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The Magic Paint
Whether describing the most beautiful poem ever composed or an invention gone horribly wrong, this title features eight stories that open up a rich, fantastical world of wonder, adventure and cruel twists of fate, where nothing is as it seems. It includes: 'The Magic Paint', 'The Death of Marinese', 'Censorship in Bitinia', and 'Knall'.
58 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 2011
15 people are currently reading
273 people want to read
About the author
Primo Levi
180 books2,345 followersPrimo Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor whose literary work has had a profound impact on how the world understands the Holocaust and its aftermath. Born in Turin in 1919, he studied chemistry at the University of Turin and graduated in 1941. During World War II, Levi joined the Italian resistance, but was captured by Fascist forces in 1943. Because he was Jewish, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944, where he endured ten harrowing months before being liberated by the Red army.
After the war, Levi returned to Turin and resumed work as a chemist, but also began writing about his experiences. His first book, If This Is a Man (published in the U.S. as Survival in Auschwitz), is widely regarded as one of the most important Holocaust memoirs ever written. Known for its clarity, restraint, and moral depth, the book offers a powerful testimony of life inside the concentration camp. Levi went on to write several more works, including The Truce, a sequel recounting his long journey home after liberation, and The Periodic Table, a unique blend of memoir and scientific reflection, in which each chapter is named after a chemical element.
Throughout his writing, Levi combined scientific precision with literary grace, reflecting on human dignity, morality, and survival. His later works included fiction, essays, and poetry, all characterized by his lucid style and philosophical insight. Levi also addressed broader issues of science, ethics, and memory, positioning himself as a key voice in post-war European literature.
Despite his success, Levi struggled with depression in his later years, and in 1987 he died after falling from the stairwell of his apartment building in Turin. While officially ruled a suicide, the exact circumstances of his death remain a subject of debate. Nevertheless, his legacy endures. Primo Levi’s body of work remains essential reading for its deep humanity, intellectual rigor, and unwavering commitment to bearing witness.
After the war, Levi returned to Turin and resumed work as a chemist, but also began writing about his experiences. His first book, If This Is a Man (published in the U.S. as Survival in Auschwitz), is widely regarded as one of the most important Holocaust memoirs ever written. Known for its clarity, restraint, and moral depth, the book offers a powerful testimony of life inside the concentration camp. Levi went on to write several more works, including The Truce, a sequel recounting his long journey home after liberation, and The Periodic Table, a unique blend of memoir and scientific reflection, in which each chapter is named after a chemical element.
Throughout his writing, Levi combined scientific precision with literary grace, reflecting on human dignity, morality, and survival. His later works included fiction, essays, and poetry, all characterized by his lucid style and philosophical insight. Levi also addressed broader issues of science, ethics, and memory, positioning himself as a key voice in post-war European literature.
Despite his success, Levi struggled with depression in his later years, and in 1987 he died after falling from the stairwell of his apartment building in Turin. While officially ruled a suicide, the exact circumstances of his death remain a subject of debate. Nevertheless, his legacy endures. Primo Levi’s body of work remains essential reading for its deep humanity, intellectual rigor, and unwavering commitment to bearing witness.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 28, 2023
'The Magic Paint,' the tale that gave the title for the book, a humorous fantasy, imagines an industrial lacquer that can ward off the evil eye.
'The Death of Marinese' dates from 1949, when Levi was virtually unknown as a writer. Its triumphalist message of partisan revolt makes it a classic war story, gritty and suspenseful. Yet, for all Levi wrote of other subjects, it was the war, and the moral and material ruins of post-Nazi Europe, that provided him with his most enduring subject matter.
'Censorship in Bitinia,' an Orwellian allegory of the totalitarian state, first appeared in Levi's 1967 dystopian collection, Natural Histories, and considers man's dangerous misuse of technology.
One fantasy - 'Knall' - had taken from his bleakest story collection, A Structural Defect (1971), which flickers with newsreel images of race riots, B-28 jungle missions, and piles of skeletal corpses. A quarter of a century after the end of Nazism, it seemed that Levi was preparing for the final countdown - the third world war that had begun with the atomic flash over Hiroshima.
