The number of those still alive who knew Wittgenstein is fast diminishing, and any new memoir published now is of intrinsic interest. This one, by a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, is of particular value since the author not only attended Wittgenstein's Cambridge seminars as a philosophy student in the years 1934-1940 but also came to know him outside his teaching hours. It was the period just after The Blue Book, when Wittgenstein was giving birth to The Brown Book and preparing Philosophical Investigations. Among the Cambridge philosophers in close contact with him were G. E. Moore and John Wisdom, both of whom the author knew.. Dr Redpath describes the excitement he felt on first reading a passage in the Tractatus, his first sight of Wittgenstein, the absorbing experience of participating in the unusual seminars, and his impressions of the man and his opinions in various contexts - musical, literary, political, religious and philosophical. Discussion of his technical philosophical issues is purposely restricted. The hypersensitivity of Wittgenstein's personality - he could be a moral, aesthetic or intellectual bully, or a figure of almost angelic care and kindness - is tellingly exemplified in the brilliant vignettes sketched in this perceptive study.
