Authors: Lars Iyer
When his brother returned from Norway, Wittgenstein went to meet him at the airport, he says. He saw his brother, as he walked through arrivals, his rucksack on his back. His brother was thinner. There was more grey in his hair. Ice-flecks. And there was more
depth
in his eyes. A touch of
horror
, though his eyes were still kind and bright.
That night, over dinner, his brother spoke of the black depths of the fjord, and of the mountains which come all the way down to the water’s edge. He spoke of wooden houses and forests of conifer. He spoke of the dim light of autumn afternoons; of days fading, having never really begun; and of the frozen suspense of winter—of the sparkle of hoar-frost and of thick banks of snow.
To be in Norway was to be back at the beginning of the world, his brother said. The great ice-hewn rocks were as though left over from the creation. The pack ice in the fjord was like chunks of light. The mountain rivers were as pure as ice …
His brother spoke of Norwegian
tears
, frozen on his cheeks. He spoke of Norwegian
laughter
, bursting out in the crystalline air. He spoke of Norwegian
joy
, rising like sap in the conifers.
He’d feared only the
Norwegian storms
, his brother said. When the sky seemed to be tearing itself apart. To be tearing
him
apart. The storms of Norway: he’d have wished them on no one. They’d exhausted him. He’d lost days of work. How
many times had he taken to his bed like an invalid, ringing down to the village for supplies?
But there was joy in recovering his strength after these storms, his brother said. There was joy in convalescing, as after a terrible illness. As after a fit of madness. In the silence of his cabin, he had felt his strength trickling back. Listening to the icicles drip-drip-drip, he had known himself to be coming to life again. And one day, he’d forced his water-swollen door open, and laughed as moisture clouded from his mouth.
There were
Norwegian despairs
, deeper and truer than his English despairs, his brother said. He’d feared their
depths
. But he’d been
awed
by them, too. His despairs had been as impersonal as the Norwegian landscape.
Oxford despair had always made him feel flat and sluggish, his brother said. Oxford turns you vague. Diffuse. Your soul
dissipates
in an Oxford despair. It dissolves as into a mist. But a Norwegian despair gathers you together, his brother said. Norwegian despair makes you coalesce. Consolidate. Norwegian despair places you—
you
—on trial. It summons
you
, just you, for judgement.
It’s as though the stars fling down their spears at you, his brother said. As though the stars burn in your flesh. Quite terrible! How alone you become! How cut-off! But how
pure
you become, too. There is no one around you. You are lonely. But it’s as though your loneliness is cauterised. As though your wounds glow with light. As though they are touched by frost-fire.
He’d dreamt of making a
logical expedition
to the northernmost reaches of Norway, across the ice field, his brother said. He’d dreamt of venturing forth, across the great glacier, striding over crevasses, with a notebook in his pocket. He’d dreamt of heading where no sane man would ever go.
He’d dreamt of making preparations for setting off. Of learning to breathe at high altitude. Of taking deeper and deeper breaths. Of acclimatising himself to the far north and to the farther north.
And he’d dreamt of heading forth one crisp, clear morning. Of setting off, before anyone had woken, as dawn broke. Of climbing up and up and up, following the course of the river to the foot of the glacier, and then climbing onto the ice. And then walking forth across the ice, up and only up, the sunlight dazzling his eyes.
He’d dreamt of the cairn left to commemorate his ascent. Of the legends that would remain of his disappearance. And he’d dreamt of his own dead body, somewhere high and far and sun-touched. He’d dreamt of his frozen body, there above the clouds, there in the element of truth. There, where the winter sun blazed. There, where everything was frost-fire sharp and ice-clear.
And he’d dreamt of his frozen notebooks, full of truth, his brother said. He’d dreamt of his indecipherable writing, full of truth. He’d dreamt of the path he had trailed that none could follow. He’d dreamt that he had
died
of truth, of terrible truth. That truth had thrown its spear through him. That truth’s tears had frozen on his cheeks.
The highest idea. The loneliest idea. How clearly it shined, for those who could see it! How absolute, broken from everything, for those who knew where to look! An idea like a star, a white star, blazing coolly. An idea broken off and burning by itself, exulting in darkness by itself.
