Name: Wittgenstein Jr
ISBN: 9781612193762

Lars Iyer

The story of a young philosopher at Cambridge, whose life closely tracks with that of the historical Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein Jr

Emmett

I drowned in this book in one sitting. It seemed that as long as I was on the page, leaving the book alone was impossible. 

An extraordinary, witty stream of consciousness narrative about philosophy, philosophic-religious despair, the economics of education and where it all leads us. But to say all this would be to reduce it to the sum of its parts, its ostensible plot of an austere philosophy professor and his twelve (often drunk) students amid lurking Cambridge dons. The story's real beauty - as is the beauty itself that it reaches and tries to teach - lies in wording the wonder that lies at the heart of an encounter with knowledge, against the ruined deceptive wonder and rush of the present-day.

Iyer writes with moving poetry. (The whole book can almost be called a sustained prose-poem.) His style is enchantingly sparse, so concentrated; the smallest word carries a weight that cannot be dismissed. Its spareness and episodic nature lend a soft mirroring voice to the fleeting quality of everything the book touches upon (life, youth, or Wittgenstein's Tractatus). 

Everything in it evokes the unbearable lightness of being. But it is also a light book, trading in familiar references (Facebook statuses, office-jobs) and jokes ("Doyle to Mulberry: You have a quantum penis. It's both there and not there.") The plays in-between (enacting death-scenes of famous philosophers) contain the most memorably comic passages.

While some may feel the romance at the end is startling and seemingly superficial, I felt it was, already, a thing lying dormant from the very beginning, carried along in the narrative current and waiting to surface. That it was written grants it poignancy, and a kind of wish fulfilment, on the part of the reader who by that moment would have been influenced by the students' curiosity. That is also part of the point here. After all, this book circles around, and finally, in that last moment, answers the fascination with what it means and feels like to have touched genius, even if it is for a while. It would not be too much to say that Iyer accomplishes this brilliantly.

"We’re drowning in openness, he says. In our sense of the possible. We’re ready to take anything in – to learn about anything, and therefore about nothing. Everything is available to us, and therefore nothing is available to us. Everything is at our disposal, and therefore nothing is at our disposal. We are infinitely open-minded, which is to say, infinitely closed-minded."

Daryl Houston

This is a strange little book, elliptical, sometimes funny, often baffling in that I'm not sure how I'm to receive all the philosophy in it. I'm as clueless as the undergrads, and I'm not sure whether that's part of the point (I sort of think it is) or whether I'm just stupid. Whatever the case, I enjoyed the way the thing was put together and thought there was a lot to like here. I imagine it'd be infuriating to anyone wanting a more conventional sort of story (though it's really not all that terribly unconventional).

The writer Hari Kunzru says “made me feel better about the Apocalypse than I have in ages” is back—with a hilarious coming-of-age love story The unruly undergraduates at Cambridge have a nickname for their new lecturer: Wittgenstein Jr. He’s a melancholic, tormented genius who seems determined to make them grasp the very essence of philosophical thought. But Peters—a working-class student surprised to find himself among the elite—soon discovers that there’s no place for logic in a Cambridge overrun by posh boys and picnicking tourists, as England’s greatest university is collapsing under market pressures. Such a place calls for a derangement of the senses, best achieved by lethal homemade cocktails consumed on Cambridge rooftops, where Peters joins his fellows as they attempt to forget about the void awaiting them after graduation, challenge one another to think so hard they die, and dream about impressing Wittgenstein Jr with one single, noble thought. And as they scramble to discover what, indeed, they have to gain from the experience, they realize that their teacher is struggling to survive. For Peters, it leads to a surprising turn—and for all of them, a challenge to see how the life of the mind can play out in harsh but hopeful reality. Combining his trademark wit and sharp brilliance, Wittgenstein Jr is Lars Iyer’s most assured and ambitious novel yet—as impressive, inventive and entertaining as it is extraordinarily stirring.

Wittgenstein Jr

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