Among the few things I know about chemistry is that the Periodic Table is a means of ordering elements in a logical manner, connecting elements and helping to make sense of this world.
Primo Levi's Periodic Table* is, like much of his work, autobiographic, and the writer associates events in his life with various elements in the periodic table, both in order to convey more meaning by the association and (so I think) to bring scientific rigour to the chaos of life.
He begins with Argon, one of the inert noble, rare gases, and says "The little I know about my ancestors presents many similarities to these gases. Not all of them were materially inert, for that was not granted them [...] But there is no doubt that they were inert in their inner spirits, inclined to disinterested speculation, witty discourses, elegant, sophisticated, and gratuitous discussion [...] Noble, inert, and rare: their history is quite poor when compared to other illustrious Jewish communities in Italy and Europe."
He begins with Argon, one of the inert noble, rare gases, and says "The little I know about my ancestors presents many similarities to these gases. Not all of them were materially inert, for that was not granted them [...] But there is no doubt that they were inert in their inner spirits, inclined to disinterested speculation, witty discourses, elegant, sophisticated, and gratuitous discussion [...] Noble, inert, and rare: their history is quite poor when compared to other illustrious Jewish communities in Italy and Europe."
Even so, with this "poor history", Levi conjures a memorable succession of Aunts and Uncles (in the larger sense of the word). One of them is Barbapartin, Uncle Bonaparte, who "had fallen from his rank as an uncle because the Lord, blessed be He, had given him so unbearable a wife that he had had himself baptized, became a monk, and left to work as a missionary in China, so as to be as far away from her as possible." This warm and funny episode intended as a presentation of his background, makes way to Hydrogen, in which Levi, as a young teenager, discovers chemistry together with a friend, blowing up a home lab in the process. This encounter with "the same element that burns in the sun and the stars" paves the way to his future career. With Zinc, the student Levi gets to muse about Fascism as a chemistry student observing reactions in the lab. With Iron, we discover a friend who introduced him to mountaineering, and with Potassium and Nickel we enter the surreal (yet too real) world of the War, and so on we go on a journey through Levi's life story through Lead, Mercury, Cerium and other elements, down to Carbon.
Life stories, when put under the patronage of chemical elements, make more sense to Levi the chemistry specialist. By this means, life can ultimately make sense to the reader, too.
More about Primo Levi here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primo_levi
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* - Voted in 2006 by The Royal Institution of Great Britain as the best science book.
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