Category: W.

In the end, W. says, the last thinker might be each of us, any of us. He (W.) might be the last thinker, but so might I. There's nothing which distinguishes the last thinker from anyone else, not until he thinks in W.s mind, he says. Not until he speaks of what thinks.

It's a thought that will let you become the last thinker, W. says. It's only the thought that matters, W. tells himself. Having the thought, or letting the thought have you. Perhaps it's only being able to void yourself, unburden yourself sufficiently to let the thought come that will distinguish you as the last thinker, as the last of thinkers.

That's why we must follow the path of idiocy, W. says. That's why he must follow me, the perfect idiot. He's waiting for the clearing to open. Waiting for idea to be born inside him. Waiting to be spoken, ventriloquised. It's quite a process.

From the greatest stupidity, the greatest thought, W. sometimes thinks to himself, he's not sure why. Will the last thinker – the thinker who will wrap it all up, the Messiah of thought – be distinguishable from the perfect idiot? The last thinker, the perfect idiot: they're versions of the same figure, in W.'s imagination, he says. They're the same figure, viewed in different ways.

Is idiocy the path to thought, or thought, idiocy? Is idiocy the outcome of the process, of thought? W.'s not sure of the answer.

W. tells me of the legend among Essex postgraduates of the last thinker, of the thinker of the end of times, the alpha and omega of thought.

Of course, you'll never be able to tell who the last thinker is, W. says. He'll look like anyone else, W. says. At least that's how he (W.) sees it: the last thinker'll look exactly like anyone else. And perhaps he doesn't know he's the last thinker himself. Perhaps he has no idea of his mission, W. says, like a god who's forgotten he's a god. Like a son of God, unaware of his calling.

Perhaps it's the last thinker he seeks, attending early morning conference sessions. Perhaps that's what's he looks for in the thinkers he invites to stay with him in his home, W. muses. He's waiting, in his own way, W. says. At any moment, his guest will be revealed in glory. At any moment, it will be the last thinker, the messiah of thought, who sits beside him. 

Good God, perhaps that's why he even hangs out with me! Is Lars the last thinker?, W. sometimes catches himself thinking as he walks beside me on the street. Is he the thinker of the end of times?, he muses sometimes, watching me eat my chips, tomato ketchup staining my jumper. Probably not, W. thinks. 

W. dreams of the book both of us would write. The book under our names - not a book about a book, but a book. On its own two feet: a book. A book! And not a book about books! That's what we want, isn't it: to write a book that is greater than us, better than us? That will dismiss us as soon as it is written. A book that exists all by itself, with no need for us, that's what we want. A book that slams the door in our faces. A book that dismisses us, which says: go away! I'm too busy!

A book, and not a book about books, we agree. Not a commentary-book or an introductory-book, but a book that exists unto itself, that gave birth to itself from nothing and hangs there in the void. A book that does not need us. There it goes, we'll say, our Frankenstein's monster of a book. There it wanders, across the ice, sufficient unto itself, cleverer than us and better than us, the book that surpasses us in everything.

To make something we could not make. To write beyond our abilities. A book, and not a book about books: the book, on its own two legs, and running through the forest like Baba Yaga's hut. A book that made itself. A book that is not a fabrication, but something real. The book granted Pinocchio's wish to be a real thing. A living book, a living flame, a star which consumes only itself.

And who will we be, cast into the outer darkness by its glory? Who will we be, measured by our book? Ah, the book will not want us. It will lie in our hands, closed and inert. It sit on our bookshelves, dreaming its own dream. It will come, twenty-four copies of it in a big box, our free publisher's copies; it will come, ready to post out to our friends, to send out to the world … but the book will already be elsewhere. The book will already be having adventures of its own. The book will have already left us behind …

An, but it would redeem our lives, wouldn't it, our book, our son? It would justify our lives and redeem them, the swordstroke of the book. We will be the sons of our book, we tell ourselves. We will be fathers of our book, which will give birth to us as to its sons, that's what we dream of. That our book will give birth to us as it dismisses us, and sends us away, dreaming of what – somehow – we had done; dreaming, stunned, of what wrought itself from the mediocrity of our lives.

