent with the Systematic,

Rational Primo Levi


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A brief science lesson

Remember the Periodic Table? Schoolwallcharts.

Chemistry is a new science with deeproots in Alchemy.


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The Periodic Table:

More than just a list Law of Octaves John Newland, 1865

Mendeleev inspired by Sanskrit grammar

[Kak] And by dream:

"I saw in a dream a table where all theelements fell into places as required.Awakening I immediately wrote it down on apiece of paper. Only in one place did acorrection later seem necessary".


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Primo and Classification

In Anissimov [ ]


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Periodic Table: Key Properties

It contains what it does not contain

Ellipses are not just absent but inevitable

They must exist Mendeleevs eka-silicon and eka-boron

In ISP The fact that I, a chemist, engaged here in writing my stories

about chemistry, have lived a different season, has been narratedelsewhere.


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Il Sistema Periodico

The elements are more than just hangersfor short stories

No single genre but its own structurewhich can contain multiple genres

There are omissions: ellipses. Knowledgeof the story elements either side of themmakes their existence inevitable


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Summary

PL had the soul of a chemist, could bepassionate about chemistry even in theLager.

The structure of ISP is multi-dimensional

What is not there-

a different season has been narrated elsewhere.

-is still part of the narrative.


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levi presentation 2009

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