by Lars Iyer
Ede remembers field days on Chobham Common, he and his fellows forming up and crawling through the heather, reenacting the great battles of history. Schoolboy-Agincourt. Schoolboy-Waterloo. The schoolboy trenches, boys going over the top into muddy no-man’s-land.
You were supposed to take off your beret when you were ‘shot’, Ede says. Actually, you hoped to be shot, so you could pretend-die in slo-mo, and then sit and eat your sandwiches in the sun …
And you’d trail toilet paper out the window on the train home. And form up again on the platform at Windsor station. And be played back to school by the drums corps from Victoria Barracks …
And all the while, Ede says, he’d dream of finding live weaponry and running amuck on Founder’s Day. Of firing a Gatling gun from the school roof, and hurling mortars from the spiked gables …
Perhaps, when he inherits it, he should turn his family estate into a terrorist training camp, Ede says. Declare war on the bourgeois world. He could form a new Weather Underground, a new Baader-Meinhof. He could kidnap bankers and blow up the stock exchange. Ede laughs.
He’ll probably just turn it into an anarchist commune, Ede says. Grow vegetables on the west lawn. Fill the lake with trout. Live in teepees on the old veranda. And let the house itself fall into ruin. Or, he might just torch the whole thing, like Nero, and rock back and forth on his heels.
Benwell’s too late for politics, and we are too late for politics, Ede says. Too late for the Occupation. Too late to march on the streets …
Guthrie, lying in the snow, quite drunk. An involuntary snow angel. His lips are blue. There’s frost in his wispy beard. He looks noble, we agree. Like some recently deceased Arctic explorer.
The rumour is that Guthrie drinks because of some great and secret tragedy. That Guthrie drinks in the tragic mode—that his drinking is a lament, a eulogy. That Guthrie is ruining his life because he doesn’t want to live. That Guthrie drinks deliberately, knowing where it will lead. That Guthrie is looking for oblivion, because he’s seen too much. Because he’s been out farther than us all …
EDE: Guthrie’s a sot. But we’re all sots! And at least Guthrie’s got a greatness about him.
Ede kicks Guthrie. Nothing. He kicks him again.
Ede unscrews the cap of his hip flask under Guthrie’s nose.
Guthrie stirs.
EDE: Entertain us, Guthrie. Put on a show.
Guthrie’s eyes, bloodshot, blank, looking up at us. Ede administers a pill to Guthrie’s drool-caked mouth, and pours the contents of his hip flask after it.
We wait, stomping our feet to keep warm. Ede does star jumps. I do squat thrusts. Ede throws snowballs at me. I throw snowballs at Ede.
EDE (contemplating Guthrie): To think that he once performed Marcus Aurelius!
We recall Guthrie’s finest hour, his portrayal of the emperor-philosopher.
Doyle’s rooms, at the beginning of term. Salt. Lime. Tequila.
A martial scene: the Romans versus the Barbarians, along the shore of the Danube (Guthrie as the Roman army; Guthrie as the Barbarian horde; Guthrie as the wide river itself). Clouds of dust. The plain covered in carcasses. Groans of the dying (Guthrie groans). Broken spears. The ground slippery with blood. Heaps of the dead (Guthrie as a corpse; Guthrie as a pile of corpses). Lifeless corpses trampled on without mercy. The columns broken back (Guthrie as a broken army, staggering and moaning). The half-slain blocking up the roads …
The imperial encampment: Marcus Aurelius, writing in his tent (Guthrie, all nobility, all gravitas). Marcus, tired of war, tired of a decade of campaigning (Guthrie, weary). Marcus, seeking to triumph over the passions and recognise the will of God in all events (Guthrie, a man of piety, a man of philosophy). Marcus, unwavering even in the midst of his duties (Guthrie, a man of resolve).
The battlefield: Marcus, surveying the scene (Guthrie, eyes on the middle distance). Marcus, speaking to his soul (Guthrie, speaking to his soul): All that is in tune with you, O universe, is in tune with me. Marcus, seeing the bodies of enemy soldiers twisted into impossible shapes (Guthrie, wincing): We must love even those who commit injustices against us. Marcus, seeing the dead faces of his own soldiers turned to the cold earth (Guthrie, shuddering): Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else. Marcus, seeing the blood of his soldiers on the frozen ground (Guthrie, crestfallen): Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late, the good lived yesterday.
