Chapter Nine - Simone Weil (1909–1943): Resistance and Writing

Summary

Given more than a century since the birth of Simone Weil (1909–1943), we are in a sense better placed than ever before to appreciate her work, having progressed beyond the days when carefully edited selections of her writing were being released into press in a somewhat piecemeal manner. On the other hand, given the availability of the whole range of the work of such an extraordinarily gifted woman, we are presented with further difficulties. She wrote intensively throughout her relatively short adult life, but not necessarily for publication. Some of her work is best understood to be in the nature of exploratory drafts, whilst her confidence in the value of parts of it, and the care with which she left manuscripts with friends and correspondents, at least encourages us to seek among those drafts for comparably valuable insights. Her long-suffering parents clearly believed in her importance, with her mother especially putting in hours of time typing up her work, not least after Simone's death, making it possible for its publication in due course. All in all, we are left with questions about how best to ‘read’ her without over-systematising her thoughts. Albeit reading selectively, there is certainly coherence to be found, but we can also relish the provocative stimulus of some of her notebook entries as well as the clarity and conviction of such writing with which she seems to have been satisfied, much of it produced in the pressure of extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

We may begin by noting the pressures intrinsic to her education, being brought up alongside a brilliant and affectionate older brother, who became one of France's greatest mathematicians (eventually associated with the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies), as well as managing her own particular talents and achievements. In certain parts of Europe, women gained access to prestigious educational institutions only after World War I – Oxford, for instance, admitting women to degrees only in 1920. In France, it was not until 1928 that women were admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS). It is a mark of her exceptional abilities that Simone Weil was among the tiny minority of women first under the French philosopher Alain (pseudonym of Emile-Auguste Chartier) at the Lycee Henri IV and then at the ENS.