« to delight and instruct | Main | the meeting with death »
December 27, 2007
the force of gravity
There is something which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius, or at least of those with genius of first order and when it has reached its full maturity. They are outside the realm of fiction and they release us from it. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.
Although the works of these men are made out of words there is present in them the force of gravity which governs our souls. It is present and manifest. In our souls, although this gravity is often felt, it is disguised by the very effects it produces; submission to evil is always accompanied by error and falsehood…But the works of authentic genius from past ages remain, and are available to us. Their contemplation is the ever-flowing source of an inspiration which may legitimately guide us. For this inspiration, if we know how to receive it, tends-as Plato said-to make us grow wings to overcome gravity.
Simone Weil
Posted by amin at December 27, 2007 6:35 PM