Weil believed that European writers would never again produce a work of genius until “they learn that there is no refuge from fate."
The Book of I is an amazing novel. Highly recommended.
From the Meghan O’Gieblyn NYRB review:
In her 1939 essay on the Iliad, Simone Weil argued that art has lost the tragic gaze of the Greek epic, which stemmed from a vision of cosmic justice that is not retributive but indifferent. Everyone, without exception, will be subject to misfortune. Everyone, without exception, will experience divine grace, which is not a special dispensation but “spreads over the whole human race, impartial as sunlight.” The genius of the Iliad, Weil wrote, is that amid all the violence and suffering, “nothing precious is scorned.” Even as the poem reflects the blind brutality of the pagan cosmos, it pauses over instances of beauty, heroism, and love, not because these qualities cancel out the suffering or redeem it but simply because they too are a part of the world that deserves attention. Weil believed that European writers would never again produce a work of genius until “they learn that there is no refuge from fate.”