Would he have reached it, that star, with his death? Would death have been the way that sun reached to him and touched him? Would his death have been the touch of that sun, the touch of
truth
?
• • •
Spring came, his brother said. The days grew longer. He hadn’t been able to sleep. It was too bright. The light was merciless.
He’d felt like the
last
philosopher. The
only
philosopher, living on until he could bring philosophy to an end. Endless consciousness … Endless vigilance … Awake, awake, awake until the end of time. Was that to have been his sentence, until he’d brought philosophy to rest?
He’d been awake as no one had been awake before him, his brother said. He’d been awake for everyone, for all the insomniacs whose heads burn like lanterns beneath the starry night.
The mind meditating on the mind. The brain thinking constantly of itself. Thinking about thinking. Thinking about thinking about thinking. When would it stop?, his brother had asked himself.
His brother had sought calm, Wittgenstein says. He’d sought order. He’d sought to stand like God over the elements, before the creation.
Let there be order
, he’d wanted to say.
Let there be goodness
.
His brother had sought, in his logic, to create a sanctuary on the face of the abyss. His brother had sought to uphold all particularities and inherent distinctions. He’d sought to safeguard the
measure
of the Creation, the divine Word that keeps everything in its place.
His brother had sought to hold back the waters of the Deep and the monsters of the Deep. He’d sought to preserve the structure of speech. He’d sought to renew the grammar of language, to strengthen its syntax. To keep hold of the names of things, along with the relations between them.
But logic wouldn’t obey his brother. Chaos came. The paths were drowned. The Creation was breached.
A sea of evil flooded the world. And the fixed order of things was swept away …
Unformed thoughts; void thoughts: that’s what Wittgenstein’s brother wrote about in his final notebook. He wrote of storms of meaninglessness; of pure, brute being. Of regions in which even the law of non-contradiction fails, in which nothing is identifiable. In which the non-Word devours the Word …
His brother wrote of
nothingness
in his final notebook. Of nihilism adrift, spreading everywhere. He wrote of meaninglessness alive. Of the eleven dimensions of the void unfolding … He wrote of
collapse
—inward
and
outward. He wrote of
hollowness
. Of
implosion
. Of the erosion of the soul.
His brother wrote of the
logical pandemonium
in his final notebook. Of the
logical calamity
. He wrote of the
shipwreck
of logic. He wrote of extinguished stars. Of ghost galaxies, long burnt out. He wrote of dark matter. Dark energy. He wrote of the end of the world, and of the endless end of the world. He wrote of
living
death and
dying
life …
Cindie’s
. Saturday night. A dance-off between Mulberry and Doyle. Criteria: flair, originality, acrobatics.
Doyle comes on, high-fiving his audience before ambitiously referencing the entire history of dance. Witch-doctor trance. Warriors’ huddle. Doyle
en pointe
, holding his pose. Doyle in the ballroom, sweeping round the floor. A burst of tap. The
Charleston. Swing
. Then the
Lindy Hop
. And, from left field, Brazilian
capoeira
…
Chakrabarti sees some Indian classical moves in Doyle’s repertoire; Okulu, some Nigerian Alanta. Doyle locks and pops, waves and vogues and robots. Then, a scissor leap, before a final John Travolta.
A
postmodern
performance, we decide. Eclecticism! Hybridism! Everything at once! Refreshing—but also
innovating
. Alexander Kirwin gives it a nine; Benedict Kirwin, an eight; Titmuss, a seven. Total: twenty-four.
Mulberry’s turn. He freezes for a full minute, as if in bullet-time. Then the full
moonwalk
, up and down the floor, white towelling socks gleaming. Then,
comedy
—Mulberry claws his hands and pretends to crawl across the dance floor as up a mountain slope; Mulberry catches a hooked finger in his mouth, hauling himself towards the DJ, like a fish struggling on the line. Then,
tragedy
—Mulberry pulls a toreador’s cloak over his narrow frame, and dances
flamenco
, full of
duende
. Then he slows down, holding poses, with the hyper-control of
Butoh
. Mulberry is Agony, Mulberry is Suffering. Mulberry is Hurt, Mulberry is Dying, Mulberry is Death …
Mulberry dances the
End of Dance
. Then Mulberry dances the
Posthumous Dance
.
