[.ca] Penguin Lives Simone Weil (ISBN 0670899984)

From Amazon.com:
Writing with her customary grace and acuity, Francine du Plessix Gray, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated At Home with the Marquis de Sade, examines an equally extreme character at the opposite end of the moral spectrum in Simone Weil. Weil (1909-43) displayed early the ferocious intellect that took this daughter of affluent, highly assimilated French Jews to the peak of her country's rigorous educational system and made her an important modern philosopher. But Weil remains a beacon to activists because of her passionate, intensely personal commitment to the world's oppressed and her need to directly share their sufferings. This need had its neurotic aspects, and Gray's elegant biography does not gloss over Weil's lifelong anorexia, her distaste for physical contact, her peculiar brand of anti-Semitism, or the unyielding self-righteousness that led her to cut off friendships for minor offenses. Yet the overall tone is one of sympathetic respect for an extraordinary human being unable to develop the willed blindness that enables most of us to live comfortably while others go without. Weil gave up prestigious teaching jobs to do manual labor; she performed dangerous work in the Resistance; and, when threatened by a Vichy policeman who exclaimed angrily, "You little bitch, we'll have you thrown in jail with the whores!" she replied coolly, "I've always wanted to know that milieu." Her slow, exceedingly tentative movement toward Christianity grew from her need to affirm her solidarity with the world's "slaves," and her prescient denunciation of Communism at a time when most radicals embraced it arose from her understanding that Soviet apparatchiks abused the working class just as egregiously as their putative opponents, the fascists. This is an outstanding introduction for general readers to the influential thought and rivetingly conflicted life of a seminal figure in 20th-century intellectual history. --Wendy Smith

Waiting for God Should Come First.:
While this is the first book on Simone Weil that provides a coherent biography and chronology of Simone Weil's life and thought (and it is excellent in that regard) I think that it would be a shame if new readers had not read Weil's 'Waiting for God' before this volume. Otherwise they would have a hard time figuring out what the fuss is about.

Value judgements/ not enough supporting arguments:
I had read a few of Simone Weil's essays and admired them greatly, but didn't know much about the woman herself. This book is a good source of basic biographical facts, but the author leaves a lot to be desired in discussing Weil's philosophy. Yes, this is a biography, not a philosophy text. This being a biography of a philosopher, however, one might expect *some* sort of argument to be presented when the subject's philosophy is being dismissed. The anti-semitic opinions Weil held are obviously distasteful to most intelligent people and no explanations are needed as to why these views of hers were wrongheaded. But when the author is dealing with Weil's specific criticisms of the Old Testament, she calls her readings of it "skewed" and "distorted by the bizarre conception of God" she had developed through studying various world religions, yet she gives no reasons why Weil's readings were skewed or why her conception of God is so bizarre. From what I've gathered in this book, Weil's conceptions of God were quite reasonable. I'm glad this book presents the faults along with the virtues of this great thinker, but such swift and unreasoned dismissals of certain parts of her philosophies are off-putting, and this book is rife with them. A little nit-picking: the author goes back and forth between calling her "Weil" and "Simone" with no ostensible rationale for doing so. Also, at one point in the book, for no apparent reason, she describes events in Weil's life in the present tense for a few pages. All that being said, the book has mostly satisfied my curiosity about Weil's life. I wouldn't say it's not worth reading.

Please avoid.:
Lovers of the great, tender Weil will have no need for this little book. The danger here lies in a reader new to Weil, picking this up, reading it, and struggling with Gray's simplistic, biased agenda concerning Weil's abandonment of leftist politics(not true), hatred of sex and romance(not true), defaming and misuse of Jewish thought and history(certainly not true). In fact, du Plessix Gray spends more time celebrating Simone Weil as a sort of 1930s French version of the hideous David Horowitz(once left, now far right), then she does helping the reader understand the heart and soul of Weil's holiness and unending compassion. So don't waste your time here. Rather, try instead: Jacques Cabaud's "Simone Weil: a Fellowship in Love"; Simone Petrement's "Simone Weil: A Life"; or, "Simone Weil: A Sketch of a Portrait" by Richard Rees.

Fair and Sober:
Along with Carol Shields' "Jane Austen" and Douglas Brinkley's "Rosa Parks", Du Plessix Gray's "Simone Weil" demonstrates three qualities that make the Penguin-Lives series unique and important: 1. gripping-- and friendly-- narrative style, 2. vibrant guidance through historical times, and 3. subjects that are infuratingly flawed but alter the course of history. As we trace Simone Weil's life we get a unique picture of France's situation during WW2. A brief sample: we travel south with the Weils as they flee Germany's invasion of France, spend time with the revels during the Spanish civil war, and receive an unflinching description of factory life in mid-century France. Furthermore, Du Plessix Gray's examination inspires conflicting feelings towards Weil. Sometimes I felt admiration for her intellectual bravery and exhaustive examination of dangerous factory life. At other times her fixation with masochistic actions, manipulation of friends, stubborn personality, and, worse of all, her rabid anti-semitism makes Simone Weil hard to take seriously. This meditation of a short, but action-packed life, is a rewarding and thought-provoking read.

A bad book about a fascinating writer:
It is hard for me to understand why someone would choose to write a book about a person they obviously dislike and then do a bad job of researching their lives. There are some wonderful biographies of Simone Weil out there, including one by her friend Simone Petrement. This books has gotten most of the facts wrong and turned a young woman searching in her own way for truth into a weird, comical figure which she certainly wasn't. Most of the stories quoted by the author are anecdotal at best. Reading this book is a waste of time. If you want to know Simone Weil, read her books.