The Ways of the Wittgensteins According to a Waugh

84 Reviews THE WAYS OF THE WITTGENSTEINS ACCORDING TO A WAUGH Richard Henry Schmitt U. of Chicago Chicago, il 60637, usa rschmitt@uchicago.edu AlexanderWaugh. TheHouseofWittgenstein:aFamilyatWar. London: Bloomsbury , 2008. Pp. 366. isbn: 0-7475-9185-7. £20.00 (hb). New York: Doubleday, 2009. Pp. 333. isbn: 0-385-52060-3. us$28.95 (hb). Ezach family is happy and unhappy in its own ways. This is hardly surprising zgiven that the family lies at the crossroad of so much human experience. It is the scene for playing out genetics and for working through the rearing and civilizing of children, both nature and nurture. In economic life it constitutes the primary unit, the household. Despite Tolstoy’s ideal, none can ever be com­ pletely happy for every member all the time. And, there is no reason to think that basically happy families are any more the same than unhappy ones. But then none can ever be completely unhappy; or rather, when a family is com­ pletely unhappy it is unlikely that it will remain one. One other factor, however, intrudes on this picture: we tend to be more interested in bad or scandalous news than good. Vicarious experience brings catharsis, possibly helpful in a way. Yet, as the German language recognizes with the word “Schadenfreudez”, we can experience joy at someone else’s sorrow, despite the questions it raises about our empathy. Alexander Waugh is himself the member of a famous family. He has written December 2, 2009 (5:28 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd Reviews 85 its “autobiography” in Fathers and Sons,1 where he is principally concerned with his father Auberon (“Bron”), his grandfather Evelyn, his great-uncle Alec, and his great-grandfather Arthur. Given the family documentation at his disposal and the span of generations, that book covers enough territory, in enough detail, to give us some sense of Waugh family character. You learn what it was like to grow up in the family, down to the odour of Uncle Auberon Herbert’s cologne, “smelling like Cleopatra in her barge on her way to meet Antony for the Wrst time” according to Bron (p. 370, paperback ed.), and the family suspicion that this uncle may have been the illegitimate son of Hilaire Belloc (p. 276). The fathers and sons, from Arthur down to Alexander, all wrote for a living, witty, stylish prose, and sometimes poetry. They especially liked writing about each other in letters, essays, and novels, often to each other in public letters and dedications; and as a consequence Alexander’s book is rich, amusing, intimate, and a bit indiscrete. Arthur’s turn-of-the-century avoidance of emotion in sentimentality grew outmoded, but it was replaced in the family business with newer models, with more Xash and cynicism. When it came to Alexander’s fa­ ther Bron, he was known for his talent at vituperation, and got into verbal and legal scrapes with C. P. Snow and Bertrand Russell among others (p. 407), which led to his getting sacked but only made his journalism more widely read and more valuable to publishers. In Alexander’s disclosure of his family history, there is a sureness of touch that comes from working within his ken. Waugh studied music, and worked as a music critic. In his easy, self-depreci­ ating way, he told an interviewer for The Wall Street Journalz that he got the idea to write this book because of “the most appalling boil on my right index Wnger”. This curtailed his routine enjoyment at the piano, “But then as I sat down and pressed a chord with my left hand I thought of Paul Wittgenstein. I knew about the concerto that Ravel composed for him and I knew that he was Ludwig’s brother. He was bound to have an interesting story.”2 With access to some Witt­ genstein family papers through one of Paul Wittgenstein’s daughters, he began. But a biography of the one-armed pianist soon turned into this “family history”, in part because of the author’s previous success with his own family, but also...

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