Wittgenstein is weary. His face is grey.
He is exhausted, he says, not from doing anything. He is without real life.
If he were only capable of working, he says.
Why is the drive to understand so close to the drive to misunderstand?, he asks. Why is the urge to think almost identical with the urge not to think?
Truth sends no news, he says, with unusual emphasis. (Is he quoting?)
Libera me, Domine, he says. (Definitely quoting.)
God is calling him, he says. God is hunting him down. He’s fleeing God’s call. It’s all he’s ever done: flee God’s call.
To reach the end of thought, he says. To bring thought to an end. But at the end of thought, there is also the thought of the end. At the end of thought, there is also the thought of the end of thought …
Any real thinker would go mad, he says. Any real thought is also a mad thought.
He holds his head in his hands. He shakes his head slowly.
What does God want from him?, he asks. What does God expect from him?
A shaft of winter light.
He stirs slightly. Has he found an answer? A solution?
A badly timed fit of laughter breaks out somewhere near Mulberry.
Ede (refined laughter). Then the Kirwins (synchronised laughter).
What was it? Mulberry’s gigantic cock drawing (sketched for Doyle’s amusement)? Doyle’s knocking Titmuss’s can of Red Bull into Benedict Kirwin’s open sports bag, in a spasm of hilarity? The copy of XXX Mums, revealed when Benedict Kirwin leaned forward to retrieve the can? Chakrabarti’s squeal when Alexander Kirwin thumped him on the leg to distract the class from XXX Mums? Okulu, stomping out of the room in indignation at the chaos?
Wittgenstein—looking baffled. Wittgenstein—looking frustrated. What’s wrong with us? What are we laughing at? Has someone told a joke? Has someone done something funny? He has heard no joke, he says. He has heard nothing funny.
Has he said something funny?, he asks. Has he said something ridiculous? A faux pas? A double entendre? He knows how we English love our double entendres.
Our laughter dies away. Silence.
Wittgenstein—looking exhausted.
What can one man do alone?, he mutters.
Why do we come to his classes?, Wittgenstein asks us. Why, when philosophy is not of the least consequence to us? When we do not need philosophy? When we do not suffer from our need for philosophy?
What is it like not to have an idea in our heads? What is it like to believe in nothing, to be engaged by nothing, to strive for nothing, to suffer for nothing, to have nothing in particular for which to live or die? What’s it like to feel content? To feel pleased with ourselves? What is it like to smile at ourselves in the mirror? What is it like to laugh without fear?
• • •
A Punch and Judy show—that’s what he is, Wittgenstein says. Playing the fool for us. Jingling his cap and bells.
He’s the clown brought in to amuse us. To keep us entertained. To keep us occupied before we begin the real business of life.
We smile—just like the dons. We indulge him, we enjoy him—just like the dons. But we tire of him, too—just like the dons. We are impatient with him, too—just like the dons. Perhaps laughing at him (a little). Perhaps with scorn (a little scorn). Smiling at him, but tiring of him, too. Smiling, smiling, but with a certain impatience.
Next!, we want to say—we’re tired of this one! Next!, we demand—bring us a fresh one!
There’s a fire backstage, he says. The clown comes out to warn th
e audience. Laughter and applause. They think it’s a joke! The clown repeats his warning. The fire grows hotter; the applause grows louder. That’s how the world will end, Wittgenstein says: to general applause, from halfwits who think it’s a joke.
We should hate him, he says. We should hate thought, and the labour of thought. Because thought is opposed to everything we are. Logic is opposed to our very existence.
But we do not hate him, he says. We do not hate thought. Because there is a whole system to do the hating for us. A whole university—Cambridge University—that hates him and hates thought on our behalf.
We’ve outsourced our hatred, he says. We’ve sold it on, like a debt. We’ve subcontracted it, so that we can forget about it. The university hates him in our place, he says. The dons hate thought, especially his thought, in our place.
WITTGENSTEIN: Cambridge hates me. Cambridge wants to destroy me. Well, Cambridge might have succeeded. You might have succeeded.
