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"NO ONE TO RECEIVE IT"?: Simone Weil's Unforeseen Legacy

"NO ONE TO RECEIVE IT"?: Simone Weil's Unforeseen Legacy Sissela On August 16, 1943, Simone Weil wrote from England to her parents in New York what turned out to be the last letter they would ever receive from her. She had not told them that she had been hospitalized since April with tuberculosis, refusing almost all nourishment. Near death, she was now so weak that she could barely hold a spoon; but she steeled herself to write them in her ordinary, strong script. “Very little time or inspiration for letters now,” she wrote. “They will be short, erratic, and far between. But you have another source of consolation. . . . By the time you get this (unless it arrives quickly) perhaps you will also have the awaited cable. Au revoir, darlings. Heaps and heaps of love. Simone.” Why so little time? Why the need for consolation? What cable? The letter would surely strike her parents, Dr. Bernard Weil and Mme Selma Weil, as ominously enigmatic. True, they were wary, as always, when it came to their daughter who had so often risked death in the past; but they had had no hint of mounting danger to her life during the preceding months. Friends who came to http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

"NO ONE TO RECEIVE IT"?: Simone Weil's Unforeseen Legacy

Bok, Sissela
Common Knowledge , Volume 12 (2) – Apr 1, 2006
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2006 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0961-754X
eISSN
1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-2005-005
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Sissela On August 16, 1943, Simone Weil wrote from England to her parents in New York what turned out to be the last letter they would ever receive from her. She had not told them that she had been hospitalized since April with tuberculosis, refusing almost all nourishment. Near death, she was now so weak that she could barely hold a spoon; but she steeled herself to write them in her ordinary, strong script. “Very little time or inspiration for letters now,” she wrote. “They will be short, erratic, and far between. But you have another source of consolation. . . . By the time you get this (unless it arrives quickly) perhaps you will also have the awaited cable. Au revoir, darlings. Heaps and heaps of love. Simone.” Why so little time? Why the need for consolation? What cable? The letter would surely strike her parents, Dr. Bernard Weil and Mme Selma Weil, as ominously enigmatic. True, they were wary, as always, when it came to their daughter who had so often risked death in the past; but they had had no hint of mounting danger to her life during the preceding months. Friends who came to

Journal

Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: Apr 1, 2006

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