Begun in 1690; this diary of a forty-four-year-old German Jewish widow; mother of fourteen children; tells how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children; how she engaged in trade; ran her own factory; and promoted the welfare of her large family. Her memoir; a rare account of an ordinary woman; enlightens not just her children; for whom she wrote it; but all posterity about her life and community. Gluckel speaks to us with determination and humor from the seventeenth century. She tells of war; plague; pirates; soldiers; the hysteria of the false messiah Sabbtai Zevi; murder; bankruptcy; wedding feasts; births; deaths; in fact; of all the human events that befell her during her lifetime. She writes in a matter of fact way of the frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived. Accepting this situation as given; she boldly and fearlessly promotes her business; her family and her faith. This memoir is a document in the history of women and of life in the seventeenth century.
#1867907 in Books Metropolitan Books 2003-11-12Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.54 x 1.91 x 6.40l; #File Name: 0805073434608 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Flawed but worthwhile readBy William PatryMr. Thomson devoted a great deal of time and effort in writing his work; and I am glad I took the time and effort to read it. No one biographer can capture the life of someone like Primo Levi; but Mr. Thomson's interviewing of so many of Primo Levi's friends and family provides a very rich portrait; but one that doesn't get bogged down in details. This is no small accomplishment. Among the issues preventing me from giving the book more stars are Mr. Thomson's relentless psycho-babble interjections. Every woman whom Primo Levi befriends occasions a remark by Mr. Thomson that the relationship was not only asexual but in being asexual was reflective of a deep character attribute; but one that is never spelled out. At the same time; he repeatedly claims that Levi's friendships with male friends have a homoerotic tinge. This is cheap; dime-store stuff; and so very antithetical to Levi's always proper behavior. Levi deserves better. Mr. Thomson also constantly claims that people "must" have thought this or that without the slightest evidence to support such views. This is gross speculation masquerading as fact.About a quarter of the way from the end of the book; all of the writing is focused on the final event in the book; Levi's alleged suicide. We are treated to dozens of dozens of pages about his depression about how people (always after the fact) either "knew" or suspected that Levi would take his life. There is no effort to present other viewpoints; nothing of the measured nature of Diego Gambetta's 1999 article in the Boston Review (see here: [...]). Instead there are psycho-babble theories going back to Levi's grandfather's death. Everyone will come to their own conclusions; but to construct a a serious biography of such a careful; precise man around only one conclusion is; to me; a substantial flaw.In the end; for me this is a serious work; with some very annoying flaws.5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. This book is as tiresome as listening to some neighborhood gossip who cannot leave ...By carolinaislandgirlIt is difficult to give Primo Levi's biography a low rating; the man deserved a biography that shone with the careful use of language his own narrative work exemplified. This book is as tiresome as listening to some neighborhood gossip who cannot leave one speck of information undivulged. So our wonderful Primo Levi has been overtaken by a loquacious storyteller who manages to make the remarkable life of Levi Primo sink into utterly mundane prose and unimportant detail. So sad that the author could not ferret out the important and leave all the rest behind. Very disappointing.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Too Many Facts?By Mr. BIt is soon apparent; when reading Ian Thomson’s Primo Levi: A Life; that the author has undertaken a prodigious amount of literary detective work on his subject. Seemingly everyone who ever knew Levi; everyone who knew someone who knew Levi; and anyone who knew anything about Levi was interviewed (over 300 people; we learn on the second page of the author’s preface). The resulting chronology of Levi’s life is certainly comprehensive. In addition; Thomson is well versed in everything Levi ever published or wrote; including his voluminous letters; and he weaves Levi’s own words into the narrative to fill out the contours of his life. All this is good. Thomson; however; falls victim to the sin many biographers commit—he never met a fact he didn’t like. Consequently we are treated to details; relationships and events which might make interesting cocktail chatter; and which could easily have been consigned to the footnotes; but which the author felt compelled to include; not because they help shed any meaningful light on Levi; his life; his personality; his worldview; but rather; it seems; because the author needed to show the world every last thing he had uncovered in his labors. For example; it’s nice to know that Levi was born July 31; 1919. Less critical perhaps is the fact that he was one of twelve babies born in Turin that day. Wholly unnecessary is the fact that the twelve consisted of nine males and three females “according to the local newspapers.†(p. 18). It also might be nice to know that Levi often visited his maternal relatives’ villa in Piossasco; and that the caretaker’s daughter Maria sometimes looked after young Primo. But of what relevance is it to learn that Maria (who is never referred to again) once “sat through an entire Jewish banquet cradling a pet goose in her lap?†(p. 24). When Levi is reunited with two of his writer friends to share experiences of the war and resistance (p. 362) is it really necessary to tell us that they “enjoyed a meal of polenta porridge and pork?†After spending an entire page setting out in excruciating detail the contents of an inventory taken after the Fascists expropriated the Levi apartment in the autumn of 1944 (“two tennis racquets; without stringsâ€) Thomson explains in a parenthetical that it was his sleuthing in old bank files which turned up the inventory. He then feels the need to tell us that when he showed this inventory to Levi’s daughter she was “visibly disturbed†at seeing it for the first time; without elucidating what made the revelation so disturbing. Kudos to the author for finding it; but the entire point could have been handled in a sentence or two (and without the parenthetical). Naturally; nothing further is heard of this incident—it’s on to the next tangential fact that the author wants to cram in. What makes this overload all the more egregious; and doubly ironic; is the author’s repeated praise of Levi’s concision in all of his writings. Levi’s very strength lay in the fact that he was “a writer whose instinct was to pare down rather than amplify.†If Thomson had emulated his subject more; pared rather than amplified; he might have produced a better; more concise work without in any way diminishing his portrait of Primo Levi. Three and one-half stars.