It's time to publish, W. says. Time for the thought-harvest. Time to bring in the crops of his thought, stunted as they are, withered as they are. W.'s going to publish his thoughts on Cohen and Rosenzweig. On messianism.

Ah, of course he never really understood Cohen, such an unusual figure. And he never really understood Rosenzweig, either. Or messianism. What could he possibly make of messianism?

Time for the archive doors to open, and for his paper to be ceremonially placed in the stacks. Time for the garland of renown to be placed around his neck, and for the laurels of thought-victory to be placed on his head. Time for space to be made for W. at the table of thinkers.

Yes, it's time for his paper to appear on the desks of his fellow thinkers. Time for W.'s thought-contemporaries to say half-resentfully, half-admiringly, 'So he's finally done it'. So he's finally done it: remembering the promise of the thinker they thought he might one day be. Remembering the promise of thinkers they might have been. Remembering the springtime of their lives, when they had burned with the desire to carry the thought-hopes of their teachers forward into the darkness like brands, and then to light their own brands, and to teach others so that their own thought-hopes might be carried forward. And remembering the drunken promises they made to one another back then in those halycon days not to betray thought. Not to trip it up and laugh at it. Not to kick thought in the ribs whilst it was down. Not to vomit over thought one drunken Saturday night. Remembering their sense of being part of a thinking generation, part of a wave of thought, part of a pack of hungry thought-wolves loping over the tundra …

Here is one who has laboured as we laboured, they will say, the old guard. Here is a rival of thought, a foe – because his thought, his Cohen, his Rosenzweig, his messianism will also mean the demise of our Cohen, our Rosenzweig and our messianism, but also a friend, because this is a time without foes, because even a thought-foe is a thought-friend, so few thinkers are there. Here is one who has made Rosenzweig and Cohen – those essential thinkers, so relevant to contemporary debate – be reborn in thought again, whose ideas on messianism – the idea of ideas – allow messianism to sparkle as though new.

Ah, but he'll know one day what it is to be challenged in thought by a newcomer. He'll know what we know: the joy of welcoming a new thinker, a fellow thinker into the fold, even as that thinker must also be a rival thinker, even as the new thinker's Cohen, Rosenzweig and messianism entails the demise, the going-under of his (W.'s) Cohen, his (W.'s) Rosenzweig and his (W.'s) messianism. He'll be busy with the attentions of the young scholars, the old guard think. He'll be busy inspiring others, dazzling others, spreading the word of his Cohen, his Rosenzweig, his messianism. But his time will come, as ours has come, and one day, his Cohen, his Rosenzweig and his messianism will be supplanted in turn.

He's about to publish his essay on Cohen and Rosenzweig, W. says on the phone. His essay on the meaning of messianism. The time has come. But where will he publish it? Somewhere as obscure as possible, W. says. Somewhere it definitely won't be read.

An obscure Polish journal has asked him for an essay, W. says. They'll translate it. That's where he'll publish it, after seven years of research. That's where his thoughts on messianism and mathematics will be archived: in a journal no one will ever read, in a language only the Poles know.

How many times has W. buried his thoughts in an obscure academic journal? How many times has his work disappeared into foreign languages no one in Britain reads? They come to him, the editors of these obscure journals, asking for something to publish. They must sniff him out. He'll do anything, if asked nicely, and by an Old European. What won't he do for a Mitteleuropean?

He hasn't really finished it, his paper, W. says. He never really understood the infinitesimal calculus, for one thing, he says, which means the long footnote he wrote on page six will never be complete. No one will know that but him, of course. No one will read the paper but him – oh, I will, of course. I might even do my best, but what could I make of it?

W.'s paper. Will he turn the world of Cohen, Rosenzweig and messianism scholarship on its head? Will he have given the world a new Cohen, a new Rosenzweig, and a new sense of messianism? Will he have transformed the scholarly field? Will he become an obligatory point of reference for the scholars who come after him?

Will papers for and against his interpretation of Cohen, Rosenzweig and messianism be presented at colloquia and conferences, and he published in academic journals? Will whole editions of journals be dedicated to his thought on Cohen, Rosenzweig and messianism, and to responding to his scholarly respondents?

