Simone Weil Reader

by Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a teacher, classical scholar, philosopher, political activist and seeker of the truth. She confronted the rootlessness of modern life and the death of the spirit in an age of materialism. Her writing was visionary and her vision, radical. Born in France, a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Weil inspired T.S. Eliot to say of her, We must simply expose ourselves to the personality of a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of a saint. Today, nearly sixty years after her death, her work has, perhaps, an even greater immediacy and relevance. This book is a collection of the best of her writings from The Notebooks of Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty and Gravity and Grace.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Religion, France, Spirituality, Politics

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Simone Weil was a French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist. Weil was born in Paris to Alsatian agnostic Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. Her brilliance, ascetic lifestyle, introversion, and eccentricity limited her ability to mix with others, but not to teach and participate in political movements of her time. She wrote extensively with both insight and breadth about political movements of which she was a part and later about spiritual mysticism. Weil biographer Gabriella Fiori writes that Weil was "a moral genius in the orbit of ethics, a genius of immense revolutionary range".

Reviews

[David M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too much Simone Weil is bad for the soul - "Whenever I think of the crucifixion I commit the sin of envy," etc... If I even try and admire her I start to feel like a coward and a hypocrite. Last year I read the biography by Simone Petrement. In a lot of ways Weil comes across as an extremely obnoxious character. In London (where she perished) the Free French movement had no use for her because, as she made abundantly clear, she had no interest in actually fighting the enemy. Rather, she just desperately wanted to put herself in a position where she would be tortured and killed. This goal was not shared by her comrades. So starving herself was the next best thing she could do.

Nonetheless, Weil had a truly brilliant, original mind, and she left behind a record of suffering and spiritual transformation that's unique in western literature. The pieces in this volume cover a wide variety topics. Weil shows that she was much more than just a demented masochist; at the same time she was always also that.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most unique and brilliant thinkers that has ever existed and her body of work and her life were wholly impassioned. She was a contemporary of Simone de Beauvoir and, in fact, she surpassed de Beauvoir in school marks. She wasn't a mainstream thinker, though, and her radicalism caused her to live on the margins...she was placed in teaching situations that were remote, geographically. She was actually mistreated in this regard and her vision during her time was little acknowledged. Because the powers that be kept her at bay, her brilliance wasn't understood or appreciated till much later. She is still under-recognized. I don't have this book, as I keep buying it, lending it and never getting it back...but one of these days I'll get another hardback copy. If you are interested in philosophy, the Greeks and Romans, history, anarchy, religion, well, this is the book for you. There is so much more to say but it would not do Simone Weil justice.

[Fups · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not finish this book but am marking it read and to re-read. This is the kind of book to read in short bursts, as it contains such depth of thought. I found myself putting it down, time and time again, trying to figure out Weil's point in any given essay. It's almost a meditative kind of read.

My favorite essay in this collection was Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies . Weil has such wonderful insights into the human mind and how it works. Somehow she was able to articulate these thoughts in new, refreshing ways.

At times though, when reading her writings, I wondered about her mental health. She made certain statements that were a bit extreme, such as envying the crucifixion - wishing she could suffer as much.. (?) I will need to look a little further into this..

Still, Simone Weil has made a lasting impression on me as a unique thinker, a humble visionary. I will definitely be picking this book up and re-reading it.

[Julio Pino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simone Weil must be read in toto or in an anthology such as this superb collection. Her musings on "The Iliad: A Poem of Force" (from whence Hannah Arendt derived the concept of the banality of evil) are linked organically to her thoughts on the degradation of factory life, Catholic mysticism, and anarchism. What emerges from these pages is a self-portrait of a troubled polymath, who found refuge in God and hell in politics.

[Travis K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having spent three months just beginning to absorb the profound beauty and mystifying insight of the inner life depicted here in these pages, I’m ready to posit Simone Weil as a figure of illumination and brilliance equal to virtually anyone of her century. The sheer breadth of thought is impressive enough apart from the incisive, dialectic, and often shocking manner in which these various topics are analyzed. Weil’s instinctual understanding of humanity’s place in the world and before God lends a brilliant clarity to her assessments of matters both political and spiritual; her arguments begin in familiar territory, veer provocatively and violently into strange waters, and arrive home to a place one never expected but once having witnessed would hesitate to alter. In matters of the nation, oppression, government, liberty, beauty, and love, Weil’s insights are attuned to a sick and disenchanted modernity beset by affliction and betrayal, and at the same time tethered firmly to the last hope among others long since stripped away.

