Simone Weil

by Palle Yourgrau

Simone Weil, legendary French philosopher, mystic and political activist who died in England in 1943 at the age of thirty-four, belongs to a select group of thinkers: as with St Augustine, Pascal and Nietzsche, so with Weil a single phrase can permanently change one’s life. In this book, Palle Yourgrau follows Weil on her life's journey, from her philosophical studies at the École Normale Supérieure, to her years as a Marxist labour organizer, her explosive encounter with Leon Trotsky, her abortive attempt to fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, her mystical experience in the town of Assisi. We see how Weil's struggle to make sense of a world consumed by despotism and war culminated in her monumental attempt, following St Augustine, to re-imagine Christianity along Platonistic lines, to find a bridge between human suffering and divine perfection.
How seriously, however, should Weil's ideas be taken? They were admired by Albert Camus and T. S. Eliot, yet Susan Sontag wrote famously that 'I can't imagine more than a handful of the tens of thousands of readers she has won . . . really share her ideas.' If this is really true, Palle Yourgrau must count as one of the handful. Though he brings to life the pathos of Weil's tragi-comic journey, Yourgrau devotes equal attention to the question of truth. He shines a bright light on the paradox of Simone Weil: at once a kind of modern saint, and a bête noire, a Jew accused of having abandoned her own people in their hour of greatest need. The result is a critical biography that is in places as disturbing as Weil's own writings, an account that confronts head-on her controversial critique of the Hebrew Bible, as well as her radical rejection of the received wisdom that the Resurrection lies at the heart of Christianity.

Genres: Biography, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History

196 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 15, 2011

Reviews

[Katia N · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely illustrated brochure containing main facts from Simone Weil’s biography and her family. Her life philosophy and religious views are as well briefly covered. However around a third of the book is devoted to a passionate polemic of her views on Judaism and whether they constitute a form of antisemitism. It is followed by the discussion of her “reimagining of the Gospels” under the influence of her love for Plato. I felt the former discussion was a little too passionate for my liking - it would be sufficient to summarise her views through the quotes and to state that she seemingly did not identify as a Jew in spite of having direct Jewish ancestry. However, the author was unfavourably contrasts Weil’s behaviour with Arendt who apparently acknowledged hew Jewish identity after the beginning of Nazi’s persecution. For Arendt The author rephrased Nietzsche citation of “Become what you are” into “Become what Hitler says you are?” and questioned whether is that what Arendt indeed accomplished. I found this polemic excessive and not necessary to defend Weil’s case. So it spoiled my impression of the book.

But it works as a short summary of Weil’s life.

[Pat Stokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this a very engaging and interesting biography, with the right amount of attention (for such a slim book) payed to both details of her life and thought, one of the most interesting people maybe ever…. The book manages to avoid the pitfalls (in my opinion) of both excessive cynicism and hagiography

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simone Weil was a strange character, whose personal peculiarities included a disturbed relationship to food and an aversion to physical love, and who presents a challenge to writers and thinkers alike in trying to separate her personal quirks from her philosophy - if indeed they can be separated at all.
I admire Yourgrau's reasoned, sensible, down-to-earth approach to this much-studied young woman who died at 34, partly through voluntary starvation which made her too weak to fight the tuberculosis from which she suffered.
This book takes a serious look at Weil's thought as well as the facts of her life, and succeeds totally in not reducing her to her symptoms, giving due consideration to the fact that they might not be symptoms at all, but rather her philosophy in action.

[Mesut Yılmaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitaba dair en önemli sorun aslında bir yandan biyografik bir yandan da paraphrasing yaklaşıma sahip olması. Yorumlardan birinde hagiography ifadesini gördüm, tam olarak kitabı özetleyen bir ifade sanırım.

Simone'u anlamak için yapılabilecek en minimum yaklaşım zannediyorum ki uykulu bir halde okumaktır. Weil'in düşünce sistemini ve sorunsal olarak ele aldığı çerçeveyi içselleştirmenin başka bir yolu yoktur, aksi halde, farklı takıntıları olan bir aziz olarak kalacaktır Weil...

Yourgrau açısından incelediği kişinin zor bir şahsiyet olması kabul ediyorum ki bu kitabın doğru çerçevede kalamamasını açıklıyor.

[TerribleTamada · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I didn't finish. I didn't find this biography particularly engaging nor did I feel I was getting a very good picture of Simone Weil's thought. I felt the author was often close to hagiography rather than giving a meaningful portrait as to what Weil was like. His unabashed praise of her just made me skeptical of any of the things he said about her. For example he tells of this time where Weil went to work in a factory to get a glimpse of working class life, where she so 'heroically' didn't accept any money or help from her parents. He goes on about how clumsy she was but she was able to overcome it and continue to work in the factory. However we then learn that after several months factory life beat her down and she just moved back in with her family. To me this sounds like the gallivanting of some obnoxious rich girl rather than some working class heroine. Another thing the author talks up was her natural beauty and that she was amazing for ignoring it. I mean I'm glad she's not caught up in her looks, but that doesn't make her a saint.

I just felt the author spent more time showing rather than telling. In what was did she actually affect the cultural discourse or those around her to live better lives? How did her experiences shape her ideas? The narrative was lacking and it tried to overcome that by acting like everything she ever did was transcendent or something.

[Charles Beauregard · Rating 3 out of 5]

She is a very interesting person.

[Lia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not think an introductory book would move me to tears. This is embarrassing.

[Adam F · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first few chapters are great and talk about Weil in beautiful depth, however, the author tries and continues to relate Weil to Wittgenstein and it always fails. The final two chapters are basically separate essays that undermine Weil's thought and the rest of her life. If you want a good biography of Weil, read the first few chapters but that's it.

[Xqq · Rating 4 out of 5]

weil's life might be hard to identify with, actually one can say he feel offended by weil's life but not by her words, because when reading those words, we don't believe that someone would really practice what he preaches. I have to admit that i didn't feel comfortable when reading some part of her biography, and i can't understand all her behavior. but if you read about her books and thoughts, you may gain a better understanding of some of her choices in life. like she considered the rejection of separation from humankind suffering is the core of the account about Jesus Christ, so she also wanted to reject the separation as Jesus. and by the way this is exactly what Nietzsche criticized. and actually there is one sentence from the biography about weil: A life informed by taking seriously those insights of Plato's that others appreciate at most as mental exercises.

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what if Jesus' goodness is really in company with his Resurrection? Could it be that to gain a pure image of goodness, people turn their back to the Resurrection, people force to relate Goodness with sufferings, people end up being infatuated with suffering?

"And history teaches us, with considerable help from Plato and Simone Weil, that it is precisely the good life, the just life, that is most difficult to recognize. Recall only that Socrates was poisoned and Jesus nailed to a cross; Joan of Arc burned alive; Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr gunned down in their tracks. We have an eye, paradoxically, not for the Good."

All the mentioned people are recognized as heroes already. the claim seems to be the opposite: it's through misfortune we recognize they are heroes, otherwise we don't. Can Jesus be God if he is luckily not crucified? Is there a risk that we avoid defining Goodness with power/mighty but end up defining it with suffering?

[Frank Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this series of books.

[l · Rating 2 out of 5]

'The 'Red Virgin' really was one.'

This man should be banned from writing about women, and maybe just banned from writing.