An erudite and entertaining exchange between two notable Italian minds. Is it relevant that they are Italian? Yes, since one of the things discussed is the impact of Fascism on education and science in particular. And yet here they are, survivors in more ways than one, in the case of Levi.

Primo Levi explains why, at the age of past sixty, he felt he must learn to write with a word processor - and this was in the late seventies/early eighties.

I read Pozzoli's book Writing With a Computer, and it had on me the effect of the bugle call that wakes you up in the barracks. I realised that today one can certainly live without a computer, but one lives at the margins and is bound to become more and more detached from active society. The Greeks said of a person without culture: 'He can neither write nor swim.' Today one should add: 'Nor use a computer'.

I'm surprised that one could say this so early. I got my first computer around 1988 and this was scarcely a common thing to do yet. And a person may be living on the margins with one - I can see that in the case of my mother, for example, who sees them as the work of the devil - but she is very cultured. The connection isn't one I see, any more than thinking swimming is a cultured thing to do. Full disclosure - neither my mother nor I know how to swim.

Regge on how he became a physicist despite the best efforts of his father.

'Get a serious degree, my father kept saying. Physics isn't serious. If you want to do physics, get a degree in chemistry too, because put together they are like a degree in engineering. And when I got my degree in physics with the highest marks and I was given a teaching fellowship, he still insisted. At a certain point I went to Russia and Pravda published my photograph. I cut it out and sent it to my father. "So he'll stop telling me to get a degree in chemistry," I explained to my Russian friends who asked me why. This anecdote is still in circulation even now. I always run into somebody who asks me if my father is still insisting.'

Levi on the way in which his training in chemistry influenced how he wrote. And on becoming free of it as his job.

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/conversations-by-primo-le... ( )

An erudite and entertaining exchange between two notable Italian minds. Is it relevant that they are Italian? Yes, since one of the things discussed is the impact of Fascism on education and science in particular. And yet here they are, survivors in more ways than one, in the case of Levi.

Primo Levi explains why, at the age of past sixty, he felt he must learn to write with a word processor - and this was in the late seventies/early eighties.

I read Pozzoli's book Writing With a Computer, and it had on me the effect of the bugle call that wakes you up in the barracks. I realised that today one can certainly live without a computer, but one lives at the margins and is bound to become more and more detached from active society. The Greeks said of a person without culture: 'He can neither write nor swim.' Today one should add: 'Nor use a computer'.

I'm surprised that one could say this so early. I got my first computer around 1988 and this was scarcely a common thing to do yet. And a person may be living on the margins with one - I can see that in the case of my mother, for example, who sees them as the work of the devil - but she is very cultured. The connection isn't one I see, any more than thinking swimming is a cultured thing to do. Full disclosure - neither my mother nor I know how to swim.

Regge on how he became a physicist despite the best efforts of his father.

'Get a serious degree, my father kept saying. Physics isn't serious. If you want to do physics, get a degree in chemistry too, because put together they are like a degree in engineering. And when I got my degree in physics with the highest marks and I was given a teaching fellowship, he still insisted. At a certain point I went to Russia and Pravda published my photograph. I cut it out and sent it to my father. "So he'll stop telling me to get a degree in chemistry," I explained to my Russian friends who asked me why. This anecdote is still in circulation even now. I always run into somebody who asks me if my father is still insisting.'

Levi on the way in which his training in chemistry influenced how he wrote. And on becoming free of it as his job.

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/conversations-by-primo-le... ( )