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Synopsis:

“Memorable characters make this a singular exploration of the human condition.” – Publishers Weekly

A scathingly funny look at a group of quirky graduate students majoring in Disaster Studies who are forced to reconsider their cynicism when they confront a new student who, remarkably, has the same name as the 20th Century Catholic mystic philosopher Simone Weil …

My Weil follows a group of twenty-something PhD students of the new-fangled subject Disaster Studies at an inferior university in Manchester, England, the post-industrial city of so much great music and culture. They’re working class, by turns underconfident and grandiose (especially when they drink) and are reconciled to never finishing their dissertations or finding academic jobs.

Their immediate enemies are the drone-like Business Studies students all around them, as well as the assured and serene PhD students of the posh university up the road. And they’re working together on a film, through which they’re trying to make sense of their lives in Manchester and, in particular, to the Ees, a mysterious patch of countryside that appears to have supernatural qualities.

Into their midst arrives Simone Weil, a PhD student, a version of the twentieth century philosopher, who becomes the unlikely star of their film. Simone is devout, ascetic, intensely serious, and busy with risky charity work with the homeless. Valentine, hustler-philosopher, recognises Simone as a fellow would-be saint. But Gita, Indian posh-girl, is what’s with Simone’s nun-shoes? And Marcie (AKA Den Mom), the leader of the pack, is too busy with her current infatuation, nicknamed Ultimate Destruction Girl, to notice.

The narrator, Johnny, who was brought up in care and is psychologically fragile, and deeply disturbed by the poverty of his adopted city, gradually falls in love in Simone. But will his love be requited? Will Simone be able to save the souls of her new friends and Manchester itself from apocalypse?

Review:

“But by the time the first bombs fell,

we were already bored.

  We were already, already bored.”   

~ Arcade Fire “Suburbs”

I could not get this lyric from the title track of Arcade Fire’s album Suburbs out of my head while reading the newest Lars Iyer novel, My Weil. This is the story of a group of academics working on their Disaster Studies PhD projects, spend all of the novel doing everything but working on their Disaster Studies PhD projects. The group, who refer to themselves as the Collective, drink pickle backs (whisky with a pickle juice chaser) from bar to bar, play badminton, go to house parties of rich alumni, hang out in a junkyard, and genuinely fear life outside of their little bubble. They live in a dangerous Manchester, go to the second best university, and feel like their entire purpose is to avoid anything outside of their friend group. 

At the beginning of the novel, a new member is added to the Collective, one that has changed her name to Simone Weil, after the French philosopher, and is doing her best to live the life that is inspired by Weil’s work. Johnny wants to save her from this and from the dangerous situations that she gets herself into, with the same passion as a character who is trying to save a prostitute from her life of sin. While she is trying to learn compassion and grace by working outside of the friend group, the rest of the group sit around, drink, and talk about philosophy. Most of the group’s conclusions and eureka moments really do not add up to much because they are constantly bored with the idea of actually applying themselves to these ideas. The only one who is doing anything close is Simone and Johnny is trying to stop this. 

Most of My Weil is interesting and funny. The first half really keeps me wondering where the entire plot is heading, and the last thirty-five pages could honestly be the beginning. At one point Johnny mentions that his PhD project feels like Zeno’s arrow, the closer he gets to the end, the further the end moves away. I feel this immensely in the second half of this novel, and I wonder what would have happened if Lars Iyer started the novel with the last thirty-five pages and built from the end. Overall I know what I was getting when I started Lars Iyer’s novel, long passages with deep discussions about philosophy and applying it toward life, but I wish that My Weil was a little more concise. 

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.