In lieu of further (futile) analysis are some passages (first among equals) which I found particularly striking.

“We are living in a world in which nothing is made to man’s measure; there exists a monstrous discrepancy between man’s body, man’s mind, and the things which at the present time constitute the elements of human existence; everything is disequilibrium.”
- Sketch of Contemporary Social Life

“Machines are not for the factory worker a means of turning a piece of metal to a specified form; he is for them a means whereby they will be fed the parts for an operation whose relationship to the ones preceding and the ones following remain and impenetrable mystery to him… The workingman does not know what he produces and consequently, he experiences the sensation not of having produced, but of having been drained dry.”
- Factory Work

“We know then that joy is the sweetness of contact with the love of God, that affliction is the wound of this same contact when it is painful, and that only the contact matters, and not the manner of it. It is the same as when we see someone very near to us after a long absence; the words we exchange with him do not matter, but only the sound of his voice, which assures us of his presence.”
- Last Thoughts

“The might which kills outright is an elementary and coarse form of might. How much more varied its devices; how much more astonishing its effects is that other which does not kill; or which delays killing… From the power to transform man into a thing by killing him there proceeds another power, and much more prodigious, that which makes a thing of him while he still lives.”
- The Iliad, Poem of Might

“Our patriotism comes straight from the Romans. The Romans really were an atheistic and idolatrous people; not with regard to images made of stone or bronze, but with regard to themselves. It is this idolatry of self which they have bequeathed to us in the form of patriotism. We received it from the hands of Rome without giving it baptism… The barbarian heritage became mingled with the Christian spirit to form that unique, inimitable, perfectly homogenous product known as chivalry. But between the spirit of Rome and that of Christ there has never been any fusion.”
- Uprootedness and Nationhood

“The Greeks had no conception of rights. They had no words to express it. They were content with the name of justice… If you say to someone who has ears to hear: ‘What you are doing to me is not just,’ you may touch and awaken at its source the spirit of attention and love. But it is not the same with words like ‘I have the right…’ or ‘You have no right to…’ They evoke a latent war and awaken the spirit of contention. To place the notion of rights at the centre of social conflicts is to inhibit any possible impulse of charity on both sides.”
- Human Personality

“Pure friendship is an image of the original and perfect friendship that belongs to the Trinity and is the very essence of God. It is impossible for two human beings to be one while scrupulously respecting the distance that separates them, unless God is present in each of them. The point at which parallels meet is infinity.”
- Friendship

“A double movement of descent: to do again, out of love, what gravity does.”
- Beauty

“It is impossible to understand and love at the same time both the victors and the vanquished, as the Iliad does, except from the place, outside the world, where God’s Wisdom dwells.”
- The Things of This World

“God has provided that when his grace penetrates to the very centre of a man and from there illuminates all his being, he is able to walk on the water without violating the laws of nature. But when a man turns away from God he simply gives himself up to the law of gravity. He then believes that he is deciding and choosing, but he is only a thing, a falling stone.”

“The man whose soul remains oriented towards God while a nail is driven through it finds himself nailed to the very centre of the universe; the true centre, which is not in the middle, which is not in space and time, which is God… It is at the point of intersection between creation and Creator. This point is the point of intersection of the two branches of the Cross.”
- The Love of God and Affliction

“A beautiful thing involves no good except itself, in its totality, as it appears to us. We are drawn toward it without knowing what to ask of it… We want to get behind beauty, but it is only a surface. It is like a mirror that sends us back our own desire for goodness.”
- Forms of the Implicit Love of God

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skipped around in this and didn't read the whole thing. Weil is interesting, presenting ideas about God without religion. Because it hinges only in her own reading (and her own translation) of The Bible, it sometimes seems strange, ungrounded, unbelieveable. It's interesting to think about, but it's hard to know what to do with it. She generally describes rather than instructs or directs, and when she does direct, the idea is puzzling and she doesn't go into great depth in that direction. Worth a read, especially if you let yourself alight on the interesting bits and don't try to read cover to cover.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Simone Weil reader is a great way to not only be introduced to the work of Weil, but to get to know her thought and philosophy/theology well. It is rather extensive, with 500 pages of her writings and well organized by topics rather than chronology. i am left sitting at the feet of this young woman who died at the age of 34 having lived more fully and thought more deeply than i can hope to in a full lifetime.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought-provoking, clearly-written, logical, concise musings. My favorites were on the Iliad, on the nature of oppression, on attention, and on the responsibility of writers. Her opinions are frequently uncompromising and she reaches some radical conclusions. It makes for challenging, fascinating reading, but I don't think I would have liked her personally. Her (explicitly) religious writings I found far less interesting.

