BOO KS
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cause of her patent absurdity, he should be prepared to postulate some
dialectical relation between
holy
and
.neurotic.
I can't blame anyone
for not wanting to do this, because the relation between these two terms
presents a very difficult problem, and to settle it ultimately one must
perhaps also have recourse to faith-in God or in psychology (not both).
But
our world!
If
our world sees the Comic Figure in the Holy Fool,
it must certainly see the Neurotic; and at least it must ask, even
if
it
cannot answer the question, what bearing this category has upon the
saintly. Are the terms equivalent? Can one be reduced to the other
without residuum?
If
there is a residuum, how can it be shown to
exist in Simone WeiI's case? (Perhaps "our kind of saint"-to take the
term seriously-would be precisely the case in which every possible
discount had been made for sexual frustration and alI other neurotic
suffering, and stilI the love of God remained over, a residuum not to
be reduced to psychological terms or explained away.
If
such a case
seems to involve belief in miracles or to call for superhuman effort on
the part of our saint-none has ever asked himself such questions–
what else is saintliness?) In any event, how can our world speak of
Simone Weil without using its own language, in which the words,
severe and unforgiving though they may be, are, by definition,
hysteria,
masochism,
etc.?
No, she was their kind of saint. For alI her first-hand knowledge
of politics, exile and universal doubt, she made her way out of our
world and ceased to represent it. In her own world, in her own terms,
she achieved a certain sanctity, and whatever our world may understand
by this, it was, for her, whole-hearted, an absolute commitment. For
which alone she deserves better of us than to be made into a Patron
Saint of symposiums on literature and religion in the little magazines.
Isaac Rosenfeld
MANN'S GOTHIC ROMANCE
THE HOLY SINNER.
By
Thomlls Mllnn. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. $3.50.
It
is easy to say that this latest book by Thomas Mann tells a
good story and tells it well.
The Holy Sinner
has all the ingredients of
an entertaining Gothic romance: a double incest; murder before
sexual intercourse; a baby cast adrift on the sea; shameful secrets locked
away behind secret panels; self-fIagelIation as penitence; a duel for the
honor and love of a beautiful and noble lady; several genuine miracles;
divine revelations through dreams; and, finaIIy, redemption of
sin
