The newest addition to the Disaster Studies PhD programme at All Saints University, a version of Manchester Metropolitan, is a young woman calling herself Simone Weil. “Like the philosopher?” asks one of her fellow students. Yes, like the philosopher who starved herself to death in 1943. “She died as a martyr,” Simone explains. “She sounds like a nutcase,” her new friend replies. “Are you a nutcase too?”
Surprisingly, Simone is one of the more well-adjusted characters stalking the pages of Lars Iyer’s My Weil. It is a novel bubbling with madness. The Manchester streets are full of crazed addicts and murderous gangsters. The nights are filled with screaming. The All Saints PhD students aren’t doing much better. Narrator Johnny and his gang of fellow nihilist philosophers are convinced the end of the world is nigh. And they’ve all but given up on their dissertations.
