Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (1995), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 144 pages
Description
Primo Levi was one of the most astonishing voices to emerge from the twentieth century- a man who survived one of the ugliest times in history, yet who was able to describe his own Auschwitz experience with an unaffected tenderness. Levi was a master storyteller but he did not write fairytales. These stories are an elegy to the human figures who stood out against the tragic background of Auschwitz, 'the ones in whom I had recognized the will and capacity to react, and hence a rudiment of virtue'. Each centres on an individual who - whether it be through a juggling trick, a slice of apple or a letter - discovers one of the 'bizarre, marginal moments of reprieve'.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Linus_Linus
My first completed read of the year, Moments of Reprieve, aptly described in its missive as a discovery of 'bizarre, marginal, moments of reprieve' charts the stories of a myriad variety of people, mostly Jews who Primo Levi had come across during his stay at Auschwitz. Among many others, a
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juggler, an almost mute worker, a mirror chemist, a helpful SS officer, are all bound in a conflict, both that ravaged their internal beings as well as the external world they inhabited in times where sense failed. Primo Levi, like what he is well known for in his holocaust works, tells the tales of harrowing times in quiet, unaffected prose, and thus sharing an intimate experience with the reader than just a book. Show Less
LibraryThing member mallinje
This book elaborates on some characters that were mentioned in other books and first mentions others that didn't fit into some of his longer works like If This is a Man and The Truce. I would recommend this, The Periodic Table, and The Drowned and the Saved after reading those two books.
LibraryThing member pokarekareana
Primo Levi returns to some of his old characters, describing his experience of each of them in the same intriguing style employed in "If This Is A Man" et al. The tone of the book seems more hopeful and less despairing than his other Auschwitz memoirs. An essential read for anyone who has read
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Levi's more famous works. Show Less
LibraryThing member Whisper1
Unlike his other books regarding the holocaust and camp internment, this is a book of Levi's ability to find some modicum of humor amid the horror. Looking back 40 years after writing In Survival in Auschwitz, the author found there were memories that surfaced that brought hope and exhibited the
Each chapter is dedicated to a particular person or incident. Many of these characters did not survive, and some Levi did not know what happened to them.
He tells of Ezra, an Ortodox Jew who despite the fact he was dying of starvation insisted on fasting on Yam Kippur.
A chemist before his encampment, during his stay at Auschwitz, he was given a job of making and measuring chemical compounds. Sick with scarlet fever, his life was saved.
He tells the story of small acts of courage and revenge. For example, some people forced to care for the laundry of the guards, picked lice off the bodies of the dead and carefully sewed them in the folds of the collars of the uniforms.
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survival to find some meaning, perhaps a ray of sunshine peeking through the insanity.Each chapter is dedicated to a particular person or incident. Many of these characters did not survive, and some Levi did not know what happened to them.
He tells of Ezra, an Ortodox Jew who despite the fact he was dying of starvation insisted on fasting on Yam Kippur.
A chemist before his encampment, during his stay at Auschwitz, he was given a job of making and measuring chemical compounds. Sick with scarlet fever, his life was saved.
He tells the story of small acts of courage and revenge. For example, some people forced to care for the laundry of the guards, picked lice off the bodies of the dead and carefully sewed them in the folds of the collars of the uniforms.
Show Less
LibraryThing member briandarvell
Good short book. Likely I should have not started with this as a first exposure to Levi’s writing. Stories were interesting and had a haunting feeling to them when knowing what happens at the camps. Would read more from this author.
Subjects
Language
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
1981
Physical description
144 p.; 7.6 inches
ISBN
0140188959 / 9780140188950