Primo LeviIf Not Now, When? (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

This is one of Levi's last works, the story is about a fictional group of Jewish partisans operating behind German lines in Russia and Poland from July, 1943 to the end of World War II. Levi himself joined a partisan band in 1943, although it was in Italy, not Russia, and he was soon captured and sent to Auschwitz. Although the plot and characters are fictional, Levi has gone to great lengths to make his story as authentic as possible. This novel is based not only on his own personal experiences, but on conversations he had with others, and on other published accounts of the experiences of Jewish partisans operating behind enemy lines on the Eastern Front (Levi even provides a bibliography at the end). This is a book of hope, not of despair. Levi explicitly eschews accounts of the death camps in this work; it is not a work of "Holocaust Literature". It is a story of the Jewish resistance with universal overtones.What makes this book more than just another "war story" is the rich cast of characters, drawn with sympathy, humor, and without a trace of sentimentality. Typical of these is the leader of the partisan band, a man of great charisma, and a brilliant decision-maker, who understands that in the forest, surrounded by enemies, with the life-sustaining morale of his small force hanging in the balance, his violin is almost as essential for the group's survival as his weapon. What gives this book such great authenticity is that none of the characters are paragons of virtue; they are ordinary, flawed people forced to draw upon every last ounce of courage and resourcefulness within just to survive to fight another day. Front and center to the survival of the group is the fierce loyalty its members have to each other. Even as the war ends and they are no longer in deadly peril, the members of the band share a common destiny in which the fate of one is the fate of all.I found this book very difficult to put down once I started it. It would be hard to find a more vivid, well-told tale of what it was like for the partisans along the Eastern front of World War II.

If Not Now, When? is undoubtedly based on accounts told Primo Levi either in the concentration camps or, later, in his return to Italy via the displaced persons channels. It tells a story of a group of Russian Jews who, for one reason or another, find themselves behind the German lines in what is, today, the Ukraine. Some join Soviet-supported partisan groups conducting combat operations against the Germans, others just try, however possible, to simply survive, day-to-day, in the face of hunger and, in the long winters, cold. Some are able to work as members of a team, or a community; others carry scars from their experiences that make them withdraw into themselves. The story shows the mental conflict some of them deal with in resolving the question: am I a soldier of the Red Army, or am I a Jew against whom the world is arrayed. Some simply give up. Others bond together to operate as, essentially, a family which takes the place of the families they have lost. You will finish the book feeling that you have become a better person for having read it. I think it should be required reading in our schools, or at least in our colleges.

This review, in correspondence with the paucity of thoughts and emotions evoked by it, shall be correspondingly brief. Levi based this book, his only novel, on true accounts - listed in the bibliography - of Jewish partisan resistance during World War II. I've no doubt that it is very true to life. But this virtue becomes a fault for the reader, or for this reader. People thrown together by war are interested in only one thing: Staying alive from one day to the next. There is little or no room left for the life of those two essential organs: The mind and the heart. The primary questions the book raises on page after page are: How are we going to eat? How are we going to survive the various groups who seek our death? It's interesting history. But it simply does not make for a gripping read. I've never read a book in which the adjective "plodding" was more apt, literally and figuratively.Gadeleh, who becomes the de facto leader of the group, sums up the perspective conveyed perfectly:"I believe in only three things: vodka, women, and the submachine gun. Once I also believed in reason, but not anymore."The prose conveys this "banality of war" mentality so effectively that it becomes an altogether deflating experience to read it.

This is a well-written novel that presents a unique story about struggles that ensue from having recently either escaped or been freed from the Nazi extermination camps.

I purchased it for mom. The book came quickly. She said that the quality is fine. She is perfectly happy with it.

Fictional though gripping story of fight by Jewish armed forces in WWII. Worth reading as a stand-alone but better when read with author's other accounts and Wiesel's "Night."

Interesting and well written.

Primo Levi does something quite extraordinary here. He tells the story of these partisans struggling to stay alive under near-impossible circumstances with such vivid detail that you easily feel you are there with them. You feel the cold. Suffer the hunger. Experience the longing and fear. And yet, as finely drawn as these scenes are, as desperate as the situation is, it never becomes overwhelming --too sad or too horrific to read. In every way, Levi brings us into the mind and spirit of these people -- not fearless fighters, but just everyday folk -- and lights in us the courage and the drive to keep going. Like others have said, I found this book impossible to put down. At a time when our world again is in the process of losing its center, when the societal norms and familiar ways are collapsing around us this book gives hope that people have found ways to make it through the darkest of times. While set during WW2, in many ways this really is a book for our times.

I think that is my favourite Primo Levi book to date.Primo Levi was a keen observer of humanity and this fictional tale about Jewish partisans is based on recollections of one of his friends who worked in a reception centre in Italy. Levy also mentions a number of books that he used for reference and research purposes, but makes no mention of which of his own experiences he has blended into the tale.The story is a gripping and inspiring tale which provides many funny moments amongst the tragedy that spawned the partisans. Their journey from Russia, through Poland and Germany to Italy is also used as a mechanism to highlight and contrast the differing attitudes shown by so called friends and allies and former enemies to the partisans and Jews in general. It manages to put some complex social, political, religious and human issues into a very readable and enjoyable tale which I found impossible to put down.

I first read this book in my early 20s. I was far too young, I was impressed by the book but I was too young to properly appreciate it. Just found it hard going. We all have this fantasy that we'd do the right thing if confronted with the equivalent of Nazi invasion, this book makes one think.

'If Not Now, When?' is a novel from a man better known for non-fiction, and Primo Levi shows awesome ability to build character, describe landscape and develop atmosphere. His subject is the Jewish partisans who harried German forces in eastern Europe - perhaps, as Mark Mazower suggests in his introduction - to recall a history of resistance that is less well-known than the history of suffering and in effect to mark an alternative life that Levi himself did not have the chance to live.Levi has taken much trouble in his historical research (and includes a short bibliography for further reading) but it is the selfsame piercing humanity that lifts his non-fiction to such heights that also makes this fiction so compelling. 'If Not Now, When?' remains very much a book about the Jews while expressing wider human truths about friendship, compromise and survival.

This work of fiction from Primo Levi documents the journey accross Europe of a band of partisans caught behind enemy lines during World War Two. The story is based upon truth, after Levi himself encountered young, hopeful Zionists whilst trying to get back to Italy after his internment in Auschwitz. The novel pulls no punches; it gives an honest account of the conditions the partisans find themselves in; often starving and hungry, living in underground camps or shot down aeroplanes, they are relentlessly brave and determined to survive. It may be a work of fiction, but as an insight into the war of the largely unsung heroes of the resistance movement of Eastern Europe, and the survival story of the Jewish community that lived upon their wits in the woods of Poland and Russia, it is noteworthy. It took Primo Levi over a year to return home to Italy after the war, and on the way he was to hear many stories of survival, as well as having his own adventures.It is written in a style those who have previously read Levi will be familiar with, it is both compelling and compassionate, whilst retaining the distance a scientist puts between himself and his work. Levi addresses one of the recurring themes of his work - how does man act during adverse circumstances? What happens to our morality during war? Relationships are forged and broken, and both the best and the worst of human nature is depicted and, ultimately, that is what makes Levi one of the most important writers of the twentieth century: his examination of the human condition. I would recommend this book, and all his other works, to anyone.

as described