In Gladiators, he imagines gruesome scenes of violence as popular entertainment (men armed with hammers forced to confront charging cars). Still, he frames them with a bland, jocularly expressed story of disagreement between a couple in the audience. Subtle, indirect, and softly spoken, these small stories spread a significant chill.
The other story that excited me — The Fugitive - Given Levi's own experience, it was not, as might have been expected, about Auschwitz, the Holocaust, or his epic odyssey by way of return to Italy following the war. Instead, it was about a poem by a man with a "dull, boring office job" in an insurance agency. The man is Pasquale, a name which invokes Easter (perhaps resurrection) or Passover (liberation from bondage), and it is in his office that one morning, in a moment of sublime inspiration, he writes the perfect poem, a work which he entitles "Annunciation."
"Bureau of Vital Statistics" depicts the working life of Arrigo, whose job is to dream up causes of death for people worldwide. Unlike a fiction writer, he enjoys building entire characters from the spare names and identifying characteristics he finds on his desk each morning.
The Buffet-dinner: These "fables" take an extraordinary situation and recount it in matter-of-fact terms, with an attention to physical detail that hints at Levi's scientific background and a diffident irony that understates the gravity of his subject matter.
'The Death of Marinese' dates from 1949, when Levi was virtually unknown as a writer. Its triumphalist message of partisan revolt makes it a classic war story, gritty and suspenseful. Yet, for all Levi wrote of other subjects, it was the war, and the moral and material ruins of post-Nazi Europe, that provided him with his most enduring subject matter.
'Censorship in Bitinia,' an Orwellian allegory of the totalitarian state, first appeared in Levi's 1967 dystopian collection, Natural Histories, and considers man's dangerous misuse of technology.
One fantasy - 'Knall' - had taken from his bleakest story collection, A Structural Defect (1971), which flickers with newsreel images of race riots, B-28 jungle missions, and piles of skeletal corpses. A quarter of a century after the end of Nazism, it seemed that Levi was preparing for the final countdown - the third world war that had begun with the atomic flash over Hiroshima.
In Gladiators, he imagines gruesome scenes of violence as popular entertainment (men armed with hammers forced to confront charging cars). Still, he frames them with a bland, jocularly expressed story of disagreement between a couple in the audience. Subtle, indirect, and softly spoken, these small stories spread a significant chill.
The other story that excited me — The Fugitive - Given Levi's own experience, it was not, as might have been expected, about Auschwitz, the Holocaust, or his epic odyssey by way of return to Italy following the war. Instead, it was about a poem by a man with a "dull, boring office job" in an insurance agency. The man is Pasquale, a name which invokes Easter (perhaps resurrection) or Passover (liberation from bondage), and it is in his office that one morning, in a moment of sublime inspiration, he writes the perfect poem, a work which he entitles "Annunciation."
"Bureau of Vital Statistics" depicts the working life of Arrigo, whose job is to dream up causes of death for people worldwide. Unlike a fiction writer, he enjoys building entire characters from the spare names and identifying characteristics he finds on his desk each morning.
The Buffet-dinner: These "fables" take an extraordinary situation and recount it in matter-of-fact terms, with an attention to physical detail that hints at Levi's scientific background and a diffident irony that understates the gravity of his subject matter.
