Robert Zaretsky
Autor de A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning
Sobre El Autor
Robert Zaretsky is an associate professor in the Honors College and Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston.
Obras de Robert Zaretsky
Obras relacionadas
Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria (1999) — Traductor, algunas ediciones — 13 copias
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1955-06
- Género
- male
- Nacionalidad
- USA
- Educación
- University of Virginia (PhD|History)
University of Vermont (MA|History)
McGill University (BA|Philosophy) - Ocupaciones
- university professor
historian - Organizaciones
- University of Houston
New York Times
Foreign Policy
Chronicle of Higher Education
Los Angeles Review of Books - Agente
- Marly Rusoff
- Biografía breve
- Robert Zaretsky is a literary biographer and historian of France. He is Professor of Humanities at the Honors College, University of Houston, and the author of many books, including A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning and Boswell’s Enlightenment. Zaretsky is the history editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a regular columnist for The Forward, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Foreign Policy.
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In giving us a biography of Simone Weil's philosophy, Robert Zaretsky focuses on five ideas -- affliction, attention, resistance, rootedness and the Good and God. Other reviews have taken issue with his omission of Justice from these five. In a letter of response to the New York Review of Books, Zaretsky accurately points out that he discusses Weil's view of justice at length. The reason for my agreement with his choices was Weil's evolution on what constitutes justice. Describing herself as a "bolshevik" in high school, Zaretsky underscores her evolution from such sympathies in these words: "Like Orwell and Camus, Weil was an isolated voice on the left who denounced communism with the same vehemence as she did fascism." She saw Stalinism as, not a Marxist clock out of order, but a different mechanism onto itself.
Part of Simone Weil's charisma is the above independence.
Zaretsky's chapter on rootedness is, imho, his best. "Duty towards the human being -- that alone is eternal," he quotes Weil. Instead of prioritizing "rights," Weil instead focuses on our obligations toward each other as part of our rootedness in the human community.
Having come to Weil as a neophyte, I was surprised to read not only of her conversion to Catholicism (she was brought up in a secular Jewish household), but to read that that conversion was based on two mystical experiences. "Weil observed," writes Zaretsky, "that her own suffering (she was afflicted by migraines), or malheur, resonated with the suffering, framed by Christian faith...." Visiting a chapel in Assisi, "she felt something 'stronger than I was' that forced her to her knees. A brilliant moral philosopher, Weil insisted that her conversion was based "upon the seamless movement between Greek thought and Christian faith." Yet, true to herself, Weil refused baptism and refused to submit to Catholic doctrine: "... she refused to separate herself from the fate of unbelievers. Anathema sit, the churches sentence of banishment against heretics, filled Weil with horror," Zaretsky emphasizes.
Besides Camus, the other moral philosopher Zaretsky brings into Weil's ideas are those of Iris Murdock. Zaretsky considers their ideas connected and quotes Murdock to illustrate. I found the connection Zaretsky makes fortuitous, and thus his decision to do so a distraction.
Zaretsky's short book inspired me to purchase Weil's biography written by her friend, Simone Petrement. Here, I expect Petrement will flesh out how Weil's physical fraility resulted in her inability to fulfill her aspirations. From her experience in Spain with the Repbulicans to her plan (presented to de Gaulle) to parachute nurses dressed in white into combat to fight alonside allied soldiers, Weil's tenacious idealism broke against the rocks of reality, including her own physical limits. Over time, this took its toll on Simone Weil's health as well as her morale
Weil also wrote against political parties. If a politicican announced that they would pursue completely what was best for the country and the world, Weil wrote, they would be exiled from their party. Yet this is what Weil advocated -- principled office holders who viewed duty to human beings as transcending party interests. How we could use her voice today.
Simone Weil above all was an absolute idealist. She placed huge obligations on herself to adhere to principle. In Middlesex hospital, dying of tuberculosis, Weil refused to eat more than the rations alloted to her fellow French during the war. She refused treatment for her illness. Tragically, she died at the age of thirty four.
I'm afriad I must agree with some of the other reviews that Zaretsky's digression into the moral issues he feels at encountering panhandler's coming off the expressway near his home and work jolted me out of the book's narration. Weil addressed issues of metaphysical significance during a time of the worst evil in history. Reading how Zaretsky addressed a panhandler at his expressway exit detracted from his narration of Weil's ideas. And thus the book.… (más)
Part of Simone Weil's charisma is the above independence.
