Wonderful, Wittgenstein Poem by gershon hepner

Like Wittgenstein, I think that life is wonderful,
and even though I cannot help but blunder,
I love it for the witty way its ridicule
results in mental wanderlust and wonder.

Simon Blackburn reviews “Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911–52, ” edited by Brian McGuiness (“You are not helpful! ” LRB, January 29,2009) :

Brian McGuinness has edited and compiled many collections of writings by Wittgenstein and about him, and his 1988 biography, reissued a few years ago as Young Ludwig, as well as being a fascinating account of Wittgenstein’s life up until 1921, also provides one of the best short introductions to the ideas and the style of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In Wittgenstein in Cambridge, a beautifully produced and immaculately edited volume, he collects together a rich mass of letters and other documents. Of particular interest are the letters to and from Piero Sraffa, the Italian economist whose influence Wittgenstein, unusually, was prepared to acknowledge in his later work. There have been previous volumes of this kind (Ludwig Wittgenstein: Cambridge Letters and Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore) , and there is some repetition, but it is a tribute to McGuinness’s extraordinary industry and enthusiasm that he discovers interesting new material…[Wittgenstein’s] student Norman Malcolm may deserve the last word. Wittgenstein’s final word were, “I’ve had a wonderful life.” Malcom comments:
When I think of his profound pessimism, the intensity of his mental and moral suffering, the relentless way in which he drove his intellect, his need for love together wit the harshness that repelled love, I am inclined to believe that his life was fiercely unhappy. Yet at the end he himself exclaimed that it had been ‘wonderful’! To me this seems a mysterious and strangely moving utterance.

2/5/09