Fabric of Thoughts: Chemistry

One of the things that helped to make up the fabric of Primo Levi's thoughts was his education, career and love of Chemistry. From an early age Levi excelled in academics and he most strongly excelled in Chemistry. His education and knowledge is what helped him stay alive in the concentration camps as well. In a way, he owes his life to Chemistry. In the concentration camps, he was one of the Chemists, who helped produce rubber at Monowitz. He explains his own thoughts about his relationship with chemistry as: “For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: 'I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.'”.

To Primo Levi, chemistry was what he lives for and we can see this through him paralleling Mount Sinai and Moses to Chemistry and Himself. To Primo Levi, chemistry is his religion, it is the law that he lives by. He also says this, “The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one's country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.”

Primo Levi's readers and observers can see that Primo Levi defined himself as a CHEMIST, it was not just his profession or hobby, but it was everything to him.