by Lars Iyer
We rank the company in terms of sexual promiscuity (Mulberry wins). In terms of sexual prowess (Titmuss claims to be an expert in the Indian erotic arts. No one believes him). In terms of sexual attractiveness, Ede comes top (centuries of breeding). In terms of sexual repression.
MULBERRY: You win that one, Peters. Hands down.
Saturday night. Ede texts. You up? I split with Fee.
Ede, in the communal kitchen, emptying a tub of mushrooms onto the counter.
EDE: The best I could get. Guaranteed head-fuck.
Fee! Fee! Why must it all be so complicated?, Ede says. We’re cursed. We’re doomed.
Beauty seems like a great clue, Ede says. Plato was right. It points somewhere. But to what? There is this world, that is all. Beauty makes a sign—but of what? A sign of nothing. Of the absence of signs. Beauty mocks us, Ede says. Beauty says: The way is barred. There is no path. Beauty is the door that’s shut.
Fee! Fee! It’s unbearable, Ede says. He can’t stand it! Fee is beautiful, but Fee is witless. Fee and her friends: beautiful but witless, chattering away in their flat. So inane. So depthless.
EDE: Have you noticed how the rahs are all saying literally now? I was like literally exhausted. I was like literally wasted. But nothing they say actually means anything! Literally or figuratively! Most of the time, they don’t even finish their sentences. I was literally so … They just trail off. They barely speak, most of the time. Mmms and ahhs. Little moans, nothing else. Oh reeealllly. Lurrrrrvely. Coooool.
And they use the word uni, which is unforgiveable, Ede says. My uni … As if Cambridge were some cuddly toy. As if they were all cuddly toys.
He’s known these people all his life, Ede says. He’s supposed to marry one of them! To perpetuate the breed. To join one great house with another, consolidating landed wealth, and so on. Fee would do perfectly, he says. He was led to her, it is quite clear, by some innate aristocratic homing device. Something Darwinian. Something quite disgusting …
EDE: We’re puppets, Peters!
Better to ruin himself, Ede says. Better to ruin the whole Ede legacy. To squander its fortune. To wreck its great estates. Better to end the family line. Better to become a cautionary tale to scare young aristocrats, he says.
Ede steeps the mushrooms in warm water, adding a squeeze of lemon juice. We drink the tea.
We speak of our desire for despair—real despair, Ede and I. For choking despair, visible to all. For chaotic despair, despair of collapse, of ruination. For the despair of Lucifer, as he fell from heaven …
Our desire for annulling despair. For a despair that dissolves the ego; despair indistinguishable from a kind of death. For wild despair, for heads thrown back, teeth fringing laughing mouths. For exhilarated despair, for madness under the moon.
Our desire for despairs of the damned. For crawling despairs, like rats, like spiders. For heavy despairs, like those on vast planets, which make a teardrop as heavy as lead …
Our desire for the moon to smash into the earth. For the sun to swallow the earth. For the night to devour both the sun and the earth.
We speak of our desire for extinction, for cool mineral silence. For the Big Crunch, for the end of all things. For the Great Dissipation, when electrons leave their atoms …
Our desire for the right to exist to be revoked. For the great lie of life to lose its force. For all to end in the great Beckett-play of the end …
We speak of our desire for the universal wind-down. For our bubble universe to pop on the mouth of God-the-idiot. For the great going-under. For the death of death of death. For the end of the end. For no more time. For no more mores …
He wishes his melancholy would take a European turn, Ede says, like Wittgenstein’s.
EDE: Here, drink up! Maybe we can ’shroom our way to the fundament …
A walk on the Backs.
Thought is also about knowing where to stop, Wittgenstein says. Sometimes, the thinker must desist from asking, Why? Sometimes, the thinker must let thought rest in peace.
His brother spoke of peace when he set off for Norway, Wittgenstein says. When he embarked for Norway, his brother hoped he would solve every problem in philosophy.
Norway would be his trial, his brother said, on the eve of his departure. Norway would be where he’d see if he was worthy of being called a thinker. Norway was where thought would writhe inside him, his brother said. Through him. Norway was where thought would flash above him, like the northern lights.
Norway was where he’d think his severest thoughts, his brother said. The most terrible of thoughts. Where thought would hurl its spear into him. Where thought, merciless, would run him through.
Norway would be too cold to let philosophy survive, his brother said. To let what we know as philosophy survive. The frozen air of Norway would kill all philosophical germs. Norway was death, his brother said. A certain kind of death.
By summer, he’d have solved all the fundamental problems of logic, his brother said. He’d have burrowed through the autumn, the winter, the spring. He’d have burrowed all the way to the Norwegian summer, to the never-ending day, when everything would be clear.
The truth, at first, would be unbearable, his brother said. Hard to get used to. Hard to endure. Because truth was also a judgement. Because truth would judge you, and find you wanting.
The truth would know his sins, his brother said. The truth would expose all his darknesses.
There would be no secrets in the Norwegian summer, his brother said. Nothing would be hidden. The truth would know him. God would know him, in the summer light.
The truth would search him, his brother said. It would search through him. He’d breathe the truth down to the bottom of his lungs. He’d inhale and exhale the truth.
His soul would be light, his brother said. His soul would weigh nothing. He would feel his soul rising in the Norwegian summer. His soul would float into the air like a fire-balloon.
And there would be silence, his brother said. There would be nothing he needed to say.
He’d barely sleep, his brother said. There would be no need for sleep in the never-ending day. There would be no need to rest. No need to dream under the never-setting sun.
The stars would dream, above the sky. The planets would dream for him, as they fell through the darkness.
His heart would be bright, his brother said. His heart would pulse like a jellyfish in the sunlit waters. And pale stars would show in the upper heavens. And God’s angels would be there, just above the sky. And God’s throne would stand in the middle of the sky. And God’s face would no longer be hidden. And God would be everywhere, just as light would be everywhere. There would be no corner of darkness where the devil might hide.
In the shadowless summer, he’d live in innocence, his brother said. In lightness. In grace. And his soul would be as transparent as the wings of summer insects. And he would think as birds flit from branch to branch. As fish nuzzle the surface of the water. The thought of life would be indistinguishable from life. Thought would live. Life would think …
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 …
Hi
s 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 ei
ght. 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).