Simone's Svengalis: A Petainist, a Missionary, and the Making of Simone Weil
Abstract
Two of the first books published in the name of the brilliant absolutist Simone Weil (1909-43),听La Pesanteur el la Gr芒ce听(Gravity and Grace) (1947/8) and听Attente au Dieu听(Waiting on/for God)听(1950), were tendentiously fashioned. Consequently the packaging that her Svengalis鈥攖he Petainist Gustave Thibon and the missionary Jean-Marie Perrin鈥攊mposed, so severely distorted her thought that the first is no longer considered by French specialists to be her own work and the second has no stable text. Nevertheless these two problematic books have defined Simone Weil. This talk reveals the origins and purposes of the books that Thibon and Perrin created.