Monday, June 6, 2011

Other People's Trades by Primo Levi

After reading the The Monkey's Wrench, I couldn't wait to read another PL book. Other People's Trades was again a compilation of many short stories on a wide variety of subjects/trades. One main difference I saw between the two is that a least a quarter of these stories were well above my level of comprehension. Boo! But several were written about subjects from an interesting view point which were hilarious and thought provoking – several of my favorites: "Grandfather's Store," "The Scribe" (about the initial use of a computer), "Stable/Unstable" (about wood), "The Fear of Spiders," "The Mark of the Chemist" and "Animals." An example, in "Novels Dictated by Dickens," which is essentially about animal behavior he states “…particularly domestic animals are like us, but 'with the lid off'," meaning their behavior is similar to what our's would be if we lacked inhibitions. PL provides many examples to support this thought. I really enjoyed the parts of this book I understood.

Leatherby Libraries Call Number: PQ4872.E8 A4413 1989
2nd Floor Humanities Library
Review submitted by: Linda Corcoran, Anderson Center for Economic Research
Rating: Somewhat Recommended

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