SIMONE WEIL ( A MODERN PILGRIMAGE )

"The French writer and philosopher Simone Weil (1906-43) devoted her life to a search for God - while avoiding membership in organized religion. She had a startling intellect, the social conscience of a grassroots labor organizer, and the certainty and humility of a mystic. And she persistently carried out her spiritual search in the company of the poor and oppressed." "Robert Coles's intriguing study of Weil - who has been called both saint and madwoman - details her short, eventful life, showing why she had a profound spiritual influence on so many others, among them T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Adrienne Rich and Albert Camus."
"This most accessible introduction, now updated with a new foreword by the author, shows us why this extraordinary life continues to inspire seekers everywhere."--BOOK JACKET.

A new study of this brilliant, perplexing and "unnerving" French thinker and moral heroine, who died in 1943 at age 34, is certainly called for, and this perceptive one does her justice. Coles, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning Children of Crisis, examines Weil's radical sociopolitical views, astringent moral philosophy and mystical Christianity, as revealed with penetrating lucidity in such posthumous collections of her writings as The Need for Roots and Gravity and Grace. He covers the facts of Weil's brief life (her death from TB was precipitated by her refusal of food) and ponders her strange ambivalence toward Judaism and Catholicism. Also included are interesting discussions on Weil that took place between the author and Anna Freud.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The spiritual characteristics and influence of these two women, rather than their historical or even psychological lives, concern psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Coles. Himself a Catholic convert and personally acquainted with co-founder of the Catholic Worker Day, Cole gives us a biography that reads more like a meditation on a mentor in faith than a dynamic study of someone's habits of living. Because he did not meet Weil, Coles is more dependent on his analytic skills in his portrait of her faith life whose details he gathers from her writings and his discussions with her brother. In both cases, Coles utilizes Anna Freud's psychiatric observations on Day and Weil but for the most part fails to go beneath the surface characteristics upon which he and Freud seem to agree. Unlike other titles in the "Radcliffe Biography " series, such as Joseph Lash's definitive Helen and Teacher ( LJ 5/15/80), Coles expects his reader to bring background knowledge of his subjects' lives to his texts. In short, these two books reveal more about Coles's religious temperament and development than about Day or Weil. More complete accounts of their lives are available in both their autobiographical writings and in numerous recent critical commentaries. Coles's books seem best suited to inspirational collections.Francisca Goldsmith, Golden Gate Univ. Lib., San Francisco
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.