Will doctoral students write these discussing the new Cohen, Rosenzweig and messianism debates with references to W.'s Cohen, W.'s Rosenzweig and W.'s messianism? Will a sense of the paradigm-busting significance of W.'s Cohen, W.'s Rosenzweig and W.'s messianism pass down into the popular imagination, into the pages of broadsheets and Radio 4 interviews?

Will the scholars of Oxford whisper of W.'s Cohen, W.'s Rosenzweig and W.'s messianism as they cross college quadrangles? Will the governing bodies of Cambridge wonder whether to offer W. a Chair ('he's not really one of us, but still …')? Will he receive offers of American lecture tours and plenary talks? Will fellow scholars stand on their chairs and cry, 'hurrah', throwing their mortar boards in the air when they hear him speak? Will a ticker-tape parade be held in W.'s hometown of Plymouth, W. being driven along and waving to cheering crowds?

It's not likely, is it?, W. says.

It'll be like Chernobyl, our future, W. says. They'll be like Chernobyl children, our descendants, each with his deformity, each his own cancer. That's how they'll know each other, in the future – by their cancers. Everyone will have cancer, only a different kind of cancer. One will cancer of the toenail, the next cancel of the colon, a third cancer of the eyes, and so on.

And they'll die before they are teenagers, our descendants, like Chernobyl children. They'll die with no one to care for them, gasping in the boiling air. They'll die alone and trembling, thousands of them, as the atmosphere boils away.

W. imagines them like giant crabs, the destroyers of philosophy. As giant crabs with great metallic claws. But in the end, they'll only be managers. Manager-murderers, with profit and loss spreadsheets.

We've been abandoned, W. says. But abandoned to what? To our lives, the wretchedness of our lives. To our failure. Again and again, our failure.

What has he learned?, W. muses. What are his four noble truths? He knows only that I am wrong, and that I have always been in the wrong. He's certain of that.

He's not bright enough, that's his tragedy, W. says. That there is another dimension of thought, another dimension of life he will never attain; that the murk of his stupidity has a gleaming surface: he half understands, half knows; but he doesn't understand, he doesn't know.

But isn't that his mercy, too; isn't that what saves him? For if he understood, really understood, how immeasurably he had failed, wouldn't he have had to take his life in shame? If he knew, really knew, the extent of his shortcomings, wouldn't his blood have had to mingle with the water?

But then, if he really understood, he wouldn't be stupid, W. says.

There are some thoughts that will be forever beyond us, W. says. The thought of our own stupidity, for example; the thought of what we might have been if we weren't stupid. The thought of what he might have been, W., if he hadn't been dragged down by the concrete block of my stupidity. The thought of what I might have been, if my stupidity had simply been allowed to run its course … W. shudders.

'The elephant in your room was your stupidity', W. says after our presentation. 'Actually, you were the elephant in the room. My God, you're fatter than ever'.

We're in enemy territory. We've been parachuted deep behind enemy lines. And what's our mission? A suicide mission, it can only be that, W. says. A soiling ourselves mission. – 'Go on, you start'.

If anything, I am too punctual, W. says. I'm always there before everyone, anxiously pacing about. What do I think I'm going to miss?

I know something's going to happen, W. can see that, but what? What can I possibly understand of what is going to happen?

I'm straining my intelligence, W. says. He sees it on my face. But you can't replace intelligence with punctuality.

It's coming, the end, as great and fearsome as a hurricane. It's coming, the great wind that will blow out all the candles.

We want only to watch it come. Mesmerised, we want only to watch the towers fall and the cities drown.

We should have enemies, terrible enemies, W. says. We deserve them. There should be satellites in low orbits, tracking our movements. There should be snipers in the bushes, ready to finish us off.

That we haven't been killed yet is a puzzling sign. Why have we been allowed to live? But perhaps that is our punishment: being permitted to live.

W. sees me as an augur, cutting open his life in order to read the future. Cutting him open, lifting out his guts, spreading them on the table. – 'What do you see, fat boy?' What do I see, now I've eviscerated his life?

We love reading about friendship because we know nothing whatsoever about friendship. We love reading about philosophy because we know nothing whatsoever about philosophy. We love reading about God because we know nothing whatsoever about God. We love reading about life because we know nothing whatsoever about life.

