Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York : Summit Books, c1986.
Description
This is not a book for journalists. Civil servants, too, will feel uneasy while reading it, and as for lawyers, they will never sleep again. For it is about a man in his capacity as homo faber, a maker of things with his hands, and what has any of us ever made but words. I say it is 'about' the man who makes; truly, it is more a hymn of praise than a description, and not only because the toiler who is the hero of the book is a hero indeed - a figure, in his humanity, simplicity, worthy of inclusion in the catalogue of mythical giants alongside Hercules, Atlas, Gargantua and Orion. He is Faussone, a rigger' Bernard Levin, THE TIMES
User reviews
LibraryThing member dmturner
These are stories of the life of work, whether as an itinerant rigger or as a synthetic chemist; they are tales of the consuming force of construction, told by and to a pair of men, and the stories are sometimes set against a hypothetical counter-force of (often destructive) women, as if women's
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conundrums of building related only to relationships, to the web of knitting they are often seen doing rather than to the towers and bridges constructed by men. Show Less
LibraryThing member lethalmauve
"I really believe that to live happily you have to have something to do, but it shouldn't be too easy, or else something to wish for, but not just any old wish: something there's hope of achieving."
Primo Levi's The Monkey's Wrench is a bundle of words, concise and passionate, light-hearted enough
The Monkey's Wrench is a silently profound tribute to work, an ode perhaps — the joy it brings as part of a life ordinarily yet satisfyingly lived.
Primo Levi's The Monkey's Wrench is a bundle of words, concise and passionate, light-hearted enough
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to arouse an emotional disconnect from its characters. It tells a series of conversations between two people who acquaint each other, in a number of encounters, through sharing of stories about their job; one a rigger, the other a chemist. In these conversations about accidents, experiences, and arguments that happened in their job Levi reminds the importance of loving your bread and butter at the end of the day amidst the hiccups and loose definition the hard work; hard work does not necessarily results to a job well done. Each but not most has a lesson to give.The Monkey's Wrench is a silently profound tribute to work, an ode perhaps — the joy it brings as part of a life ordinarily yet satisfyingly lived.
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LibraryThing member kcshankd
Short, work-place vignettes that read together could form an homage to labor, work, if one chooses to read them that way. Levi, the chemist, and a fellow Italian rigger swap tales. Mostly we hear the rigger, working abroad on one massive project after the other.
Awards
Premio Strega (Winner — 1979)
Other editions
The Monkey's Wrench by Primo Levi (Paper Book)