Zaretsky's chapter on rootedness is, imho, his best. "Duty towards the human being -- that alone is eternal," he quotes Weil. Instead of prioritizing "rights," Weil instead focuses on our obligations toward each other as part of our rootedness in the human community.
Having come to Weil as a neophyte, I was surprised to read not only of her conversion to Catholicism (she was brought up in a secular Jewish household), but to read that that conversion was based on two mystical experiences. "Weil observed," writes Zaretsky, "that her own suffering (she was afflicted by migraines), or malheur, resonated with the suffering, framed by Christian faith...." Visiting a chapel in Assisi, "she felt something 'stronger than I was' that forced her to her knees. A brilliant moral philosopher, Weil insisted that her conversion was based "upon the seamless movement between Greek thought and Christian faith." Yet, true to herself, Weil refused baptism and refused to submit to Catholic doctrine: "... she refused to separate herself from the fate of unbelievers. Anathema sit, the churches sentence of banishment against heretics, filled Weil with horror," Zaretsky emphasizes.
Besides Camus, the other moral philosopher Zaretsky brings into Weil's ideas are those of Iris Murdock. Zaretsky considers their ideas connected and quotes Murdock to illustrate. I found the connection Zaretsky makes fortuitous, and thus his decision to do so a distraction.
Zaretsky's short book inspired me to purchase Weil's biography written by her friend, Simone Petrement. Here, I expect Petrement will flesh out how Weil's physical fraility resulted in her inability to fulfill her aspirations. From her experience in Spain with the Repbulicans to her plan (presented to de Gaulle) to parachute nurses dressed in white into combat to fight alonside allied soldiers, Weil's tenacious idealism broke against the rocks of reality, including her own physical limits. Over time, this took its toll on Simone Weil's health as well as her morale
Weil also wrote against political parties. If a politicican announced that they would pursue completely what was best for the country and the world, Weil wrote, they would be exiled from their party. Yet this is what Weil advocated -- principled office holders who viewed duty to human beings as transcending party interests. How we could use her voice today.
Simone Weil above all was an absolute idealist. She placed huge obligations on herself to adhere to principle. In Middlesex hospital, dying of tuberculosis, Weil refused to eat more than the rations alloted to her fellow French during the war. She refused treatment for her illness. Tragically, she died at the age of thirty four.
I'm afriad I must agree with some of the other reviews that Zaretsky's digression into the moral issues he feels at encountering panhandler's coming off the expressway near his home and work jolted me out of the book's narration. Weil addressed issues of metaphysical significance during a time of the worst evil in history. Reading how Zaretsky addressed a panhandler at his expressway exit detracted from his narration of Weil's ideas. And thus the book.… (más)
March 2020 the world changed. Robert Zaretsky’s university went to online classes. He volunteered at a nursing home, delivering and feeding meals to the elderly. For insight and clarity, Robert Zaretsky turned to writers who had written about the plagues they had lived through.
Victories Never Last looks to the past to understand our present. Pandemics have riddled human history; the result of the growth of cities and trade which fostered the spread of disease. The numbers of lives claimed by plagues is startling–until we consider that one of of four Americans have contracted Covid-19, and without the medical advancements and health care we enjoy, for our ancestors that meant one out of four died.
Fear and disorder were byproducts of disease, breaking down social, political, and religious order. Thucydides described the Athenian plague as stripping “society to its bones, baring a world of naked self-interest and preservation” Zaretsky shares.
Marcus Aurelius responded by writing his Meditations, his personal journal to aid his adherence to his Stoic philosophy.
Montaigne was still mayor of Bordeaux when the Bubonic Plague struck, taking nearly half the population. Retiring to a life of contemplation to write his essays, he concluded that “It is not what will be or what has been that counts, but our being at this moment that we should embrace.”
In his A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe chronicled the Great Plague in 1665 London.
Albert Camus responded to the ‘brown plague’ of the Nazis; he noted that the plague in his novel has both “a social and metaphysical sense.”
Zaretsky compares Mary Wollstonecraft’s’ novel of plague The Last Man and Camus’ last, unfinished novel The First Man.
