The Periodic Table- Central Ideas

Unfortunately for anyone hoping to learn about the elements, there are much more lines spent talking about Primo Levi’s life than the properties of materials in the book The Periodic Table. Despite its name, it is not so much a book about the elements, but about the life and times of its author. It explores how events and people in his life could be tied to the properties elements and spends a chapter on each of the elements (although he only titles 12).

The Periodic Table does describe some chemistry related facts, but does not go into substantial detail. The ideas in it however, tie together nicely and follow a roughly chronological timeline. Primo Levi starts with possibly the least scientific chapter of all, Argon. He briefly describes the non-reactive elements and how “They are indeed so inert, so satisfied with their condition, that they do not interfere in any chemical reaction”. He then goes on to describe how this can be related to the Jewish people of his ancestry, in his family in particular “They were never much loved or much hated; stories of unusual persecutions have not been handed down”, relating this to the un-reactiveness of Argon. All of the chapters follow this sort of format, though the topics vary from his family and friends, to a brief mention of his time in Auschwitz, to a fictional work relating to mercury he wrote himself.

Primo Levi

Levi finishes with the ‘most scientific’ of all chapters: Carbon. In this chapter he describes a fictional journey of a carbon atom through the atmosphere, plants, and multiple animals. Again only briefly, he does mention Photosynthesis, respiration and other scientific-y subjects, although one would require previous knowledge of these concepts to gain a full appreciation of these references.

This, I found, is the case with most of the scientific concepts described- to gain a full understanding of what Levi is talking about, one must really have known about the concept first. Without the understanding much of the scientific concepts become worthless and the whole book becomes about Primo Levi. Therefore, I would recommend this book not to someone who is looking to learn about chemistry, but to someone who is interested in chemistry AND willing to read an autobiography of sorts, albeit a very interesting one.

The Periodic Table – Language

Voted the best Science Book Ever, Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table is a book that is sure to change reader’s ideas about science writing. Contrary to most science writing books, it is not a just an explanation of a new scientific concept instead it is written in the form of an autobiography. He links his biography with the periodic table; a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements. Each chapter is a named after a different chemical element, the first being “Argon”, the second being “Hydrogen”, and so one so forth. The structure and style of his writing make the book unique and interesting.

Primo Levi

The style of writing that Primo Levi uses makes the book a lot more appealing. His characterisations of characters like his Grandmother, his friends and other characters in the book make them feel real and relatable. As he spends time making his characters relatable, when he links his anecdotes to the properties of the element that he is explaining the reader is able to better understand the thinking behind his links. He uses metaphors and other such conventions to characterise the characters, a convention of writing that is not commonly used in science writing while still being able to explain the scientific concepts. The characterisation greatly improves the book and is one reason why the book is one of the best science writing books of all time.

Metaphors are used throughout the text to conjure thought provoking images and ideas. They leave notions in the reader’s minds that may change the way that they think. Often times they are not explained in the greatest detail, leaving room in the readers mind to interpret the metaphor in their own way. An example of such is: “Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.” The metaphor relates man to a centaur, stating that inspiration and art is derived from our body and that in the end we will be just dust. The metaphor states the simple meaning but it is possible that every person could understand it is a different way. The metaphors instigate interest and curiosity in the reader, and make the few boring chapters in the book a bit more groovy.

The language conventions used in The Periodic Table, make the book an interesting change to the majority of other science writing books. It shows that it is possible for science writing to have many different styles that engage different readers. Overall is an intriguing book that I would recommend to anyone.

The Periodic Table—Content

Primo Levi’s 1975 elementary work (heh heh) is widely heralded as one of the best pieces of science writing ever, and its little reason why. It’s one of the most accessible works of the genre, with its seemingly heavy subject being broken down into language of science topics that we non-scientists can actually comprehend and, perhaps even more importantly, is an autobiography of his life

The book focuses on elements of the aforementioned periodic table, such as carbon, hydrogen, gold and silver, so it can be forgiven if you think this a boring lecture on the origin of the various atoms. Instead, Levi relates the various elements (one per chapter/short story) to his real-life events, i.e. in Chapter 1 (Argon, and chronicling his early years); he says how Argon is an inert gas—resistant to reaction due to its outer electron shell configuration—and the most common of these inert or noble gases in our atmosphere, and goes on to say how Argon bore many similarities to his ancestors with their nobility and inertia. This is somewhat convoluted but a refreshing attempt at trying something new rather than the same old stuff we’ve come to expect from science writers a la Stephen Hawking.

The autobiography introduces a non-science element: this is a drawcard for readers who are perhaps interested in this type of text but put off by the heavier stuff. I found I did get bored of his recounts of distillation and whatnot, but the whole “overcoming adversity” part of this Jewish chemist’s tale more than made up for it. That’s just one of the ways non-science elements that relates really well to the main plotline.

As the book wore on I felt that it did this less and less, but the way the Carbon atom travels through various entities at the end was a real highlight, and saving grace for this book as a whole.

Overall the content of this book made it a sometimes dull but surprisingly really memorable read. I would highly recommend this to anyone in the science fraternity.

The Periodic Table~Structure

The Periodic Table, a book written by Primo Levi, is about his experiences as a doctoral-level chemist, with all the chapters relating to an element on the periodic table. He had used those elements to describe his life, from growing up in a Jewish household to finding a German chemist after the war.

He had started his book with Argon, which was used to describe his childhood, how it was like for him growing up and managing to connect each element to a part of his life, as if he was the Periodic Table. Even though the book was an autobiography, Primo had managed to incorporate science elements into his life, by using lavish languages to describe his experiences as carbon, he had managed to not only tell his story, but also teaching us about the element carbon.

The book was also structured in a chronological order, starting from birth to his prime, using an element for each chapter as he grows in the book. This makes him more relatable to people as instead of only explaining science elements, he tells us a personal story, relating the science topic to a part of his life, making it much more personal and much less boring for the general audience.

Although his book may be entertaining, some of the chapters had made me as bored as a plank such as the beginning of the book, he had mostly talked about his family, without much going on and not much science elements involved. Overall, the book had done well, with many links and metaphors connecting his life to the elements to the Periodic Table, making the book, not only an excellent read, but also an educational piece of art worthy to be read. The next time someone asks me about any elements mentioned in the book, I would definitely recommend this book to them.

The Periodic Table – Structure

The Periodic Table

The attributes of life often represent the attributes of atoms: inert, beautiful, precious, brittle, volatile… Inspired by the order behind the periodic table, Primo Levi describes the properties of the atoms through anecdotes of his own life. The anecdotes relate to aspects of his own life: His birth in a Jewish family, his training to be a chemist and the pain caused by the holocaust. Many readers find the structure of the book to be different and unique; while some readers love it others find it confusing and think it doesn’t fit well together. The style is partially due to the fact that the collection of stories was written over a long period of time so the writing style often changes.

As his book is basically an autobiography of his life, at times the book is often quite slow and boring while at others can be interesting and engaging. An example of this is the first chapter in which he describes his relatives in an effort write about the properties of Argon, the chapter is one of the most tedious chapters in the book, when compared to chapters like Carbon. Carbon one of the most well-known chapters in his book, is an example of one of his engaging chapters.

The chapters slowly work their way through his life, starting from infancy. As the book seems ordered by the dates in which the events happened it makes the book a lot more relatable to readers. As they are able to relate to the experiences it helps them understand the scientific concepts that are being explained in the book’s chapters.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is mostly an interesting, entertaining read. Named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, it has quite a large reputation to live up to. Although the structure can at some stages make the book quite boring it makes the science topics explained in the book a lot easier to understand.