Product Description

The French writer and philosopher Simone Weil (1906-1943) devoted her life to a search for God--while avoiding membership in organized religion. She had a startling intellect, the social conscience of a grass-roots labor organizer, and the certainty and humility of a mystic. And she persistently carried out her spiritual search in the company of the poor and oppressed.

Robert Coles's intriguing study of Weil--who has been called both saint and madwoman--details her short, eventful life, showing why she had a profound spiritual influence on so many others, among them T. S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Adrienne Rich, and Albert Camus. This most accessible introduction, now updated with a new foreword by the author, shows us why this extraordinary life continues to inspire seekers everywhere.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #962852 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 177 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Coles, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatry professor, here examines Weil's radical sociopolitical views, astringent moral philosophy and mystical Christianity. "A new study of this brilliant, perplexing and 'unnerving' French thinker and moral heroine, who died in 1943 at age 34, is certainly called for, and this perceptive one does her justice," maintained PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Coles takes up certain themes and passions that preoccupied his subjects, and wrestles with them as one might do with those of any figure who has become a lifelong spiritual companion.... To Dr. Coles, irony and paradox are the very conditions of life, and in Weil he finds much to try to explain. Straight off he confronts her probable suicide and links it with her lifelong aspiration to the condition of hunger, not only as a way of sharing the deprivations of those who suffer, but as a spiritual condition of those who, as she puts it, are `waiting for God.'" -- New York Times Book Review

"The legendary Weil--part saint, part literary genius, part patriot, part mystic--was an intellectual who believed that one must put one's body on the line. In her case, her body was frail, but her will was indomitable. Coles's conversations with Anna Freud about [Simone Weil] are luminous points in a book already filled with passion and light." -- Kirkus Reviews

About the Author
Robert Coles, M.D., was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his five-volume Children of Crisis series. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard Medical School and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University. He is the author of many books, including The Spiritual Life of Children, The Moral Life of Children, and Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion.

Customer Reviews

Explains Weil's Roots
This is an essential Weil book for the beginner. It's always useful to understand a philosopher's roots, and this book does not disappoint. Afterward I had much more appreciation for Weil's brilliance as well as her mental dysfunction. I came away with the sense that she was an unfinished work; that her philosophy up until her death was not yet mature. What insights she might have more completely developed had she lived! Re-reading her words now, I have a good sense of perspective on what influenced her thoughts and decisions.