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A Life by Simone Petrement A Simone Weiml : aalife n/ B2430.W474 P4613 22288 Ptrement, Simone. NEW COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA (SF) Simone Weil ^ ^3 B2430W474P4613 ^3/3 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, translated 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 biographer 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