October 15, 2015
داستان های ترکیبی جالب از فانتزی و جدیت هستند. همچنین در چند داستان این فانتزی ها با اشارات و انتقادات سیاسی-تاریخی هم همراهند. به نظرم داستان های به خواندنشان می ارزند
البته به نظرم بهتر است سراغ نسخه ی ترجمه ی انگلیسی بروید؛ ترجمه ی فارسی گرچه قابل فهم است اما روان و منظم نیست. البته نسخه ای که من می خواندم نسخه ی الکترونیکی - نسخه ی رسمی - بود و جدای از مشکلات جمله بندی مشکلات تایپی هم داشت. اگر ترجمه ی انگلیسیش بود سه ستاره را احتمالا می گرفت
چنانکه در توضیح کتاب هم آمده یک داستان در این مجموعه ترجمه نشده - که اتفاقا داستان جالبی است در بی شعور و بی احساس خواندن مأموران سانسور. من این یک داستان را از ترجمه ی انگلیسیش خواندم
آن داستان هایی که پسندیدم: مرگ مارینس، کنال، فراری، اداره ی آمار احوال و در نهایت همان داستان محذوف یعنی سانسور کردن در بیتینیا
August 23, 2019
A great collection - Short and sweet.
There are only eight stories and all of them have different flavors. The flavors are thoroughly enjoyable.
Specially the story that talks about the censorship and the one about creation of a poem are well written.
A short collection, but a great introduction to Primo Levi.
There are only eight stories and all of them have different flavors. The flavors are thoroughly enjoyable.
Specially the story that talks about the censorship and the one about creation of a poem are well written.
A short collection, but a great introduction to Primo Levi.
December 23, 2012
The world, as painted by Primo Levi, is a hokey, calloused place. As stuffed full of surreal bureaucracy as it is twisted by mankind's ineptitude; as prickly as it is accommodating; and as intriguing as it is cruelly frustrating.
Like a bowl full of strange fruit, the eight short stories in this collection are no exception, and by carefully eschewing dialogue, Levi gives the stories the ethereal timbre of a voiceless choir. From animals courting smalltalk at a party, through to modern gladiators, the deadly craze of Knall, and the curse of a perfect poem, the stories are hard and sharp, while offering surprising comfort to the morass of modern life.
So if you like your reading with some bite, or to draw blood, or with an aftertaste of the bizarre, then get yourself a copy of this collection, strap yourself down and get ready to watch the psychedelic paint dry.
Like a bowl full of strange fruit, the eight short stories in this collection are no exception, and by carefully eschewing dialogue, Levi gives the stories the ethereal timbre of a voiceless choir. From animals courting smalltalk at a party, through to modern gladiators, the deadly craze of Knall, and the curse of a perfect poem, the stories are hard and sharp, while offering surprising comfort to the morass of modern life.
So if you like your reading with some bite, or to draw blood, or with an aftertaste of the bizarre, then get yourself a copy of this collection, strap yourself down and get ready to watch the psychedelic paint dry.
December 6, 2020
Primo Levi, why is he so celebrated?
I don't remember what I thought of Auschwitz Report, which I read last year, and looking back I see I didn't write a review. But I do remember Viktor Frankl on the same topic incredibly vividly, which I read many years ago now.
This tiny book of short stories was a *chore* to get through. One dimensional, rigid, as if your autistic engineer grandfather had got it in his head that he was a good writer and went about proudly spinning embarassingly simple and rigid tales with gusto. [which is not to say autistic people can't write, fathom the complex or aren't sensitive - I'm just trying to paint an image to convey a point, if you get me]
I suppose one could just as easily advise a turn to a more masculine Hemingway sensibility, but it wouldn't cohere. Levi's not trying to elevate the pride of stoic survival - he's trying for the feminine, light, playful, commentary of the human condition. But Alice Munro, for example, has that fluidity, that charm, that subtlety. She develops tension authentically, she delights and surprises. When she gets into detail it is real and relevant. It is a pleasure to read Munro. I can't say the same for Levi. It's as if what Munro makes look easy through her brilliant craft, Levi took at face value as easy. He thinks he's building tension leading to a reveal but it is oversimplistic, predictable and boring. One can almost imagine him doing the totality of "work" of sketching out his stories, by making a list of cars (story done!), or jotting down a summary of Kafka's metamorphasis to copy and being self-satisfied with his self-percieved innovative complexity. Poor guy.
Why is this man famous? Anybody??
I don't remember what I thought of Auschwitz Report, which I read last year, and looking back I see I didn't write a review. But I do remember Viktor Frankl on the same topic incredibly vividly, which I read many years ago now.
