The House of Wittgenstein by Alexander Waugh

Schoene to his bosses in Berlin explained that he had been frustrated in his efforts to seize the Wistag fortune for Germany 'by the Jewish lawyers, Wachtell and Bloch, who are ill disposed towards the Reich.'» Waugh, que pertence a outra família famosamente infeliz, organiza os factos em forma de sátira realista: Tiveram muitos azares, mas eram imaginativos o suficiente para serem infelizes por conta própria. Os Wittgenstein são infelizes à sua maneira, dando razão a Tolstói. O livro nunca mais o vi, mas não parei de ver Wittgenstein aqui e ali. «(.) all I remember of the denizens of the Nocturama is that several of them had strikingly large eyes, and the fixed, enquiring gaze found in certain painters and philosophers who seek to penetrate the darkness which surrounds us purely by means of looking and thinking.»Įmprestei o livro a um familiar. Vi os olhos de Wittgenstein no romance Austerlitz, de Sebald: Through the bleak despair of a Siberian prison camp and the terror of a Gestapo interrogation room, one courageous and unlikely hero emerges from the rubble of the house of Wittgenstein in the figure of Paul, an extraordinary testament to the indomitable spirit of human survival.Īlexander Waugh tells this saga of baroque family unhappiness and perseverance against incredible odds with a novelistic richness to rival Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.

In this dramatic historical and psychological epic, Alexander Waugh traces the triumphs and vicissitudes of a family held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money, madness, conflicts of loyalty, and the cataclysmic upheaval of two world wars. Three of his sons committed suicide Paul, the fourth, became a world-famous concert pianist, using only his left hand and playing compositions commissioned from Ravel and Prokofiev while Ludwig, the youngest, is now regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. He bought factories and paintings and palaces, but the domineering and overbearing influence he exerted over his eight children resulted in a generation of siblings fraught by inner antagonisms and nervous tension. Karl Wittgenstein, who ran away from home as a wayward and rebellious youth, returned to his native Vienna to make a fortune in the iron and steel industries. The Wittgenstein family was one of the richest, most talented, and most eccentric in European history.

From Alexander Waugh, the author of the acclaimed memoir Fathers and Sons, comes a grand saga of a brilliant and tragic Viennese family.

The House of Wittgenstein by Alexander Waugh