El sistema periódico

The periodic system is structured in twenty-one chapters, each one dedicated to a chemical element that has become a metaphor for man and human relationships. If ironic nostalgia permeates in the chapter dealing with "Argon" (in which Levi traces the history of his ancestors) or poetry emerges in his reflection on the "Iron" and his friendship with Sandro (later taken prisoner by the fascists and killed by a boy-butcher), pure imagination dominates the story suggested by "Mercury", while a drama tempered by lucidity presides over the chapter corresponding to "Vanadium", narration of the writer's reunion -finished war and for professional reasons- with one of his Auschwitz jailers. Primo Levi, a chemist by profession, describes the world to us through the periodic table with prodigious lucidity and literary mastery.