Mr. Duff, who has lived all his life in a Maryland suburb, was 36 when “The World As I Found It” was published in 1987. At over 500 pages, the novel discusses the complex ideas of Wittgenstein and even more complex lives. A Vienna-born philosopher whose work in logic made him one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century.
It took over seven years for Mr. Duff to research and write. The idea for the novel arose from some rambling facts about Wittgenstein, born in 1889, who learned, gave up his family fortune and abandoned the study of philosophy for 10 years. His three brothers committed suicide.
Mr. Duff never went to England, Austria or Cambridge, where Wittgenstein spent most of his life. However, he was living in that world at the time of writing at 4am every day before he started working for a consulting firm.
“You know, you don’t always have a choice on what to write,” he told the Washington Post in 1987. “So I said, ‘I don’t care what other people think.’ I will write whether it will be published or not. “
Mr. Duff sought to bring drama and passion to Cambridge philosophers, including Bertrand Russell and Jay. The dizzying life of Moore. Wittgenstein’s mentor and intellectual rival, Russell described his Austrian protege as “the best example of traditionally conceived genius”.
Mr. Duffy took the title from an expression Wittgenstein wrote in the only philosophical book of his life, and then paints a sophisticated portrait of a famous biography: Wittgenstein once worked as an aeronautical engineer, studied at Cambridge, fought against Russia. Early in World War I, he retired for a long time to rural Norway and Austria and worked as an architect in Vienna until returning to Cambridge in the late 1920s.
The book also explores Wittgenstein’s struggle to discover his Jewish roots and his involvement with some of the young people by forming deep bonds.
“In the collective memory of those who knew him,” wrote Mr. Duffy of Wittgenstein. Wit-Gen-SteinThis fragile air system of remembering and forgetting eventually absorbs the longevity of a remembered object.
Richard Eder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, wrote in a review for the Los Angeles Times: “It’s hard to know which is the greatest; Bruce Duff, the writer’s talent or nerves.
The critic John Leonard wrote on Newsday in a diabolical, melancholy and enthusiastic way: “The world I have discovered is an amazing spectacle, a kind of intellectual work in which every abstraction takes on its air.”
Even critics, who complained that some parts had been copied or that the dialogue was unrealistic, said that Mr. Duff’s efforts were well received.
“If this novel fails, it fails quite brilliantly,” wrote author Frederick Raphael in London’s Sunday Times.
Mr. Duffy received a Guggenheim Scholarship, a Whiting Award for Outstanding Writers, and a two-book contract for his subsequent novels. He appeared on talk shows, lectured on Wittgenstein and the BBC chose this novel for a project that had never been done before.
He has traveled around the world – to Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan – to order high-profile magazines and flew on airbnb in the United States showing chronicles of some new oboes.
Critics praised the broad scale and vision of Mr. Duff’s debut novel, noting that it went against the standard practice of publishing a centuries-old autobiographical story. In 1997 he published his second novel, “The Egg Comes to an End”: a freely autobiographical adult story about a boy from a Maryland suburb whose relationship with his father fades after his mother’s death.
The book tells of a journey in which the main character and his two friends steal a car and travel south, reminding some critics of a combination of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” and Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”.
In Mr. Duff’s words, the book “fell and burned”.
He started and left another novel, bought the publishing contract, and started working as a corporate speech writer. She eventually found another historical theme for the novel, 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, and published a novel in 2011 based on his short and stormy life, “My God Was the Problem”.
He harnessed the demonic forces in Rimbaud’s life – his courageous mother, his devastating relationship with the poet Paul Verlaine – to force Rimbaud to leave poetry at the age of 21, to move to Africa: “Art is bullshit. and lies, and above all, it is useless. “
Bruce Michael Duff was born on June 9, 1951 in Washington DC and grew up in Garrett Park, Washington. His father had an air conditioner business, his mother was a housewife, and Bruce’s only child died when he was 11 years old.
Mr. Duff viewed his mother’s death, a complication of appendicitis, as a formative event from his childhood that questioned the purpose and meaning of life. She decided to become a writer and studied English at the University of Maryland, graduating in 1973.
He worked in defense while writing novels and poetry, which he asked university professor Marjorie Perloff to read.
“He said I had to be more aware to really learn my craft,” said Mr. Duffy. Washington Magazine 2011 “And I look at the writers I’m really excited about and say, ‘How did they do it? Why does it work? ‘ This made me look at the alchemy of words, as Rimbaud said.
He started a novel, which he discarded before discovering Wittgenstein, and wrote The World as I Found It.
Mr. Duff told The Post in 1987 about his “Incredible Sense of Craftsmanship” while writing the book. “I felt like I was in some kind of control tower, someone writes. I would be emotional towards the characters at the same time and also feel a great emotional distance from them, a kind of elevation above all else. And it was a great feeling. “
In 1999, writer Joyce Carol Oates described “The World as I Found It” as “one of the most ambitious first novels ever published”. It was published in a new edition in 2010 by NYRB Classics, a division of the New York Review of Books.
Mr. Duff’s marriage to Marianne Glass ended in divorce. Among the survivors is his wife of 16, Susan Segal; Two daughters from his first marriage, Lily Duff and Kate Duff; stepmother, Sam Kupfer; And grandson.
Shortly before his death, Mr. Duffy completed the draft of a new novel about the birth of the atomic bomb.
“Some say he needs to write more,” novelist and reporter Bob Shakochi told Washington in 2011. “Bruce has written a wonderful book, one of the best of my generation. There is a ghost brigade in this country of really good writers who know little or nothing. Bruce is the captain of this brigade.
Source: Washington Post
John Cameron is a journalist at The Nation View specializing in world news and current events, particularly in international politics and diplomacy. With expertise in international relations, he covers a range of topics including conflicts, politics and economic trends.
