RC Series Bundle: The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (Routledge Classics) [Paperback]

Simone Weil (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415119596 | ISBN-13: 978-0415119597 | Publication Date: October 5, 1995

Simone Weil writes on the subject of uprootedness and calls for a rediscovery of spiritual roots. She deals with the needs of the soul, discussing order, liberty, obedience, responsibility and finishing with the need for truth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"We must simply expose ourselves to the personality of a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints." -- T.S. Eliot in the Preface

About the Author

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the most important social, religious and moral philosophers of this century. Her books include Gravity and Grace and Intimations of Christianty among the Ancient Greeks, both published by Routledge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (October 5, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415119596
• ISBN-13: 978-0415119597
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,839,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saintly Beauty, March 4, 2000

By 

Gianmarco Manzione (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RC Series Bundle: The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

Simone Weil's "The Need For Roots" demonstrates the purest understanding of Christ's teaching that I have ever come across. One need not be religious to grasp or identify with this brilliant work.

This book is held together by Christ's beatitudes, parables and prayers as a way of emphasizing the need for spirituality, not organized religion, in our lives. Weil insists on vital obligations of the soul (all of which are explained in brief detail) and the importance of spirituality and self-respect in all things.

According to Weil, everything we do is to be approached with the same intense religiosity that pervaded ancient Greek culture. Love of money and glory have buried spirituality in modern societies world-wide. One of Weil's many solutions was to completely reexamine the uses of education in order to instill this spiritual understanding of human existence.

As with all great thinkers, there are countless facets of Weil's thought. The Need For Roots, therefore, is not an easy read. I found myself reading over sentences and paragraphs several times-not out of frustration, but out of an imense craving to fully understand the saintly beauty of her words.

Those who make the effort to read this book attentively will come away with a powerful, fresh perspective of life, including an understanding of the necessity of both joy and pain. Anyone with a soul should read this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book For The Ages, January 26, 2000

By 

Gianmarco Manzione (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RC Series Bundle: The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

In "The Need For Roots," Simone Weil cultivates perhaps the purest, most spiritual definition of Christianity ever put into words. She despises group thought, i.e., organized religion, while constantly referencing the words of Jesus Christ as being the essence of Christianity and a crucial model for living a "well-rooted" life.

One need not be religious at all to identify with the type of religiosity expressed in this book. Simone Weil is no preacher. Going to church every Sunday does not impress her. Dropping money in the priest's basket does not impress her. Love, on the other hand, does. And not just love of God or of religion, but love of eveything we do in life. She stresses the need for love of truth, learning, physical labor and love for what she defines as "the good."

Religion, for Simone Weil, should not just be limited to the church. Simone Weil believes that every aspect of life, everything we do, such as the pursuit of science or knowledge, should be as religious an experience as it was for the ancient Greeks; a civilization she draws reference to many times throughout the book.

Her deep spirituality is strewn throughout these pages, and wakes up the mind to the hypocrissy, spiritual crisis, and moral "uprootedness" of human nature in the modern world. In the midst of stressing this deeply spiritual message, Simone Weil attempts to open the reader's eyes to newer, less narrow-minded definitions of patriotism and greatness, as well as noting the various fundamental uses of education. For Simone Weil, education is not just a kid going to school and trying to get a good grade. Education is for those who have a love of truth, a love of knowledge and an understanding of the importance those virtues carry. It is up to a well-rooted, healthy society to instill those virtues in each individual.

Like the works of most complicated thinkers, this is no easy read. There are many different ideas spiraling around the core of spiritualism emphasized in "The Need For Roots." Simone Weil is extremely intellectual. It is unthinkable that she attained this level of brilliance by the time of her premature death at the age of 33. Most people will find themselves reading over paragraphs several times before fully understanding them. In the introduction, T.S. Elliot suggests that one reading of the book is insufficient, and he may be correct. Anyone who thinks they have grasped this book fully after reading over it once is either lazy, or, if they are correct, a freak of nature. However, the hard work required to tap into Simone Weil's stream of thought is well worth it. This is truly one of the most inspiring and provocative books I have read. While it was written in 1943 and adressed specifically to the state of France under the Vichy government, much of this book still remains crucially relevant today, perhaps even more so.

If this book is read with discernment, rather than in the casual mode in which we often read, I guarantee that a permanent tatoo of Weil's deep passion for humanity will be left on the soul.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An outstanding critique of modernity by the late Simone Weil, June 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: RC Series Bundle: The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind (Routledge Classics) (Paperback)

Two major contributions to the analysis of the modern society can be found in Weil's works. In his "Essay on the causes of freedom and oppression" of the early 1930s she had given a vision of why we are left unsatisfied by progress, substituting social oppression for natural one. Here, while in London just before dying, she gets to such a deep understanding of contemporary social and spiritual problems that has very few comparisons in this century. We needs roots, she assumes, and we find them belonging to alive communities feeding our souls. An entire programme of reform of modernity is developed from this assumption, and it is applied in detail to postwar perspectives in France. According to some of us, this is still a guidebook for understanding what can be done now, a source of inspiration for rethinking how modern societies could be eventually reconverted to serve human needs, instead of representing Plato's image (dear to Simone) of the apocalyptic Great Beast.