A review by lispectorsexual
Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

slow-paced

2.0

I didn’t know much about her but my knowing of her was through other French thinkers. Even with mysticism itself I didn’t know much about it (or at all) for that matter. But from what I’ve gathered, Weil wasn’t necessarily religious, one might say she had faith but did not practise religious customs. 

Gravity & Grace feels like reading a collection of personal writings, as the discussions made regarding certain topics are very short and might even be half a page. Her writing is without a doubt beautiful and carries emotional weight. I’m not a religious person but I have no problem indulging in religious works and being moved by them, but that doesn’t prevent me from criticising and disagreeing with them. Throughout this book, I found Weil doing PR work for god, finding ways to justify and glorify suffering, not necessarily as something that must or should happen, but finding “beauty” in it. If this was fiction I would’ve found it beautiful because it would’ve been in an abstract sense, but when we consider the real world that we lib in and the struggles we face, I just can’t - especially as a black man. 

“A man whose whole family had died under torture, and who had himself been tortured for a long time in a concentration camp; or a sixteenth-century Indian, the sole survivor after the total extermination of his people. Such men if they had previously believed in the mercy of God would either believe in it no longer, or else they would conceive of it quite differently from before. I have not been through such things. I know, however, that they exist; so what is the difference?” That last line threw me off I had to reread it twice. She’s equating knowing of suffering to experiencing it. It’s as though she’s diminishing oppression, violence, and historical trauma. Maybe if I was younger and not radicalised I would’ve found it profound. But I’m old now.