The Simone Weil Reader

An amazing collection of essays by one of the most brilliant philosopher/social critic/spiritual writer's of all time. Weil's writing can be extremely dense, I occassionally had to read sentences three or four times to understand what was going on. The problem is not really that her sentences are complicated, but rather that the ideas she is putting forth are, at times, heinously difficult to grasp. When you do finally get it though, Wow! I could alomost feel the wrinkles in my cerebellum changing course. Her analysis of human "rights", her thoughts "on personality", and her assessment of the spiritual aspects of the human soul are astounding. She has an uncanny ability to dismantle social power matrixes, lay them at your feet, and challenge you to re-evaluate your own interaction with them. As a fan of Greek literature I also recommend the essay "The Iliad, a Poem of Force" as one of the more lucid deconstructions of that work. This is a fine anthology which, due to it's chronological orginization and well-written introduction, also give fascinating insight into the growth and development of thought processes of a truly remarkable woman. All in all, this anthology is just extremely cool, though difficult to plow through, it is worth every moment.