Primo Levi
REFLECTIONS ON WRITING
Some books are dear to us without our being able to say
exactly why: in such cases, by carrying our investigation just a bit
deeper, it is probable that unsuspected affinities could be discovered,
rich in revelations as regards the least obvious aspects of our char–
acter. But other books accompany us for years, for life, and the
reason is clear, accessible, easy to express in words : among these,
with reverence and love, I dare to mention
Gargantua and Pantagruel,
the colossal but only work by Rabelais , "mon maitre." The strange
fate of this book is known : born from the love of life and cultivated
leisure of Rabelais, this monk, physician, philologist, traveler and
humanist, it grew and proliferated with an absolute lack of plan for
almost twenty years and more than one thousand pages , accumu–
lating the most extravagant inventions in full imaginative freedom,
half a robust popular epic of buffoonery, half imbued with the
vigorous and vigilant moral consciou'sness of a great Renaissance
spirit. On each page we encounter, daringly juxtaposed, inspired ,
ribald , or jejune scurrilities, and at the same time quotations (au–
thentic and not, almost all quoted from memory) from Latin, Greek,
Arabic, and Hebrew texts; dignified and resonant oratorical exer–
cises; Aristotelian subtleties that give rise to gigantic laughter, while
others are endorsed and validated with the good faith of a man
whose life is pure.
If
to this fundamentally discontinuous texture and its frequent
linguistic difficulties one adds the violent criticisms and satires
directed against the Roman Curia, it is easy to understand why at all
times
Gargantua and Pantagruel
has found a limited audience, and why
some have tried to pass it off, opportunely amputated and reshaped,
as children's literature . And yet I only have to open it to find in it the
book of today, I mean the book of all times, eternal, which speaks a
language that will always be understood .
Editor's Note: Copyright
C
1985 by Giulio Einaudi Editore. Translation copyright
C
1987 by Summit Books, a division of Simon
&
Schuster, Inc. These essays are from
the forthcoming book
Other People's Trades
by Primo Levi to
be
published by Summit
Books. Printed by permission .
