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Title: Waiting for God by Simone Weil ISBN: 0-06-095970-3 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: the Gospel message loved and lived!
Comment: Everything that Simone Weil teaches is taught in the Christian gospels. If you think the Gospel message goes to extremes, is too precious in its tenderness, too self-sacrificing, too far over on the side of the poor, the imprisoned, and the broken-hearted, then you will surely think the same of Simone's life and writing. If you know, follow, and love the beatitudes, if you understand the way of the cross, the vision of the saints, you will treasure every chapter of WAITING FOR GOD. It is the best of Weil's books, and therefore the best place to begin reading her essays -- even among the writings of the saints, this book is unique in its overwhelming love and faithfulness to the Gospel teaching of unconditional love.
Rating: 3
Summary: Showing Its Age, and Mine!
Comment: Twenty-five years ago, I would have called this book one of the great religious volumes of the twentieth century. Now, instad of profound, I find it precious and peculiar.
Weil's attempted life of sacrifice, coupled with her willingness to be rescued by her rich parents each time the sacrifices seem to go too far, seem like the stuff of spiritual soap opera, not great religious vision. Her solidarity with the poor and the working class, while well-meaing, is ultimately a failure, and her attempt to teach the Upanishads to factory workers seems like comedy of the absurd.
Her religious writing is not much different. Full of extremes, and paradoxes, and sometimes unnecessary verbosity, she strives for solidarity with a world of which, as she clearly states, she can never be fully a part. This, to me, now seems a peculiar act of self-loathing, and her anorexia is only further confirmation of this point.
Perhaps she is pointing the way of how not to be a saint. Anyhow, the reading is engaging. Leslie Fiedler's introduction, now 50 years old, shows its age, and as a religious commentator, he was frankly unqualified to begin with.
So read it for the peculiar period piece that it is, and for the example of a flawed, yet highly dedicated life.
Rating: 4
Summary: Important spiritual classic
Comment: This is indeed a classic, but like many classics, it demands your full attention. The letters contained in the book make for fascinating reading, especially the Spiritual Autobiography. This is indeed the "easier reading" part of the book, but it gives you the sense of a person who values total obedience to God even if it marks her as an outsider. She is not afraid to be unconventional, as far as it concerns the institutional Church. The essays are a little more challenging, especially the lengthy essay "Forms of the Implicit Love of God," where I had difficulty along the way grasping all that she was saying. However, at the end, she pulls it all together brilliantly in the story of Electra and Orestes, where the importance of waiting on God rather than seeking is brought home forcefully. The final essay, "Concerning the Our Father" is classic, especially the last three paragraphs that point out the structure and the flow of this prayer and the effect it has on one's soul. The only reason I give this book 4 stars instead of 5 are for the places it seems to bog down, but that may be more a fault of mine than the author's.
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Title: Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil, Arthur Wills, Gustave Thibon, Thomas R. Nevin ISBN: 0803298005 Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.09 |
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Title: Letter to a Priest by Simone Weil ISBN: 0142002674 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Simone Weil Reader by Simone Weil, George A. Panichas ISBN: 0918825016 Publisher: Moyer Bell Ltd Pub. Date: August, 1985 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (Routledge Classics) by Simone Weil, Arthur Wills, T. S. Eliot ISBN: 0415271029 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 09 November, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Simone Weil (Penguin Lives) by Francine Du Plessix Gray, Francis Du Plessix Gray ISBN: 0670899984 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 25 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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