Sketching The Periodic Table: Iron, by Primo Levi

This is one of my favourite books, regarded as the greatest science novel of all time. I remember first reading it the whole way through in hospital whilst recovering from injuries sustained in a cycle race crash nearly three years ago, it put my situation into perspective looking at some of the things that Levi writes about in this series of short stories. The stories are a biographical account of his time as a Jewish-Italian chemist living in fascist Italy, each one is named after 21 different elements of the periodic table, and reflect the behaviour of each element. He writes about his family, ancestry, studies, relationships, practicing chemistry, two imaginative tales, time as anti-fascist partisan, and his arrest and internment at Fossoli di Carpi and Auschwitz camps. In this first entry on Levi, I made some sketches after reading the 'Iron' chapter.

Sandro Delmastro having a snack whilst on a cycling trip with Primo Levi.

In Iron, Levi recounts going mountaineering with his close friend Sandro Delmastro aged 20 in the late 1930's, and writes about admiring his rugged strength, practicality, stoicness and preference for actions over words, which he learned from Sandro from his adventures in the Alps with him, embodying the element of iron's strength and malleability. In my sketchbook entries I decided to focus on this, firstly seeing if there were any photographs of the real life Sandro on the internet and there is, but none of any bicycles as Levi states in the book so I added one leaning against the wall, a popular form of transport and activity for youth throughout Europe at the time. Then I imagined them having left their bikes at the bottom of the cliff, scaling the rocks with Sandro leading the way, Primo looking more apprehensive and learning the ropes from Sandro who was at one with the rocks.

Sandro and Primo scaling the rocks in the Alps on their bike ride in France, Sandro leading the way.

My favourite quote from the chapter is "... what was the point in being twenty if you couldn't permit yourself the luxury of taking the wrong route", summing up his willingness to push himself to the limit following Sandros lead, so he could demonstrate that he was physically and mentally equal with his non-Jewish friend in defiance of the racial purity laws, training which would serve him well when he was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Levi states his gratefulness in Sandro demonstrating his strong character to him and reveals Sandro joined the Resistance during the outbreak of the Second World War, and was killed by a tommy gun burst to the back of the neck by men recruited by Mussolini's Italian Social Republic, in Cuneo, a mountainous area in Piedmont region of northern Italy.

Sandro sitting on a rock looking at the view across the Alps.