What pathos! What emotion! Innocence lost. Perhaps innocence destroyed! Alexander Kirwin gives it an eight, Benedict Kirwin gives it an eight, Titmuss gives it an eight. Total: twenty-four—a dead heat. The dance-off must go to a dance-off.
Tension: Mulberry and Doyle facing each other, each daring the other to begin—two slim sumo wrestlers, half squatting, hands on thighs.
Release: the
paso doble
, Mulberry as the matador, and Doyle, by turns, the matador’s cape, the matador’s shadow, the bull itself; the
Carimbó
, Doyle spinning Mulberry like a top and then, old-style, in three-quarter time, in tiny, delicate steps, Mulberry leading; then,
grinding
, doggy-style, Doyle behind Mulberry, Mulberry behind Doyle; then the closing scene of
Dirty Dancing
, as if they rehearsed it for weeks, Mulberry/Johnny holding an outstretched Doyle/Baby above his head. What a climax! What a resolution!
The judges are overjoyed. Alexander Kirwin: ten! Benedict Kirwin: ten! Titmuss: ten! Mulberry and Doyle lead everyone in a conga, snaking from the dance floor out onto the streets …
In the weeks after his brother’s suicide, Wittgenstein read his brother’s notebooks in his Cambridge rooms.
Sometimes, he opened the notebooks reverently, as though they were the holiest of texts. He followed the strict sequence of proofs in his brother’s meticulous handwriting. He marvelled at the boldness of his brother’s formulae, his new logical language. At the new logical operators his brother used.
At other times, he opened the notebooks at random, alighting on this proof, or on that, or puzzling over one of his brother’s occasional remarks. (
Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognise itself. The only way to truth is through one’s own annihilation. Torment is the beginning of religion. The will to think is the will to pray …
)
He slept with his brother’s notebooks beside him on his bed, Wittgenstein says. He had confused dreams, logical dreams, of drawing his brother’s reflections into a systematic unity. Of organising his brother’s writings into a complete and definitive form.
His brother’s notebooks were eccentric, Wittgenstein says. Some might say
mad
. The calm handwriting of the first notebook (tiny, neat, controlled, upright) gave way to the wilder handwriting of the second notebook (larger, florid, looped, forwards-leaning), and to the deranged handwriting of the third notebook (words obscure, often indecipherable, written as though in a kind of code, as though his brother wanted to
hide
what he wrote, as though he wanted to
conceal
it, even from himself).
Carefully numbered points, an architectonic structure for his logical project, gave way to scraps, fragments. To shifting sands. Meticulous proofs, scrupulous formulae, gave way to remarks
about
his project. About the
impossibility
of his project. About the impossibility of
logic
. About the impossibility of
philosophy
.
There were times when he deliberately
neglected
his brother’s notebooks, Wittgenstein says. Their demand was too great. Their challenge, too frightening. He rested mugs of coffee on their covers. He left them at the bottom of his rucksack, squashed by supermarket groceries, pastry grease staining their pages.
There were times when he wanted to
off-load
his brother’s notebooks, Wittgenstein says. To have done with his responsibilities. He thought of placing them in a Jiffy bag and posting them anonymously to the Bodleian. He thought of leaving them on the doorstep of the British Library. He thought of sending the notebooks to the Oxford philosophy department. To Cambridge lecturers in logic. But who would understand them?
Only one who has had exactly the same thoughts that I have had can understand me
, his brother wrote in his first notebook.
Only one who has suffered thought, who has suffered his way to thought. Only one, like me, who went to logic on his hands and knees
.
I have come to Norway to suffer for logic, and perhaps die for logic, or at the very least go mad for logic
, his brother wrote in his second notebook.
Logic will no doubt send me mad. But it will be a sublime madness. A sane madness
.
Clarity or death. No—clarity is death
, his brother wrote in his third notebook.
I am dead. I am no longer human. Only the dead can read these pages
.