Reviews

"This time last year I was a free man: an outlaw but free, I had a name and a family, I had an eager and restless mind, an agile and healthy body. I used to think of many, far-away things: of my work, of the end of the war, of good and evil, of the nature of things and of the laws which govern human actions; and also of the mountains, of singing and loving, of music, of poetry. I had an enormous, deep-rooted, foolish faith in the benevolence of fate; to kill and to die seemed extraneous literary things to me. My days were both cheerful and sad, but I regretted them equally, they were all full and positive; the future stood before me as a great treasure. Today the only thing left of the life of those days is what one needs to suffer hunger and cold; I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself."

This book was devastating. Primo Levi's devastation was heartbreaking. He understood his circumstances. He could see and observe and feel and experience and remember and explain what was being done to him, but he couldn't make sense of it. Hier ist kein warum ("Here there is no why"). I am at a loss for words. We are fortunate to have Levi's.

pdougmc's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved it. Anyone wanting to know about life in the German death camps. Primo Levi is a survivor that provides first hand knowledge. It is not a history book. It only details the experiences of Levi.

This is the first book of my effort to read the Complete Works of Primo Levi. The next book is The Truce.

medv's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring relaxing sad

5.0

anaalicemiranda's review against another edition

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4.0

4.5
"As personagens destas páginas não são homens. A sua humanidade está sepultada, ou eles mesmos a sepultaram, debaixo da ofensa que sofreram ou que infligiram a outrem."

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