Table Of ContentA
Life
by Simone Petrement
A
Simone Weiml : aalife n/
B2430.W474 P4613 22288
Ptrement, Simone.
NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF)
Simone Weil
^ ^3
B2430W474P4613
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B
Petrement, Simone.
2430 Simone Weil : a life / Simone Pe—trement ; translated f—rom the
Wkfk French by Raymond Rosenthal. 1st American ed New
Tk6l3 York Pantheon Books, cl976.
:
xiv, 576 p., [12] leaves ofplates : ill. ; 24 cm.
Translation of La vie de Simone Weil.
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN 0-394-49815-1 $15.00
:
1. Weil, Simone, 1909-1943. 2. Philosophers—France-Biography.
B2430.W474P4613
194 76-9576
MARC
rBi
Library of Congress 76
Simone
Weil
A
Life
Simone
Petrement
Translated from the French
by Raymond Rosenthal
PANTHEON BOOKS
New
York
English Translation Copyright© 1976 byRandom House, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Pantheon Books, a division ofRandom House, Inc., New York,
and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada
Limited, Toronto. Originally published in France as La Vie de
Simone Weil by Librairie Artheme Fayard, Paris, France. The
present edition has been condensed from the two volumes
publishedbyFayard.
LibraryofCongress Catalogingin Publication Data
Pe'trement, Simone.
Simone Weil:A Life.
Translation ofLa Viede Simone Weil.
Includes bibliographicalreferences andindex.
1. Weil, Simone, 1909-1943. 2. Philosophers-
France—Biography.
fi243o. ^4747*46 3 194 B 76-9576
1 .
ISBN0-394-498!5-1 y£|
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission
to reprint previously published material:
Librairie Artheme Fayard and Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.: Excerpts
iromSimone WeilAs WeHaveKnownHerbyGustaveThibon and R. R Perrin.
Originally published in French as Simone Weil telle que nous lavons connue
by Editions Fayard, English translation published by Routledge Kegan
&:
Paul Ltd.
Mr. Dwight Macdonald: Excerpts from "The Iliad, or The Poem of Force"
by Simone Weil, translated by Mary McCarthy. Reprinted from Politics,
November 1945. Copyright 1945 by Dwight Macdonald.
Oxford University Press: Selected excerpts from Selected Essavs 1934-1943,
Seventy Letters, andFirstandLast Notebooks by Simone Weil, translated by Sir
Richard Rees and published by Oxford University Press. (First published
in French by Editions Gallimard.)
G. P. Putnam's Sons: Excerpts from Waitingfor God by Simone Weil, trans-
lated by Emma Craufurd. Copyright 1951 by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica
24689753
Blessed are those
who hunger and
thirst
forjustice.
—
The Gospel According
Matthew
to St.
Preface
In the last letter Simone Weil wrote to Father Perrin, she asked him
to turn his attention and charity from herself to the thoughts she had
borne within her, which, she liked to think, had far greater value than
her mere person. And in a letter to her parents, almost the last letter
she wrote before her death, she let us see how distressed she was by
people who praised her intelligence instead of asking themselves the
question: "Is what she says true?" Thus she would have preferred that
people did not take a particular interest in her person and her life. On
the contrary, she wanted them to examine her ideas and make an effort
to find out whether or not they were true. A writer's life can never
explain in what way his thought is true,just as it cannot explain why his
work is beautiful.
It is true, however, that in Simone Weil's case her life had an especial
value of its own, indeed an incredible value! But to aim at presenting
a somewhat faithful picture of it is a hopelessly difficult task. To begin
with, it took place too close to us; the picture is bound to be blurred and
the story hampered and confused by the many subjective impressions,
the multitude offacts that can still be tracked down, not to mention the
host ofvivid memories so many people have kept of this extraordinary
being. From the perspective oftoday it is hard to discern what deserves
—
to be told and what can safely be neglected that is, to select from
among
all the fortuitous, superficial, and ephemeral strokes, those
strokes that will form an enduring portrait and will assume ever greater
—
importan—ce. To all this must be added and this is perhaps the greatest
obstacle that it is well-nigh impossible to describe this life in a purely
external manner, sticking to the bare events; inevitably one tries to
understand these events and, while recounting them, to suggest certain
central themes. But in order to understand them one should be her
equal, or close to it. In his excellent book on Simone Weil, Richard Rees
has rightly observed that it would require "a very exceptional biogra-
pher and critic" to do justice to both her life and her work.
vn
Simone Weil
To
write of her life means to deal with her work, for the bond
between her life and her thought was inconceivably close. Nobody has
more
heroically endeavored to bring her actions into accord with her
ideas. So a biographer cannot be satisfied with describing the externals,
and the upshot is that the enterprise becomes one of truly redoubtable
proportions. But the main thing is still to be said—for, confronted by
so pure a life, one hesitates to speak ofit out ofa fear ofnot being able
to present it without changing it in terms of one's own inadequacies.
There are few men or women who would not feel unworthy to touch
such a life. So the question must be asked: Who am I that I dare to sFpeak
out?
Indeed, that is why I hesitated for so long before undertaking the
work that Simone's mother, Mme. Selma Weil, wanted to entrust to me.
She had asked me to write a biography of her daughter; unfortunately,
I was not able to give her this satisfaction before her death. But since
she had told me many ofher memories and had given me a great many
documents, a time came when I thought that I could not allow all this
material she had confided in me to be buried with me and that I must
write it down in some way, to the best of my ability.
In order to complement Mme. Weil's memories and my own, have
I
made a number of inquiries and questioned many people who knew
Simone Weil intimately. Thejob of getting some order into what had
I
collected was a long one, and I was afraid that ifI put offpublishing what
I know, the book would never be completed and this information would
be lost.
Furthermore, publishing this biography as I have written it, imper-
fect as it may be, will permit numerous witnesses who have known
Simone Weil to call attention to whatever inaccuracies and important
omissions they may find in it. The longer one waits, the more the
number of such witnesses decreases.
I have done this work with small hope ofsatisfying everyone. Simone
Weil's life and thought were rich in many and varied aspects; each
person will see these matters in his own way and will reproach me for
having distorted, neglected, or insufficiently emphasized this or that
aspect that he regards as essential. An element of subjective evaluation
is inevitable and the biographer must always correct his particular atti-
tudes by keeping in mind the work of the person who is the subject of
the biography—if that person has left us a body of work. Fortunately,
Simone Weil has done so; and so I have let her speak in her own voice
as often as possible, and if this book is useful, I believe that it is espe-
cially so because of the unpublished documents it contains and the
effort I have made to put these documents in order, establishing more
or less accurately the date of each document. Simone Weil's letters
rarely bear dates; and a great number of the unpublished documents
were written on separate, undated sheets. In comparing them to other
vm
