Friday, November 30, 2007

Spurious on Simone Weil

HERE

And yet, and yet ... Why is it I think Bataille and Weil should be approached only by another writer-saint? Why do I dream idly of a book written at the level of their thought, their life, their writing?


How many times, reading this or that commentary on Weil, have I nourished like thoughts. "Saints" are by nature, beyond imitation. All imitation. We know them for what they are because they are like nothing and no one else.

For being such a one, there is no model, and everything that after comes to resemble them can be nothing more than imitation.

Weil's writing has long haunted me. It is a presence that, since I first read her work, has never ceased to challenge me. But to what end? For what purpose? I have no answer. Her words chill me, repel me, and that is why they never lose their hold, never lose their power to inspire.

My short story, A Theology of Anorexia began as attempt to imagine the intellect and sensibility of Simone Weil as an American woman. Or rather, to imagine Simone Weil transported into our time. I ended up with a story... but the thought experiment failed. It was at that point when I began to realize that the short story would not do for me. That I wanted more than story... something expansive enough allow me to work more intimately at the level of the artifice, to throw aside the pretense of not pretending.

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