The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War

by Alexander Waugh

Book Overview

"The House of Wittgenstein "is the grand saga of a brilliant and tragic Viennese family whose members included a famous philosopher and the world's greatest one-handed classical pianist. The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385520603
• ISBN13: 9780385520607
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 333 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

EXTRAORDINARY & BIZARRE

I'm about half through the book but can hardly put it down. What a brilliant, talented, unstable & self indulgent family! I've lost count of suicides in the family & their associates. A story well worth telling & well told by Alexander Waugh.

eccentricity and brilliance at their best/worst

This is a fascinating look into the life of the lesser-known (but no less brilliant and crazed and obsessive) brother, Ludwig. No novel could as persuasively match the facts of one of the most afflicted (with genius and torment) families in the twentieth century.

reat summer read

Very interesting read about a rich, powerful and dysfunctional family in the city of my birth. The more I read, the more I learn. Gorgeous cover art.

Rollicking Jolly Read

Vaguely aware of who the Wittgenstein brothers Paul and Ludwig were, I feared the subject matter would be a highbrow detailed discussion of their works. Quite the contrary! Mr. Waugh disdains what could have been a dry pedantic review and approaches the story from another angle: a uniquely vibrant and talented family, graced with impossible wealth, who just don't get along very well. It's a rollickingly jolly read, full of humor, quirkiness, personality, and intelligence. "I never wanted it to end," as the old chestnut goes. The personal foibles of the famous are always a source of fascination and this book is bang on winner. You won't be sorry you bought it.

A Troubled but Interesting Family

Fiction would find it difficult to top this account of a 19th-20th century European family: raised in great wealth but generally unable to manage life. Being as I am in music the book was doubly interesting. Can you imagine Johannes Brahms coming to a musicale at your home? Highly recommended.