Review Summaries

• Readers often find it accessible as an adventure story about Jewish partisans, while still carrying the weight of wartime violence and solidarity. Many note that Levi's clarity and restraint anchor the novel.

Reviews

• 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.

• I have read several of his books. Very informative

• '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.

• A gift, arrived in good condition although the back page corner was slightly bent.

• 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.

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