According to his biographer Ian Thompson , Primo committed suicide after a sustained period of depression by jumping from an upper balcony of his Turin flat , almost 100 years after a forebear done almost the exact thing.
Like his Turin contemporary Carlo Levi , Primo developed a highly sparse , concise , precise economy of style.This made his books about experiences of the Holocaust have a greater impact on the readers mind , as the narrative is related in a non-emotional rationalist style , hence making the irrationality of the grotesque outrages he relates seem to be monstrous.
Below is a 3 part Italian documentary with English subtitles about a poignant and harrowing return to Auschwitz by Levi.
( scroll down the "related videos" side-header on the right hand side for parts 2 and 3.)
In this collection of short vignette essays he reflects on why does one write in one of the pieces.
"1) Because one feels the drive and need to do so
2) To entertain others and oneself
3) To teach something to someone
4) To improve the world
5) To make ones ideas known
6) To free oneself from anguish- i ask him, however , to make an effort to filter his anguish , not to fling it as it is , rough and raw, into the face of the reader : otherwise he risks infecting others without getting rid of it himself".
7) To become famous
8) To become Rich
9) Out of habit"
on page 73 he cautions the writer to be "never dogmatic".
In his essay " The Mark of a Chemist" he tells of a vital life lesson about what to do with knowledge as he " learned how to do something , which , life teaches , is different from having "learned something"".
Number 6) would most closely fit the reason why Primo wrote , and the brevity of style that made his work say so much in that what was left unsaid spoke the loudest in the readers mind.
Rather sadly , todays academe has harnessed the universal warning against the excesses of totalitarian doctrines to their partisan political projects , especially some promotors of the Euston Manifesto.
But one reliable understanding of Levis legacy is this lecture from the Feminist Philosopher Judith Butler.Especially looking at the concept of forgiveness , in which i very much side with Bruno Bettleheim.
Primo was sensitive to the massacres of Shabra and Shatilla , such actions caused him "anguished and shamed" by Israels actions.
( scroll down the "related videos" side-header and you should be able to dig out the 10 part lecture).Part 2 , especially look to Primos disquiet about Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the Lebanon war http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVyndABFl30
Judith is a supporter for Justice for the Palestinians and a patron of a Theatre Project in the illegally occupied West Bank.
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