Lars Iyer - Wittgenstein Jr

And one day, logic will whisper in our ears, he says. Logic will say the kindest words. We will mistake it for roaring, he says. We will confuse it with the howling wind …

And logic will bloom in our hearts, he says. And then we’ll see it — that our hearts, all along, were logical hearts. And logic, which we think we master, will be our master, he says. Logic will be the crown we wear on our heads …

Redemption : that’s what he seeks. Logical redemption. Logical love . It must sound strange to speak of logical love . But there really is such a thing as logical love .

It must sound strange to speak of the blood of logic, he says. Of the heart of logic. But there really is such a thing as the blood of logic. As the heart of logic.

In his dream, the Logik is light, he says. The Logik laughs.

In his dream, the Logik can be expressed in a single greeting. In a single word . In his dream, the whole of the Logik can be expressed in a gesture. In a handshake. In a friendly nod of the head.

A walk in Grantchester, under the weak winter sun. Wittgenstein, in a terrible mood. Whose idea was this? he demands.

Over the centuries, the academics of Cambridge have worn a path to Grantchester, he says. Over the centuries, the academics of Cambridge have sought to cool off their minds in the willow-shade of Grantchester. To slip down a few gears on the river-path to Grantchester. The Grantchester walk was part of the rhythm of their work; the respiration of their work. The Grantchester walk let their work breathe . The Grantchester walk expired in their work.

It’s the very opposite for him, he says, as we walk along the river. His work suffocates from the Grantchester walk. His work becomes increasingly airless as a result of the Grantchester walk. He might as well place a plastic bag over the head of his work as take the Grantchester walk. He might as well place a plastic bag over his own head as take the Grantchester walk!

Leaving Cambridge for Grantchester means you have to return to Cambridge, he says. The walk to Grantchester and back is still in the orbit of Cambridge. In Grantchester, there is still the dreadful gravitational pull of Cambridge. The dreadful tractor-beam of Cambridge. Cambridge still calls you back. Cambridge still waits for you, laughing at you. You thought you could escape me? You thought you could get away?

In the end, the walk to Grantchester is only a way to pace the floor of his cell , he says. As indeed any trip from Cambridge is only a way to pace the floor of your cell . A trip to London from Cambridge is only a way to pace the floor of your cell . A trip to Norwich from Cambridge is only another way to pace the floor of your cell . A trip to Ely Cathedral — just another way to pace the floor of your cell .

To leave Cambridge is to return to Cambridge. To try to escape Cambridge is only to be more imprisoned in Cambridge.

Cambridge! he exclaims. Grantchester! he exclaims. Cambridge! Grantchester! The path to Grantchester! The path to Cambridge! The path to Grantchester is only ever the path to Cambridge!

Byron’s Pool. The famous willows, the famous swans, the famous reeds. The concrete weir must be a new addition.

Byron bathed here with his pet bear, we read on a plaque. And Rupert Brooke and the neo-pagans, a century later. And Augustus John came with his gypsy wagon and his clutch of sun-browned children …

Signs everywhere. Explaining Byron’s Pool. Explaining Byron. Explaining Rupert Brooke and Augustus John. Explaining the trees. Explaining the wildlife. Explaining the green and blue corridor through Cambridge — the proposed cycle path and the planned BMX track.

Why must everything be explained? Wittgenstein asks. As soon as there are signs about trees, there are no trees. As soon as there are information boards about wildlife, there is no wildlife. As soon as there’s a Byron plaque and an Augustus John plaque and a Rupert Brooke plaque, the legacies of Byron and Augustus John and Rupert Brooke are entirely destroyed . As soon as there’s a plaque explaining Grantchester, Grantchester itself is wiped from the face of the earth .

But perhaps that’s no bad thing, he says: wiping Grantchester from the face of the earth.

• • •

He has insomnia , he says. Terrible shrieks wake him at night. Screams — which should say, I am being murdered! Help me at once! But which in fact say, I am drunk! My head is empty! Cries — which should be those of dying men, mortally wounded men, lying in no-man’s-land or beneath collapsed buildings, but which are really the voices of students …

Students, bellowing on their phones. Great, health-filled, stupid voices, booming out. Stupidity, echoing from the ancient walls. Stupidity, sounding through his rooms. Stupidity, shrieking through the hollow night.

He can’t work, Wittgenstein says. He can’t write.

His powers are failing, he says. What presumption even to speak of his powers!

To begin — that would be enough. To take a single step forward. To discover a starting point that does not give way … Why do the foundations of his thought always crumble? Why does the path of his reflections always peter out?

WITTGENSTEIN: The will to work is wearing me out. But not the work itself.

He speaks of the joy of work. Of the bliss of work, and of honest exhaustion after a whole day of work. He speaks of the Sabbath of God, of the seventh day of creation. He speaks of the Saturday that does not set.

How will he find his way to the eye of the logical storm? he asks. When will everything become clear? When will it stay still? The heart of logic is terribly calm, he says. True peace, for him, is really logical peace.

Mulberry and Doyle’s spat.

EDE: How did it start?

MULBERRY: He wrote wide arse in Greek on my door.

EDE: But didn’t you write I will fuck both your arses and your mouths in Latin on his door?

MULBERRY: I was quoting Catullus!

EDE: He was quoting Aristophanes.

MULBERRY. Well, he felt-tipped very cheap whore in Greek on my door.

EDE: But you marker-penned hung like a Chihuahua on his door. In English, so everyone could read it! Where’s that from, anyway — Sophocles? (A pause.) There’s a frisson between the pair of you, anyone can see it. It’s like an electric storm.

Mulberry likes that, he says: an electric storm. It turns him on.

EDE: Everything turns you on, Mulberry. But I do wish you and Doyle would settle things. All this tension’s getting wearing.

Wittgenstein’s questions!

Is it actually the case that …?; Would you consider it important to …?; Is it, in this instance, really worth considering …?; Are we entitled to draw the conclusion that …?; Would we be entirely in error to …?

Doesn’t he understand that we do not dwell with these issues as he does? That they do not exercise our thoughts night and day, as they do his?

It would be alright if he didn’t expect us to understand him. If we didn’t need to understand him. If he simply thought for us, in our place. If he simply presented a spectacle —of what it means to think, of what it means to take thought seriously.

No one expects very much of an undergraduate: he should know that. None of us will fail our degrees, it is true — no one fails anymore. But none of us will excel, either. We’re here to fill the classrooms, and pay the fees. We’re here to populate the corridors, and sit decorously on the steps.