Narrative Non-fiction · Hardback

Waking Up with Wittgenstein

Norwegian title: Å våkne med Wittgenstein

In this inspired essay, Line Norman Hjorth explores the possibilities and limitations of language. The eponymous protagonist works as a church minister while struggling to write a text about «the topicality of philosophy and the connection between skepticism and the culture of insult, or was it deconstructivism and power criticism? Alas, I hardly knew it myself.»

By chance, she comes into contact with the younger nurse Mari. This meeting and the conversation that occurs between them inspire her in a way that she does not initially understand. But something is happening, a movement is underway.

The dialogues and reflections they make do not yield any clear conclusions, but discuss questions that give Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language a surprising topicality and echo current debates about language and interaction.

«Something in me still believed that it was the offended who had to practice recognition. At the same time, I realized that it could just as well be as she had suggested on the bench, that it was I who was the blind one and who projected my darkness onto the offended.»

One of this autumn’s most original reading experiences«... at once strangely intricate and self-evident. It is playful and serious. Exuberant, funny, strange, and irritating. ... By staging how the perspective we see from, and the language we choose to use, help color our experience of the world, Waking Up with Wittgenstein is not only one of this autumn's most original releases – but also one of the most relevant.»Vårt Land

A charming gateway to Wittgenstein's philosophy of language«...a thoroughly charming book (...) All in all, it is a kind of cheerful enlightenment project in a humanistic spirit [...] Precisely this simple message of community, almost at the level of UN Day celebrations, makes the book impressive: Being able to make me feel the truth in these kinds of thoroughly examined and oft-repeated ideas requires compelling narrative craftsmanship.»Morgenbladet

Revitalizes the literary dialogues of the Enlightenment for our own time«...through meticulous attention to the functions of language—Hjorth is able, in true Enlightenment fashion, like a modern-day Diderot, to show what such a process of realization might look like, rather than merely explaining it. I cannot help but admire this, and delight in how such an old concept can be given new life in what must be one of the quirkier books the autumn literary season has to offer.»Klassekampen

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