[Zak Cannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The role of the intelligence—that part of us which affirms and denies, formulates opinions—is solely one of submission. All that I conceive as true is less true than these things of which I cannot conceive the truth, but which I love."
The God of my youth was far too real and for this reason I did not believe in Him. Weil is an enigma: her faith in God is more unwavering than anything I have been exposed to and yet at times it seems as if she is confident in his non-existence. No matter, says Weil, for our intelligence may be certain of the non-existence of God and yet still we may love him. Her words have given me permission to love God and, by extension, the perfect order of the world which constitutes its infinite beauty.
"Essence of faith: It is impossible really to desire the good and not obtain it. Or reciprocally: anything which it is possible really to desire without obtaining it is not really the good. It is impossible to receive the good when one has not desired it."

[Kathleen Quaintance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since reading this I can't stop thinking about reprioritizing attention over will, and how much more it's enriched me

these lines, especially, I reinscribe constantly:

We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.
The will only controls a few movements of a few muscles.
What could be more stupid than to tighten up our muscles…Attention is
something quite different.
Attention alone — that attention which is so full that the ‘I’ disappears — is required of me.

The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real. It is the same with the act of love. To know that this man who is hungry and thirsty really exists as much as I do —
that is enough, the rest follows of itself.

Application of this rule for the discrimination between the real and the illusory: In our sense perceptions, if we are not sure of what we see we
change our position while looking, and what is real becomes evident. In the inner life, time takes the place of space. With time we are altered, and,
if as we change we keep our gaze directed towards the same thing, in the end illusions are scattered and the real becomes visible. This is on condition that the attention be a looking and not an attachment.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hunted this book down to read Weil's essay on education, "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God". My five-star review is for this essay, which alone is worth the purchase of the book and worth writing a review. Weil's concise distillation of what education is actually for is breathtaking in its precision, brevity, and simpleness. I have read countless books and articles on Classical education; I've spent hundreds of hours listening to podcasts and speeches by homeschool and educational experts; I've dipped into philosophy to gain deeper understanding, most notably Josef Pieper's excellent book, Leisure the Basis of Culture. Somehow, Simone Weil has said everything in about 5 pages. Without the foundation and background of Charlotte Mason, John Senior, Josef Pieper, and all the others I wouldn't have understood nor appreciated this stunningly simple essay. The Holy Spirit directed me to it in His time and wisdom and for that I am eternally grateful. This essay is a compass to keep our homeschool aiming toward communion with God as our ultimate goal. To stay on this road less traveled by requires courage and Weil's words are armor and light.

[Emiliano Gomez · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Our present situation more or less resembles that of a party of absolutely ignorant travelers who find themselves in a motor-car launched at full speed and driverless across broken country."

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting; best to occasionally pick up and read one/a few excerpt(s) at a time.

[Austin Killips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appreciated the additional commentary on the included selections.

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her writing reminds me of Arendt but her ideas seemingly couldn't be further from hers. Truly one of the goats

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this after reading Iris Murdoch. After reading a brief bio, it mentioned her admiration of Simone Weil.

I decided to look for her book, Gravity and Grace, but this was all I could find locally.

Weil's writings on attention and the church were the ones I found to be most interesting. If you like Thomas Merton, you might like this book. Although their ideas concerning religion and Christianity are not the same, both authors will leave you profoundly changed.

[Kate]

This was on Shirley Mullen's recommended reading list under the category of "philosophy."

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weil has some shockingly insightful and beautiful prose about human suffering and the cross. Some of it literally took my breath away.

[Sarah McCoy Isaacs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an entirely easy read, but a worthwhile read.

[Cate White · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is only possible to choose hell through an attachment to salvation. He who does not desire the joy of God, but is satisfied to know that there really is joy in God, fall but not commit treason."

[James Penido · Rating 5 out of 5]

Camus called her "the greatest spirit of our time" and she indeed was.Beyond labels and the "zeitgeist" of her times,she chose to defy the deep hypocritical tones that have always poisoned humanity.