Gravity and Grace (Routledge Classics)

Deep insights

Weil describes the deepest places of human thought and experience

Profoundly inspiring and thought provoking. One of the great thinkers of our time.

I went through a philosophy heavy rhetoric program at UC Berkeley and never once heard Simone Weil's name. I discovered her through Stanford's Entitled Opinions podcast (which is excellent). I'm glad I did.This seems to be the book most people recommend to start with. It's pretty quick and shouldn't be too hard a read for most folks. I'd probably describe the style as aphoristic. You can pick different chapters to skip about in without losing much of an argument's thread. That said, you should totally read the whole thing.Weil's thought is complex, mystical, and challenging. This is a book that should probably be read a couple of times before any strong opinions are formed, so I'll just say this: I found her ideas to be very compelling, but I bristled a bit at her veneration of suffering.I can't wait to read more of her work.

She is talking about spiritual issues in a very novel language. It is like everyone that ever wrote about Christian spirituality wrote about it in terms of adherence to theology and she is writing about it like someone who found her way into it directly and organically, without the confusions of language. Then, having had this direct experience, she wrote about that instead of reacting to theology. As such, even though I am a post-christian, it is still fascinating and will become of great value as its meanings emerge in their own time.Oh, and beautiful book, by the way.

I bought this book many months ago and read portions of it without actually thinking critically of her views. It was only when I embarked on a water fast that I used this book as a daily meditation. I admire Simone Weil's unique intelligence, insight, and sensitivity to many of the fundamental topics of affliction, love, politics, etc. With acquired knowledge of physics, politics, history, philosophy and literature, Weil delivers poetic descriptions of topical subjects, although elusive at times there are sections that glow with profundity. I agree with Albert Camus that Simone Weil was one of the most luminous intelligence of the 20th century.