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Holocaust literature is all a reader needs to confirm his belief that existence is pointless, meaningless, cruel, and short. However, Primo Levi tried to raise a smile in spite of that fact in this collection of fifteen terse tales of notable moments of compassion, novelty, humanity, or noteworthiness at Auschwitz. In these elegant stories, Levi keeps the surrounding horrors outside the frame, and sketches various characters whose subversive courage and whose canniness kept them and others alive, including Levi himself. At some stage, I might swallow several vodkas and embark on If This is a Man. Until then, I will take these brief moments of reprieve.