This tiny book of short stories was a *chore* to get through. One dimensional, rigid, as if your autistic engineer grandfather had got it in his head that he was a good writer and went about proudly spinning embarassingly simple and rigid tales with gusto. [which is not to say autistic people can't write, fathom the complex or aren't sensitive - I'm just trying to paint an image to convey a point, if you get me]
I suppose one could just as easily advise a turn to a more masculine Hemingway sensibility, but it wouldn't cohere. Levi's not trying to elevate the pride of stoic survival - he's trying for the feminine, light, playful, commentary of the human condition. But Alice Munro, for example, has that fluidity, that charm, that subtlety. She develops tension authentically, she delights and surprises. When she gets into detail it is real and relevant. It is a pleasure to read Munro. I can't say the same for Levi. It's as if what Munro makes look easy through her brilliant craft, Levi took at face value as easy. He thinks he's building tension leading to a reveal but it is oversimplistic, predictable and boring. One can almost imagine him doing the totality of "work" of sketching out his stories, by making a list of cars (story done!), or jotting down a summary of Kafka's metamorphasis to copy and being self-satisfied with his self-percieved innovative complexity. Poor guy.
Why is this man famous? Anybody??
June 5, 2017
Strangeness & charm
After Auschwitz everyday things must take on a certain weirdness just by going on as though nothing had happened. The bizarreness of these tales is due in equal part to the author's imagination for he is clearly a man of some cleverness and invention. What's perhaps surprising is the joy that breaks through and accompanies the bizarreness . A warm hearted but serious and thought provoking sideways glance at normality. Bureau of Statistics is particularly poignant given the author's history but as with the other monographs completed with a largesse of soul that more than any other trait signals the character of Levi.
After Auschwitz everyday things must take on a certain weirdness just by going on as though nothing had happened. The bizarreness of these tales is due in equal part to the author's imagination for he is clearly a man of some cleverness and invention. What's perhaps surprising is the joy that breaks through and accompanies the bizarreness . A warm hearted but serious and thought provoking sideways glance at normality. Bureau of Statistics is particularly poignant given the author's history but as with the other monographs completed with a largesse of soul that more than any other trait signals the character of Levi.
March 15, 2011
The Magic Paint is one of the short stories in this mini modern classics publication which is a delightful read. A slice of scientific facts and sense of humor, indeed the ending is unpredictable. The remaining stories: The Fugitive, Bureau of Vital Statistics and Buffet Dinner are not to be missed especially the Bureau of Vital Statistics with a bizarre setting and unexpected ending.
September 3, 2011
I enjoyed these stories. I love the way Primo Levi writes, very capturing. Although I found one of the stories rather pointless. A very good writer.
March 3, 2013
Nice little collection of short stories, enjoyable, although I'm not entirely sure I understood them.
April 12, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. His writing brings magic to these stories.
April 7, 2014
Excellent!
August 22, 2016
Brilliant collection
February 3, 2022
Somehow this 58 page book of mini stories (shorter than short) took me 15 years to finish. I bought this adorable pocketbook for 3 euros at an airport returning from our honeymoon in 2007, made it halfway through, and then likely decided the in flight movie was preferable, never returning to finish until last week. My bookmark was noted with long forgotten and quite forgettable memories of losing a water bottle at security, a crazy cab ride to the Prague airport, and needing an escort to make our tight connection in Frankfort.
The stories were interesting, a bit fantastical, concise and dreamy.
The stories were interesting, a bit fantastical, concise and dreamy.
July 10, 2021
Not what i was expecting. Probably the shortest set of short stories I have read in my life. Also, not sure if I understood them all but enjoyed a few and did understand perspective was the chief competent. Maybe an easy introduction to his body of work(s)?
May 26, 2022
Very short collection of short stories.
I love Primo Levi.
Not quite up there with his best, but still worth a read.
He has some strange ideas!
I love Primo Levi.
Not quite up there with his best, but still worth a read.
He has some strange ideas!
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews