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alymiwasaa's review against another edition
4.0
read this for a philosophy class i took in my freshman year of college, and really enjoyed it. one of my classmates said she writes philosophy like a chemistry report and i agree. i will admit that i did not understand half of what she was saying due to her rather confusing writing style, but i thought that it was beautiful nonetheless.
miariameow's review
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Incredible.
unidentifiedgemstone's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
casparb's review against another edition
A few years ago I read the Second Noble truth of Buddhism - Desire is the root of suffering (trans. vary) - somewhere and loved it. I wrote it down and put it up on my wall and repeated it to myself wandering about. It was necessary. Some time later I realised I'd entirely misconstrued it. Whereas the Buddhist intention here (as I inexpertly understand it now) is to divest oneself of desire, of 'clinging' to worldly delights, I'd naturally approached it through what I'm inclined to call a more Christian lens. I'd seen this as an affirmation, a yawp, an I-AM. That every suffering seemed grounded in this so-human ability to desire! This was beautiful. That's not to say I approached suffering teleologically - that it was in aid of something larger or that the matrices of desire were amounting to the paradisial. But in this complete mistake I'd found an affirmation that seemed to produce - as the Russians do so well v. Dostoevsky - the entwinement of desire/suffering. A British woman I met once told me a few years after marrying her Russian husband he turned to her, surprised, saying: "I don't know why you expected marriage to be happiness" - now we find that depressing. They were what I suppose in English we'd call 'happily' married but there's a Russian sensibility of entwinement: suffering-joy-desire-abasement. This isn't depression so much as observation. It gestures to equilibrium.
One of the aspects of Simone Weil I find interesting is that she seems to knit together my awful misreading of the Second noble truth with something more like the received reading. I don't find it classically Christian either but who ever found SW that. There's a sublimity to I should not love my suffering because it is useful. I should love it because it is.(p.80). This rides that edge - I'd begun to find myself interested in loving it but probably, in the teenage egoistic sense because it was useful. I'll conjecture, again ignorantly, that Buddhism finds suffering useful in identifying desire as clinging, attachment, but the ontology of it is for Buddhism has a significance there which is miles beyond what I'm remotely capable of discussing. But it slides into a clearing, a void.
...endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
She's inimitable.
Every being cries out silently to be read differently.
One of the aspects of Simone Weil I find interesting is that she seems to knit together my awful misreading of the Second noble truth with something more like the received reading. I don't find it classically Christian either but who ever found SW that. There's a sublimity to I should not love my suffering because it is useful. I should love it because it is.(p.80). This rides that edge - I'd begun to find myself interested in loving it but probably, in the teenage egoistic sense because it was useful. I'll conjecture, again ignorantly, that Buddhism finds suffering useful in identifying desire as clinging, attachment, but the ontology of it is for Buddhism has a significance there which is miles beyond what I'm remotely capable of discussing. But it slides into a clearing, a void.
...endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
She's inimitable.
Every being cries out silently to be read differently.
tournesolrose's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
arthurian's review against another edition
2.0
after reading weil's biography i had good expectations for gravity and grace and since these are collections of personal writings, i did not plan on rating. by the time i finished, though, i felt like i need to rate and review.
while some concepts on the nature of god (both distant and personal, supernatural as not meant to be understood with logic but by another faculty that's present in us) were interesting as arguments and weil's language is beautiful, her ideology and theology leave little room for anything in this world that isn't suffering. dismissing any form of resistance or even attempts at enjoying this life as aspects of gravity, a baser form of good that is allied with evil, or The Great Beast, weil glorifies suffering. this suffering each of us experience (to different degrees as a result of race, gender, class, faith etc. which weil omits) doesn't even exist to test anyone's faith, make them learn or simply as a result or others' cruelty, but it is an inherent aspect of the universe and the god's distance from us.
also, i expected more tolerance from her in accordance with the nature of the god she initially depicts, but both the elaborated nature of the god and one's relationship with him is limited to the christian concepts of the original sin, god's grace and humans' inherent sinfulness. enjoying this world means getting further away from god, even attempting to be good means we are cut off from the real goodness. every single natural and humane emotion one might feel is seen as something that sets us apart from god. this god is not communally forgiving of everyone as salvation depends on suffering that is divorced from even expecting any salvation. so much that, she uses the idea that other religions interpret their gods differently as an argument to view them as people who strayed away from god (mostly Judaism, which becomes quite antisemitic, with some mentions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism with the most surface level understanding of these religions). this dismissal is not limited to only religions, as political movements, any form of resistance, or even any art that does not possess the real goodness is a false ideal, a corrupting influence. in fact, her brief discussion on how some art may be corrupting explains her views on anything that might have a meaning for other people well:
"A person who is passionately fond of music may quite well be a perverted person—but I should find it hard to believe this of any one who thirsted for Gregorian chanting."
replace music with anything one believes in, and gregorian chanting with her notion of catholic faith, and you get a sum up of the logical fallacy that aims to present one true approach to spirituality.
i suppose i am not the right audience for this, as it approaches faith from the framework of christian dogmas but i was hoping i could enjoy it more.
while some concepts on the nature of god (both distant and personal, supernatural as not meant to be understood with logic but by another faculty that's present in us) were interesting as arguments and weil's language is beautiful, her ideology and theology leave little room for anything in this world that isn't suffering. dismissing any form of resistance or even attempts at enjoying this life as aspects of gravity, a baser form of good that is allied with evil, or The Great Beast, weil glorifies suffering. this suffering each of us experience (to different degrees as a result of race, gender, class, faith etc. which weil omits) doesn't even exist to test anyone's faith, make them learn or simply as a result or others' cruelty, but it is an inherent aspect of the universe and the god's distance from us.
also, i expected more tolerance from her in accordance with the nature of the god she initially depicts, but both the elaborated nature of the god and one's relationship with him is limited to the christian concepts of the original sin, god's grace and humans' inherent sinfulness. enjoying this world means getting further away from god, even attempting to be good means we are cut off from the real goodness. every single natural and humane emotion one might feel is seen as something that sets us apart from god. this god is not communally forgiving of everyone as salvation depends on suffering that is divorced from even expecting any salvation. so much that, she uses the idea that other religions interpret their gods differently as an argument to view them as people who strayed away from god (mostly Judaism, which becomes quite antisemitic, with some mentions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism with the most surface level understanding of these religions). this dismissal is not limited to only religions, as political movements, any form of resistance, or even any art that does not possess the real goodness is a false ideal, a corrupting influence. in fact, her brief discussion on how some art may be corrupting explains her views on anything that might have a meaning for other people well:
"A person who is passionately fond of music may quite well be a perverted person—but I should find it hard to believe this of any one who thirsted for Gregorian chanting."
replace music with anything one believes in, and gregorian chanting with her notion of catholic faith, and you get a sum up of the logical fallacy that aims to present one true approach to spirituality.
i suppose i am not the right audience for this, as it approaches faith from the framework of christian dogmas but i was hoping i could enjoy it more.
schwarmgiven's review against another edition
4.0
A completely great, game changing foundational text.
The greatest work of Christianity ever written? Maybe...I am not sure...I have only charged through this one time (it took almost one year) and I am not sure I can accurately convey how great this book is--a true masterpiece of spiritual writing. I am not sure why I had not heard of it before. top 5 of all time...
Strongly recommended to anyone interested in spiritual topics.
The greatest work of Christianity ever written? Maybe...I am not sure...I have only charged through this one time (it took almost one year) and I am not sure I can accurately convey how great this book is--a true masterpiece of spiritual writing. I am not sure why I had not heard of it before. top 5 of all time...
Strongly recommended to anyone interested in spiritual topics.
gabbolds's review against another edition
4.0
confusing, dense but good. read this for a christian mysticism class and it was definitely a unique perspective :)