Simone Weil

by Francine du Plessix Gray

Book Overview

Writing with her customary grace and acuity, Francine du Plessix Gray, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated At Home with the Marquis de Sade, examines an equally extreme character at the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670899984
• ISBN13: 9780670899982
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Lipper
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Living in Accordance with Belief

Simone Weil and her brother Andre were prodigies. Andre had learned advanced math, Sanskrit, Greek, and how to play the violin by age 12. In the first decades of the twentieth cenury there was developed a myth of the happy Weil family. Selma Weil, a forceful woman, made the decisions about the children's education. Simone had severe eating problems as an adolescent. (Selma was nearly phobic about contagion.) World War I disrupted the Weils' cocooned existence. Simone was fascinated by world events. She was younger and slightly less precocious than her brother Andre. Jews in France received full citizenship in 1789. The Weils were assimilated. Simone had an almost dangerous ability to be receptive to the suffering of others. She felt like an 'old soul'. Alain, the pen name of Emile Chartier, a philosopher, based his method on skepticism. His favorite philosopher was Descartes. He taught Simone in her cagne class, preparation for admission to the Ecole Normale. She was one of two female students. He encouraged his students to write prolifically. Learning to write well was learning to think well. At the Ecole Normale Simone's thesis advisor was France's leading authority on Pascal. At her first teaching post in LePay her students found her inspiring. She gave away most of her salary to a fund for the unemployed. She preferred Revolutionary Syndicalism. Support of the unemployed made her controversial. The following year she was assigned to a school at Auxerre, an ordinary place. With Boris Souvarine as her guide, she turned against the regime in Russia. She became an anathema to mainstream leftists. At school she told her students that the bachot was a mere convention. She taught a restricted curriculum, Plato, Descartes and Kant. Inspectors found her mind brilliant, her lectures confusing, diffuse. Following another year of teaching in another city, Simone sought work in a factory under much the same sort of impulse that drove George Orwell and Dorothy Day to participate in the lives of the dispossessed. She encountered the degrading aspect of piecemeal work, and discovered the psychological impact of factory work exceeded the physical pain of such work. Simone was appalled at the humiliation. In 1940 she moved with her parents to the South of France. Two essays on the Albigensians were published in CAHIERS DU SUD. During the war Simone Weil identified her body with mutilated France, an intense patriotism. In female mystics eating disorders are the rule, not the exception. An onlooker felt that Simone had a self-centered vocation for self-effacement. In London with the Free French she was refused a post as a nurse and as an undercover agent. She died of tuberculosis, or perhaps she died of a pathological need to share the sufferings of others.

an excellent biography of a flawed philosopher

Francine Du Plessix Gray has done a phenomenal job in distilling the life and and thoughts of Simone Weil. Most importantly, while illuminating the experiences, insights, and influences of the noted French philosopher, Du Plessix Gray has not shied away from Weil's darker sides, including her virulent Jewish self-hatred. It is sad that such a deep thinker could be so blind to the suffering of her fellow Jews when they faced the greatest catastrophe in their history. This is a book to be read not only for those who wish to understand modern French thought, but also for those who need to understand the limits of the intellect as well.

Infinite Longing With Unfortunate End

Ms. Grays' "Simone Weil" is a remarkable story about one of the most unusual and strangely attractive minds of the last century.A refined poseur with a bleeding heart for the cause of the toiling masses; a petty-bourgeois mademoiselle "obliviuos[...] to "normal" boy-girl relationships"; an inquisitive and penetrating reason armed with the fruit of one of the best systems of education of that time; a heart finely attuned to the grievances and calamities of her time-- what a zesty mixture it was. Perhaps there were many mademoiselles like that among millions of their sisters in the interwar France, and whom of them do we remember now?What was left after Simone in 1943? Just collections of graceful, mind-nourishing haiku-like religious poems in prose. It is incredible as to what those do to your mind-- not unlike cognac, that gently envelopes your intestines and permeats them with warmth, and energy, and good mood, and gratitude. Reading Weil your mind is attentive and amazed and absorbing the beauty, grace and utter wisdom of the world and of its creator.Reading Weil is very much like meditation, like unspoken prayer to the miracle of life, and of knowledge, and of "I" inside me, and of "You" outside. It is actually quite easy to lapse into some "esoteric" incomprehensible stuff, which Ms. du Plessix Gray happily avoids. Gray's lucid, elegant prose flows graciously, meandering calmly between dates and events of Simone Weil's life. With every turn it unveils more of fascinating vistas of Weil's character and thought. The warm irony of the book, its compassion to the subject is charming and inspiring. As one feels pity for poor Simone, wishing she got a partner and took better care of herself, and wonders how such a neglected flesh produced such a formidable spirit-- the reader (or maybe it's just me?) wants to do good to the world, people, relatives.There are some less persuasive passages, like the one about Weils "Jewish self-hate"(it's fashionable in every work on Weil to squeese some juice from her Jewish ancestry). Some passages beg for attention of TV-folks like Seinfeld, e.g.:"[Simone] taught her friend some(!?-- It's a full-time job!-- Z.R.) Tibetan in order that they might read Milarepa together. [She], on her part, tried to teach Simone how to drive, but gave up after one attempt--Simone had two small accidents within ten minutes." (Oh, those short-tempered friends with little or no knowledge of Tibetan!)Weil's longing for justice and equality, her attempt to synthesize "the incarnations of the Word prior to Christ" with Christianity, her questions like "Is the knowledge of God given to non-Christians in contemporary India are as genuine as the knowledge of God offered to Christians?" communicate directly to my heart and the nobleness of her mind and heart makes me think of the world as of better place.Thnaks a lot to Ms. Gray for the book.Thanks God for Simone Weil.

A thorough treatment of an important individual

Having read many of the other books in this Penguin biography series, I looked forward to this book on Simone Weil. I was not disappointed. Ms. Gray has presented us with a careful, thorough treatment of Weil's life and thought. One of the strengths of the book is the insights the author provides into the motivations that lay behind Weil's unusual life: her Marxist activism, her mystic Christianity, her sacrificial identification with workers and soldiers that ultimately led to her pre-mature death. There is a nice balance between describing the events of Weil's and the elements of her thought. In other words, the latter does not overwhelm the former. Weil's story is one that bears reflection, and this book enables the reader to do just that.

Terrific introduction to French thinker!!!

I knew very little about Simone Weil before picking up this volume. The author does a terrific job laying out family backgound and medical background (very important in this case)while presenting Weil's often-difficult philosophy. I was fascinated by Weil's complexity and perversity. Gray's right: you would like to throttle Weil at times and many of her thought processes are likely to provoke anger (particularly if you are Jewish!) but you never lose interest in this exasperating, amazing woman. Fantastic writing throughout.