Periodic Table Reflection

The Periodic Table was written by Pimo Levi. Primo Levi lived in Italy in this book he tells about some of his life by using chemical elements to help describe that part of that life or the chemical element he was working with during that period of his life. Each chapter of this book was named a chemical element which at first confused me, but I soon realized as I read that each element meant something in each of his little tales of his life.
The Periodic Table reminded me of my chemistry lab when I read the sections where he was working in the lab either titrating or diluting I thought about when I did that for an experiment in one of my labs. Primo Levi had very interesting jobs during his life. When he was trying to help this guy with his lipstick company by making alloxan, I couldn’t believe that it was made out of either chicken or python manure, and that he had to collect it fresh in person at these chicken coops. While I was reading it the smell of manure suddenly came to me because of all the chicken houses I live by.
This book had a lot of detail describing the things he did and when he was working in the laboratory. It almost seemed as though I was climbing the mountains with him or in the laboratory trying to isolate a chemical element. The way he described how he got caught rebelling against the Fascist, I felt I was sitting in the room with him by the furnace. I was also surprised that he told the Germans that he was a Jew.
I didn’t like some chapters when it went away from his life and started talking about different people because I zoned out during those pages and asking myself what that was about.
Overall though I did like the book it fascinated me to keep on reading even though there were some part I didn’t understand totally like the first chapter and all the Latin terms. Even though I got what he was meaning with the chemical element argon.