If This Is A Man/The Truce

'Miraculous' Philippe Sands

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If This Is A Man/The Truce

By: Primo Levi, Stuart Woolf - translator

Narrated by: Henry Goodman

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About this listen

"With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable, but also, in THE PERIODIC TABLE and THE WRENCH, his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man, the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known" - PHILIP ROTH©2014 Primo Levi

Primo LeviStuart Woolf - translatorHenry GoodmanLittle, Brown Book Group

20th Century

Historical

Medical

Military

Modern

Professionals & Academics

Heartfelt

Inspiring

Thought-Provoking

20th Century Historical Medical Military Modern Professionals & Academics Heartfelt Inspiring Thought-Provoking

Critic reviews

The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers . . . One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice

Levi's voice is especially affecting, so clear, firm and gentle, yet humane and apparently untouched by anger, bitterness or self-pity. If This Is a Man is miraculous, finding the human in every individual who traverses its pages, whether a Häftling (prisoner) or Muselmann ("the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection"), a kapo or a guard.

With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose... One of the greatest human testaments of the era

There are other Holocaust testimonies, but Levi's is the first, and the most focused... Written before the genre existed, it reads more straightforwardly like a record... It is a meticulously presented diary of hell

[What] gave it such power... was the sheer, unmitigated truth of it; the sense of what a book could achieve in terms of expanding one's own knowledge and understanding at a single sitting... few writers have left such a legacy... A necessary book

A life-changing book

Among the best literature of the twentieth century

A powerful reminder of what it means to be human

Most relevant

These books have provided me with an extraordinary taste of a world that no longer exists. I am glad to have had that taste. My life is the better for it. I won't pretend that this is an easy listen. It describes a world that I've never known and I hope to never know outside of listening to Primo Levi's experiences. What rises from those experiences is a strong sense of how, despite the difficulties of existing, humans can both persist and retain a sense of dignity & purpose. Yes, he describes the brutality of the lager, but he does not lose his focus on the responses of both himself and those around him.
In The Truce, Levi goes on to describe the aftermath of his internment at Birkenau and his journey back to Italy. This is an odyssey of sorts, crossing Europe, and has some humour, as well.
Henry Goodman does an excellent job of narrating what might have been a banal and unrelieved story of true horror. Instead he finds the nuances to help differentiate in the listener's mind Levi's carefully written prose.
You do not need to be Jewish, anymore than you need to be a human being, to be interested in this book. It shows how those in power can seek to belittle the lives of those different to themselves. Also how despite the vile strictures of the powerful, those oppressed retain more of their humanity than their oppressors. Listen to this and find your own humanity.