He slumps into a chair.
Silence.
Wie traurig!, he cries. What unhappiness!
Silence.
Mulberry in his FUCK THE FUCK T-shirt. Doyle, hand on Mulberry’s arm. Titmuss, looking out of the window. The Kirwins, looking down at their trainers. Chakrabarti, looking up at the ceiling …
The glass-fronted bookshelves, with their bound journals. A fly circling. The parquet floor. The humming computer. The cream-coloured radiators.
Silence.
Wittgenstein rises and leaves the room.
We wait, not knowing what to do.
Didn’t he understand that our laughter didn’t mean anything? That it was nothing personal? That it was least of all a judgement on him …
Guilt. Should someone go after him?
Doyle walks out into the corridor, and back again.
No sign of him.
We file out, leaving the room empty behind us.
3
A walk on the Backs, without Wittgenstein.
Doyle, head sunk in guilt. Chakrabarti, shoulders hunched in shame. Mulberry, jacket pulled tight round his T-shirt, eyes lowered in repentance …
With Wittgenstein we see ourselves as learners, as students, as eternal ephebes. We see ourselves as apprentices, as prodigies—as youths, eternal youths, on the brink of everything …
We must admit it: we like the romance of learning. We like the romance of having our very own thinker. And who else but us will heed what he says?
The thinker is alone but for his pupils. The thinker rides the clouds in thought, stands on Atlas’s shoulders, belongs to the starry heights—but only his pupils know it. The thinker is the open Delphi, looking upon visions beyond mortal sight—but only we, his students, can see it.
We have a duty to Wittgenstein. To witness. To record. To relay the Message. To watch over the gift of the Master …
The next day. Ede and I at the porters’ lodge. The usual bustle. We’re Wittgenstein’s students. We want to ask him something.
The porter makes a call.
Wittgenstein doesn’t want to see anyone.
Ede and I tailgate two students past the porters’ lodge, and climb the staircase to Wittgenstein’s rooms.
We knock at his door. Silence. We bang at his door. Still silence.
We sit on the cold steps, waiting.
ME: You don’t suppose anything’s happened to him, do you? You don’t think we’ve driven him to something? Remember what happened to his brother …!
An hour passes. We salve our conscience by applying ourselves to the real Wittgenstein. Ede brings out the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Tries to read it. Puts it away again. I pull out the Philosophical Investigations. Try to read it. Put it away again. Ede orders Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes on his phone.
We look up the Wittgenstein entry on Wikipedia. Very long! We search for pictures instead. A glum Wittgenstein, standing by a blackboard. A dour Wittgenstein, walking with a friend. Wittgenstein, gloomy in tartan. Wittgenstein, in profile—clearly suicidal.
We google cheery Wittgenstein. No results.
• • •
We hear movement. From inside his rooms. The lock turns. The door opens. Wittgenstein, dishevelled but alive.
WITTGENSTEIN: What are you doing here?
EDE: We came to see if you were alright.
A pause.
WITTGENSTEIN (as from a great distance): I am not alright.
EDE: Look, we’re very sorry we laughed. We didn’t mean anything by it.
WITTGENSTEIN: You were right to laugh. (A pause.) How dare I teach a class! How dare I harm you by my teaching! (A longer pause.) All this talk of my Logik! Vainglory! Vanity!
Visible beyond the door: his table, a pile of notebooks, loose sheets, an open ledger—blank. Scraps of paper pinned to his walls, covered in handwritten proofs. In scrawled remarks. Just visible: APERION, in capital letters.
WITTGENSTEIN: There is no Logik! There’s nothing, nothing. I am nothing. (Another long pause.) I heard laughter outside my room. Your laughter. I came out to hear you. I thought to myself, There’s a clue in their laughter. There’s something I must find.
His stare is very intense. Desperately intense, we agree afterwards.
Town. A concrete piazza, scattered with steel bollards. Surveillance cameras on high masts. New buildings, grotesquely aping the old ones, with decorative brickwork and painted gables. Office complexes with scholarly names (Academy House; Scholars’ Grove, and so on).
