[Writingworkshop] Thank you Mr Wittgenstein

[Neale Morison]

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
http://www.nealemorison.com
31 Maple Ave #2, Cambridge MA 02139
+1 617 460 9969
nmorison at mit.edu