Volume 35, Number 21 & 22 · January 19, 1989
My House
By Primo Levi, Translated by Raymond Rosenthal
I have always lived (with involuntary interruptions) in the house where I was born; so my mode of living has not been the result of a choice. I believe that I represent an extreme case of the sedentary person, comparable to certain mollusks, for example limpets, which after a brief larval stage during which they swim about freely, attach themselves to a sea-rock, secrete an outer shell, and stay put for the rest of their lives. This happens more often to people born in the country: for city people like myself it is undoubtedly a rare destiny, which involves peculiar advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps I owe to this static destiny the never satisfied love I harbor for travel, and the frequency with which a journey appears as a topos in many of my books. Certainly after sixty-six years on Corso Re Umberto, I find it difficult to imagine what it would mean to live not just in another country or city but even in another part of Turin.
Feature, 1524 words
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