[Writingworkshop] Thank you Mr Wittgenstein
Neale Morison
nmorison at MIT.EDU
Wed Mar 19 23:55:41 EDT 2008
Thank you, Adam, for putting me in touch with another tortured soul
struggling to understand Ludwig.
Adam Holland wrote:
> Fantastic. This was truly great.
> I'm going to have to issue the warning from the reading about your
> writing for a limited audience,though.
> More's the pity.
>
> I'll also share this, which is funny as hell, and about Wittgenstein.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/539219/002-7237538-2781625
>
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 4:55 PM, Neale Morison <neale at nealemorison.com
> <mailto:neale at nealemorison.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear Mr Wittgenstein,
> Thank you for your interesting submission. As distinct from the
> telephone directory, long on character but short on plot, your piece
> would seem to have neither. It is true that you introduce facts,
> items,
> objects, things and states of affairs quite early in the work, but
> your
> attempts to develop them fall short of capturing our interest. We
> cannot
> sympathize with an item, unless it shows us something which we can
> identify as our own. Your items have no goals, no yearnings, no
> feelings. You could at least give them names, and some simple
> description. Ludwig is a tall, pale object with a tendency to
> melancholy, perhaps not fully in touch with his sexual nature,
> Marguerite is a plump, mischievous item with a dazzling smile. Now let
> these items interact. "There is no object that we can imagine excluded
> from the possibility of combining with others." Your words, Mr
> Wittgenstein.
> Your profound insight, that the possibilities must be inherent in a
> thing from the beginning, might constitute a powerful theme for your
> piece, but please don't tell us, show us. Ludwig and Marguerite
> may well
> combine, but the possibilities of their combination are ultimately
> limited by some incompatibility in their inherent qualities, their
> natures.
> The determined fatalism of your outlook can be brought alive to the
> reader by some simple device. Ludwig is running for the train. With a
> gust of steam and smoke it pulls out. "I was always going to miss it,"
> Ludwig remarks to himself. He goes to the station cafe to wait for the
> next train. There is Marguerite, sipping a coffee and munching a
> Sacher
> Torte. He is instantly drawn to her. "It is as if we were always
> going
> to meet," muses Ludwig. "Nothing is accidental."
> Independence, expressed as the potential for dependence in different
> situations, is a form of dependence. This is a wonderful idea.
> Marguerite is on the rebound from a tragic relationship with a
> mentally
> unstable expressionist painter, and has sworn to steer clear of men,
> particularly tall pale ones, but finds that she cannot exist in a
> void.
> She is drawn inexorably into the vortex of Ludwig's strange
> attraction.
> Ludwig experiences a yearning to know Marguerite's internal
> properties.
> "Then I would truly know her, and all possibilities would be
> clear," he
> rhapsodises.
> Now, you see, Mr Wittgenstein, we have goals, and we have an
> action that
> may be expressed in a series of (ideally three) acts.
> Ludwig's fatal flaw, as I'm sure you have realized, is that he
> does not
> know his own internal properties, and consequently many possibilities
> and states of affairs are unknown to him.
>
> Ludwig comes to know Marguerite better, but is constantly troubled
> by a
> sense of separateness, of loneliness, even in her presence. "Each item
> can be the case or not the case, while everything else remains the
> same," he remarks to her glumly one morning over Palatschinken.
> Marguerite, used to his moods, does not reply immediately, but helps
> herself to another serving of pancakes.
>
> But Marguerite is coming to understand that something prevents Ludwig
> from expressing his feelings.
>
> Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. On the
> surface so
> true, Mr Wittgenstein, and yet this concept is anathema to the
> struggle
> for understanding of ourselves. You are perhaps expressing a fear that
> introspection, that uncovering of one's own deepest secrets, may
> lead to
> disaster, to a truth with the knowledge of which one cannot exist.
> Overcome this fear, Mr Wittgenstein, and a vista of infinite
> possibility
> opens before you.
>
> "Don't you want me, Ludwig?" demands Marguerite in desperation.
> "The will as a phenomenon is of interest only to psychology," Ludwig
> replies, avoiding her eyes.
> Upset and in need of respite, Marguerite goes to visit an aunt in
> Linz.
>
> Lonely and confused, Ludwig waits for Marguerite to return.
> Outside the
> station he leans against a post, watching her approach.
> "There can never be surprises in logic," sobs Ludwig, watching
> helplessly as Marguerite walks past without a glance. "Logic is
> transcendental."
>
> "The world is all that is the case," sighs Ludwig, as his footsteps
> carry him into the dusk.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Neale Morison
> neale at nealemorison.com <mailto:neale at nealemorison.com>
> http://www.nealemorison.com
> 31 Maple Ave #2, Cambridge MA 02139
> +1 617 460 9969
> nmorison at mit.edu <mailto:nmorison at mit.edu>
>
>
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>
>
> --
> When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
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--
Neale Morison
neale at nealemorison.com
http://www.nealemorison.com
31 Maple Ave #2, Cambridge MA 02139
+1 617 460 9969
nmorison at mit.edu
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