Simone Weil

Is there anyone out in cyberspace who reads Simone Weil? If so, please answer me this. Is her life a story to be admired or to be feared? Was her death from self-starvation preventable or was it going to happen no matter what? And, by the way, which is your favorite work of her's?

I was introduced to Simone Weil via the short biography of her produced by Francine du Plessix Grey, which came out of Penguin's "Brief Lives" series (along with the somewhat amusing and informative introduction to Marcel Proust by Edmund White and an intriguing look at Virginia Woolf via her lover's son, Nigel Nicholson.) I connected with the tale of a woman who was all too aware of the suffering of others. The question was, "did that awareness kill her?"

It takes a lot to pay attention to suffering. It is difficult to see suffering without politicizing or misunderstanding it. One must care about suffering, however one must worry over two things: Why is there suffering? and Who (or what) is causing the suffering? That is the starting point from which every effort must begin.

Simone Weil made me want to be a better person, though she also almost destroyed me. To read her and fully understand her, you become burdoned with guilt--you realize so much of what you're doing is wrong. But this is what makes her such a great writer. She moves you in a way mystics usually cannot.

JPC