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Considered by Nobel laureate André Gide and others to be “the most truly spiritual writer” of the 20th century, Simone Weil was paradox embodied: she considered herself a Christian – a Catholic, to be more precise – she came from a secular Jewish home and was never baptized; she was a pacifist but fought in the Spanish Civil War; she was a brilliant intellectual known for her anti-intellectualism, a member of the bourgeoisie who worked on a French assembly line for a year, a person who loved life and yet longed for-- some would say hastened – her own death.
While *Gravity and Grace *is one of the books most associated with Simone Weil, the work as such was not one she wrote to be published as a book. Rather, the work consists of various passages selected from Weil’s notebooks and arranged topically by Gustav Thibon, who knew and befriended her. Weil had in fact given some of her notebooks, written before May 1942, to Thibon, but not with any idea or request to publish them.
Hence, the resulting work, in its selections, organization and editing, is much influenced by Mr. Thibon, a devoted Catholic. His introduction to *Gravity and Grace *also serves as a good introduction to Simone Weil, a Christian mystic whose epigrammatic style has made her highly quotable.
You might want to print some of this out and stick it on the front of your refrigerator…
You can find it all here:
payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/04/14/the-introduction-to-gravity-and-grace-a-view-of-simone-weil/
dj
Considered by Nobel laureate André Gide and others to be “the most truly spiritual writer” of the 20th century, Simone Weil was paradox embodied: she considered herself a Christian – a Catholic, to be more precise – she came from a secular Jewish home and was never baptized; she was a pacifist but fought in the Spanish Civil War; she was a brilliant intellectual known for her anti-intellectualism, a member of the bourgeoisie who worked on a French assembly line for a year, a person who loved life and yet longed for-- some would say hastened – her own death.
While *Gravity and Grace *is one of the books most associated with Simone Weil, the work as such was not one she wrote to be published as a book. Rather, the work consists of various passages selected from Weil’s notebooks and arranged topically by Gustav Thibon, who knew and befriended her. Weil had in fact given some of her notebooks, written before May 1942, to Thibon, but not with any idea or request to publish them.
Hence, the resulting work, in its selections, organization and editing, is much influenced by Mr. Thibon, a devoted Catholic. His introduction to *Gravity and Grace *also serves as a good introduction to Simone Weil, a Christian mystic whose epigrammatic style has made her highly quotable.
You might want to print some of this out and stick it on the front of your refrigerator…
You can find it all here:
payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/04/14/the-introduction-to-gravity-and-grace-a-view-of-simone-weil/
dj