Disertare la vita. «Trattamento di quiescenza» di Primo Levi

Primo Levi’s stature as a writer has long been somewhat underestimated by a consideration of his production restricted to his Auschwitz memoirs. His fictional writings however are no less worth attention. By analyzing Trattamento di quiescenza, originally published in the collection Storie naturali (1966), this essay demonstrates that Levi’s science-fiction short stories are a sort of laboratory, where the writer conducts moral experiments questioning the changes operated on our life by new technologies. Trattamento di quiescenza creates a fantastic, but not-so-far-from-reality situation, showing the power exercised over us by the temptation to live some other people’s life, thus substituting our own experience with a vicarious existence.