I'm impatient, W. can see that. I wait for judgement like a millenarian. What have I ever wanted but the end? What, but to put an end to waiting for it, the end?

The mythical pelican feeds strips of its own flesh to its young, W. says. It tears strips from its own breast and feeds them to its young. And isn't that how he's fed me – by tearing strips of living substance from his breast?

Idiocy is always unwitting, W. says. It doesn't really know itself. It doesn't really suffer itself, that's its lightness. The idiot is an innocent, a child.

Others laugh at him, the idiot, and he laughs along. Everyone's laughing!, he thinks. Great! He even laughs at himself – but what does he understand of what he's laughing at? Everything's funny. He's an idiot – and that's funny, too. Everything's funny! Everything's hilarious.

W.'s not laughing anymore, he says. He's done with laughing. His laughter has stuck to his thoat. These are serious times, he says. When have things ever been more serious than this?

W. finds me strangely silent. Why have I never learned to talk?, he wonders. Why has it always been left to him, when we're in company, to speak for both of us?

For long periods, I'm mute, thinking of God knows what, W. says. I'm like some great block of stupidity. Like some great stupid Easter Island statue …

What does stupidity think about?, W. wonders. Does it ever come into an awareness of its own stupidity? Ah, but stupidity can never uncover its own truth, that's its tragedy. Stupidity can never look itself in the face.

If he has been able to speak of his stupidies, of his idiocies, that's only a sign of the incompleteness of his stupidity, of the partialness of his idiocy. But when I speak of my stupidity? I never quite grasp it, W. says. I never really reach my target.

Sometimes he likes my silence, he says. Sometimes he imagines it to be a kind of integrity- a way of guarding something, some secret. He knows something, W. says to himself, looking across at me. Or, better: something knows itself in him.

One day, they'll decrypt me, W. likes to think to himself. One day, the Rosetta Stone of my stupidity will yield up its secrets. You see!, W. will say. I told you so!, he's say, when they solve the riddle of me. But in the meantime? 

Somehow I'm on the same side as the apocalypse, W. says. I'm on the same side as everything that is wrong with the world.

His thoughts are ripe, W. says. The time has come. He's about to publish his thoughts on Cohen and Rosenzweig. It's time his essay on messianism and mathematics found its audience. But where will he publish it? Somewhere as obscure as possible. Somewhere it definitely won't be read.

The Poles have asked him for an essay, W. says. They want to publish him in one of their obscure Polish journals. In Polish?, I ask him. Of course, in Polish! That should be the destiny of his thought after several years of research: publication in an obscure Polish journal, and translated into Polish, a language barely anyone reads.

But the Poles'll understand him, won't they?, I ask him. Of course! Of course the Poles will understand him! But the Poles will see through him, too, W.'s certain of that. Only they'll know that he never really understood the infinitesimal calculus. Only they'll know why his mathematical footnote is incomplete.

'You think this – this – is life? This isn't life', W. says. What is life, then? What does W. mean by life? – 'Life is God', W. wants to say, but he understands nothing about God. Life is God: but W. doesn't believe in God.

We're landfill thinkers, W. says. Landfill philosophers. But he doesn't mind. He has the sense of edging forward in ther darkness, he says. He has the sense of digging his burrow, of pushing on in dark times.

And what kind of burrow am I digging?, W. wonders. What kind of tunnel can a mole make without claws, a mole that's gone mad underground?

Oh, he has some idea of what we lack, W. says. More than I have, but then he's more intelligent than I am. He has some sense that there's another kind of thinking, another order of idea into which one might break like a flying fish that breaks the surface of the water.

He knows it's there, the sun-touched surface, far above him. He knows there are thinkers whose wings flash with light in the open air, who leap from wave-crest to wave-crest, and that he will never fly with them.

W. left it all behind and went into his desert. And lo and behold, there I was, the idiot in the desert, the idiot of the desert, the desert become an idiot: me.

You should never learn from your mistakes, W. and I agree. What has he learnt in all the years of collaborating with me? Nothing, or else he wouldn't still be collaborating with me. And what have I learnt in those same years, never really progressing, never really getting down to work, despite W.'s admonishments? Nothing again. That we've never learnt a thing is the condition of our friendship.