The Symbolist Movement in Literature Book

Irwin argues that Simone Weil and Georges Bataille have more to say to each other than scholars (of the late 1990s and early 2000s) originally thought. He uses Bataille's novel "Le Bleu du ciel" as a place to get a sense of how Bataille understood his relationship to Weil (arguing that the character Louise Lazare is based on Weil during their brief overlap at the journal La Critique sociale). He identifies that both Weil and Bataille were engaged in projects of self-sacralization--trying to fashion themselves as living embodiments of the sacred--in response to the problems posed by WWII. Of course, they had very different conceptions of what the sacred was: Weil believed in self-sacrifice and action; Bataille proposed a kind of evil (evil as profane; the opposite of sacred, but in that way still a kind of sacred thing) contemplation as a response to the horror of war. Nevertheless both saw these as important political projects that would be more effective in opposing the war than standard approaches had been.

Overall, I found the argument of the book interesting--in particular as it relates to my own thinking on secular models of "sainthood." In this case, two authors are presenting themselves as a kind of saint. This book would be useful to readers of Weil and Bataille; those interested in "the self"; and in sanctity.