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Posted by Joshua Sellers on May 23, 19101 at 20:58:26:
In Reply to: Just beginning... posted by Jean on May 23, 19101 at 13:16:12:
Jean,
I've been a big "Simone Weil fan" for some time now-- here's some good
starting material:
(1) I would suggest first Simone Weil: An Anthology, ed. by Sian Miles. It
gives a good overview of her writings-- "Human Personality," the "Draft for
a Statement on Human Obligations," her essay on The Iliad, political essays,
excerpts from her notebooks.
(2) Simone Weil's posthumous Gravity & Grace is a must-- these are
selections from her notebooks. It is aphoristic in nature, and can be a
tough reading at first (and, like Nietzsche, SW is not a systematic
thinker). Gravity & Grace and the Sian Miles anthology are my own personal
favorites, containing the essentials of SW.
(3) Another "clic" is Waiting For God, which contains various essays by
SW.
(4) I don't know if you can find it, but there is a collection of essays by
SW called Intimations of Christianity Among the Greeks (which includes her
excellent essay on The Iliad).
(5) Another larger anthology is the Simone Weil Reader, ed. by George A.
Panichas (I recommend Sian Miles' anthology first though).
(6) Unfortunately, Simone Petrement's "definitive" biography, Simone Weil: A
Life, is currently out-of-print in English translation. If you happen to
find this book, read it-it's best to understand her often-complex writings
in the context of her life. There are other biographies, but none of them
are as good as Petrement's (who was also a friend of SW's). Unfortunately,
most academic books on SW tend to regard her as a neurotic or worse. I
think there is a book by Robert Coles on SW that is worth reading (I forget
the title).
(7) You might also be interested in Stephanie Strickland's book-length poem
on SW, The Red . It is a biography of sorts.
(9) In France, scholars have been slowly but surely publishing all of SW's
complete works, including the notebooks (I think it will finally add up to
about 15 volumes!). Unfortunately, the response and interest in SW is not
as great in the U.S.
(10)While my own website doesn't deal with SW directly, you may find it of
related interest. It is called "The Wanderer: A Resource for the Spiritual
Seeker" at http://pages.prodigy.net/ontology . At rivertext.com there is a
small SW website (it is on my "library" page). There is unfortunately not
any good websites on SW out there.
(11) If you wish to discuss anything on SW, I would certainly enjoy doing
so. There seem to be very few "Weil-o-philes" in the world. I like both
her spiritual as well as her political writings (which are actually closely
related to one another). My e-mail address is gilgamesh@prodigy.net . I
hope you continue to explore Simone Weil's life and thought. She was an
exceptional human being.
"The intelligence can only be led by desire." -Simone Weil
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