Throughout the book, Zaretsky relates his experiences in the nursing home and his own struggles with mortality. We are all frail and flawed human beings, he ends, all both the first and last of women and men.
Over these last years, many have turned to the past to help understand the present. These histories sadly show that the divisiveness which has upended our social welfare under Covid-19 is not new. These writers offer philosophies that can help us cope with our awareness of mortality.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.… (más)
Victories Never Last looks to the past to understand our present. Pandemics have riddled human history; the result of the growth of cities and trade which fostered the spread of disease. The numbers of lives claimed by plagues is startling–until we consider that one of of four Americans have contracted Covid-19, and without the medical advancements and health care we enjoy, for our ancestors that meant one out of four died.
Fear and disorder were byproducts of disease, breaking down social, political, and religious order. Thucydides described the Athenian plague as stripping “society to its bones, baring a world of naked self-interest and preservation” Zaretsky shares.
Marcus Aurelius responded by writing his Meditations, his personal journal to aid his adherence to his Stoic philosophy.
Montaigne was still mayor of Bordeaux when the Bubonic Plague struck, taking nearly half the population. Retiring to a life of contemplation to write his essays, he concluded that “It is not what will be or what has been that counts, but our being at this moment that we should embrace.”
In his A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe chronicled the Great Plague in 1665 London.
Albert Camus responded to the ‘brown plague’ of the Nazis; he noted that the plague in his novel has both “a social and metaphysical sense.”
Zaretsky compares Mary Wollstonecraft’s’ novel of plague The Last Man and Camus’ last, unfinished novel The First Man.
Throughout the book, Zaretsky relates his experiences in the nursing home and his own struggles with mortality. We are all frail and flawed human beings, he ends, all both the first and last of women and men.
Over these last years, many have turned to the past to help understand the present. These histories sadly show that the divisiveness which has upended our social welfare under Covid-19 is not new. These writers offer philosophies that can help us cope with our awareness of mortality.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.… (más)
As the subheader states: a work exploring reading and caregiving through the COVID-19 epidemic.
The author intersperses discussions of Thucydides, Defore, Camus, and others with his own experiences of helping to care for the elderly in a nursing home facility.
The discussions on the books are well historically informed and well nuanced. The choice of The Plague as opposed to finding something more related to H1N1 in 1918 is interesting but understandable in light of the veil of silence which covered that H1N1 outbreak.
The author makes good reflections. A history of pandemics, however, this is not.
**--galley received as part of early review program… (más)
The author intersperses discussions of Thucydides, Defore, Camus, and others with his own experiences of helping to care for the elderly in a nursing home facility.
The discussions on the books are well historically informed and well nuanced. The choice of The Plague as opposed to finding something more related to H1N1 in 1918 is interesting but understandable in light of the veil of silence which covered that H1N1 outbreak.
The author makes good reflections. A history of pandemics, however, this is not.
**--galley received as part of early review program… (más)
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- Miembros
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Probably around 1996, shortly after my bout with cancer, I ran across the name of Simone Weil for the first time. It took me a little while to figure out she was a she (not a he) and to figure out how to pronounce her last name. In the three decades since, I've grown in my interest towards her for any (many) number of reasons: our mutual interest in inner sculpting, our tendency to be somewhat "maladroit" in common, everyday affairs, and our fixation on the "second great commandment."
I don't know how much Tolstoy influenced her (if at all), but many of her ideas parallel his later-life injunctions: the import of not lying, the necessity of not closing one's eyes to the suffering of others, and the preeminence of feeding starving human beings.
Zaretsky didn't delve into Weil's sex life, which is maybe appropriate (even if the topic can have a pretty substantive effect on how some people's lives and ideas progress). He did provide strong descriptions of Weil's thoughts on "seeing" the Kingdom of Good (or God), her reluctance to convert to the Catholic Church, and her seriousness (by turning away from childish things at age 25). She decided, as have I, that "a life worth living" is a life filled with solving life's problems generally and concretely (and not only the problems in one's own life).
Robert Zaretsky is a liberal arts professor at the University of Houston and has authored a few books on Camus, including Victories Never Last (2022). If you like The Subversive Simone Weil, some other relevant titles would include No Compromise (1989), Heaven Is Under Our Feet (1991), Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, The Republic (Plato), and What Then Must We Do? (Tolstoy).… (más)