WITTGENSTEIN: Cambridge has died, in its heart. It happened quickly. The rest of it will die much more slowly. (A pause.) A kind of rigor mortis has set in. A stiffness of the limbs. (A pause.) Cambridge is becoming brittle. Cracking, like ice in a puddle. Splintering. There are sharp edges in Cambridge. Careful! There are spikes and shards.
Near the station. Luxury apartments (‘price on application’) with stuck-on balconies. Investors’ megaflats, with staring windows and slanted roofs on stilts.
He walks. We walk.
Thought is howling: can we hear it?, he says. Logic is howling. The wind is tearing the world to shreds. Now it begins: the great desolation. Now it will come: the storm of the cosmos.
The sky is cracking: can we hear it? The sky is about to shatter. The stars are stigmata drilling into the night. The earth is groaning. It sings, it groans.
• • •
Thought is exploding inside him, he says. Logic is exploding inside him.
Philosophy is loose inside him, he says. Philosophy is devouring him from within.
And when it has finished with him? When it has done devouring? But it will never finish with him, he says. There will always be more of him to destroy.
Belvedere Tower, domineering. The Leisure Park opposite—faceless, looming.
His brain is going out, he says. His brain is exploding.
He is being kept alive, he says. But for what purpose?
What does God want with him, by letting him live?
He has the sense of being martyred, but for no cause in particular.
He has the sense of being bereft, but without having lost anything in particular.
Homertown Street. Clone-town shops. Concrete and metal. Absolute blandness.
Thought, and the derangement of thought, he says. How to distinguish between them?
A breakdown, a breakthrough: how to distinguish between them?
There is a cost to thought, he says. He’ll pay with himself. He’ll sacrifice himself.
• • •
Death, he says. He is drunk with death.
He can hear it: death is sharpening its knife. He can hear it: death is running its blade along the whetstone.
Death is coming, he says. Death will whistle around him like an Arctic storm.
Tea, among the tourists in the Copper Kettle.
Last night, he thought he saw the dons, looking up at his window and pointing, Wittgenstein says. He thought he heard the dons, shuffling up and down the stairs outside his room. He thought he sensed
them, pacing back and forth on his landing. But when he looked out through his spyhole, there was no one there.
The dons are really pacing in his head, Wittgenstein says. The dons have set up court inside him. The dons are pronouncing judgement on him from the inside. A crowd of dons, jeering at him inside. Sneering and jeering: that’s all he can hear inside his head, he says. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of dons, jostling inside him. A whole crowd of dons sneering inside him.
What do the dons want from him? What do they expect? What did they think he could bring to the university? What did they think he could contribute? Couldn’t they see the kind of person he was? Wasn’t it clear? He’s never tried to hide what he is, Wittgenstein says. He’s never pretended to be what he’s not. His face—couldn’t they read his face? Wasn’t everything written there, on his face?
What did the dons think they’d found in him?, Wittgenstein asks. Who did they think they had brought to Cambridge? He was a curio, at first. A real find. Did they think he’d entertain them during the long winter nights? Because the dons need amusement, he says. The dons need diversion as the nights draw in.
But he has become too much for the dons, Wittgenstein says. He’s become a problem, which the dons don’t know how to solve. He is the equivalent of a blocked drain, he says. A blocked lavatory. What an unsavoury job to fix it! How will he be disposed of! It’s not my job, each don says to himself. But then whose job is it?
It’s his job, Wittgenstein says. He should dispose of himself. He should strangle himself, and get rid of the body. He should throw himself into the Cam, he says. He should throw himself off the Mathematical Bridge, or Magdalene Bridge, or Cutter Ferry Bridge, and let his body wash down to the sea.
It should be as though he had never been here, he says. As though he had never been invited to Cambridge, never brought here. The dons shouldn’t be troubled by even the memory of his existence, he says. The dons shouldn’t remember a thing—not a thing! The wound in their memory should be closed up …
The dons should be left undisturbed, Wittgenstein says. The dons should be left to stride about on their English lawn. To walk with their hands behind their backs on the English lawn. To go in for English tea. To tuck into scones and jam in the English tea-room. The dons should be allowed to forget all about him. To never have heard his name. To have known nothing about him, about his very existence.