L'uomo senza qualità

The Man Without Qualities #1-4

by Robert Musil, Adolf Frisé (Editor), Bianca Cetti Marinoni (Contributor)

L'uomo senza qualità, il romanzo al quale Musil lavorò per gran parte della vita, è una delle massime costruzioni letterarie del Novecento e un'insuperabile rappresentazione delle grandi crisi del nostro secolo. Nella Vienna alle soglie del primo conflitto mondiale, il protagonista Ulrich, per una sorta di malattia dell'anima o del carattere, non sa né vuole dare corpo e forme alle proprie inclinazioni. Preda di un'intelligenza affascinata dall'esattezza scientifica e dall'infinita indeterminatezza del reale, Ulrich si presta con lucida ironia a quell'infinito gioco di simulazioni e dissoluzioni che Musil orchestra con vertiginosa intelligenza. La presente edizione dell'Uomo senza qualità, prototipo dell'opera di immense ambizioni destinata per sua stessa natura a restare idealmente inconclusa, riordina e seleziona sulla scorta dell'ultima edizione critica tedesca a cura di Adolf Frisé (1978) una vastissima mole di materiali inediti, chiarendo le linee di sviluppo della complesa architettura del progetto musiliano.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Philosophy, Literature, German Literature, Novels, Historical Fiction

1791 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Austrian writer.

He graduated military boarding school at Eisenstadt (1892-1894) and then Hranice, in that time also known as Mährisch Weißkirchen, (1894-1897). These school experiences are reflected in his first novel, The Confusions of Young Törless.

He served in the army during The First World War. When Austria became a part of the Third Reich in 1938, Musil left for exile in Switzerland, where he died of a stroke on April 15, 1942. Musil collapsed in the middle of his gymnastic exercises and is rumoured to have died with an expression of ironic amusement on his face. He was 61 years old.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone in the world has one’s own individual attitude to the surrounding reality…

Revolutionary views? I’m afraid I must admit that I’m by no means an out-and-out opponent of revolutionary views. Short of an actual revolution, of course.

Even the outright reactionaries pretend to dig the new until the new starts breaking the old order of things… And The Man Without Qualities is groundbreaking in everything and in all directions. It practically revolutionises an outlook at the entire existing order of things…

The hospital aide clothed in lily-white, who, with the help of acids, thins out a patient’s stool in a white china dish in order to obtain a purple smear, rubbing it until the right hue rewards her attention, is already living, whether she knows it or not, in a world more open to change than is the young lady who shudders at the sight of the same stuff in the street.

Relativity and uncertainty principle rule in the world so everything depends on the vantage point and attitude of observer… And even the simplest thing is always seen by different people differently…

For the moment one begins to take anything, no matter how foolish or tasteless, seriously and puts oneself on its level, it begins to reveal a rationale of its own, the intoxicating scent of its love for itself, its innate urge to play and to please.

It’s exactly the way of the modern pop culture – it always attempts to drag any observer down to its vulgar level and to make one admire even the worst kitsch. And kitsch flourishes.

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is widely regarded as a classic. The author spent twenty years writing it. There are three volumes - of which this review is of volume one, the only one that is widely read.

There are a variety of characters but little plot. The main character is 32-year-old mathematician who is actually unemployed. Like the author, Ulrich was previously a military officer and an engineer and then an unpaid professor. Wiki says his indifference to life has brought him to the state of being "a man without qualities"



Ulrich’s father thinks he should find some usefulness to his life, so the father uses his political influence to get his son a position on a national committee that is looking to celebrate shortly (in 1918) seventy years of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph's reign. “What is true patriotism, true progress, the true Austria?” There’s much talk of blending “Austrian culture with Prussian intellectual discipline.” It’s also an opportunity for the Vienna intellectual crowd to flag its superiority over Germany, “…for the European spirit to recognize Austria as its true home!” The meetings and the give and take on this large committee (20 or more people) give the author a chance to lampoon what he saw as the decay of moral values and the silliness of nationalism.

There are a few odd characters who provide interest in the story. One is a female distant cousin of Ulrich who opens her home to host the committee meetings and, in effect, creates a salon. There’s a Prussian, “a crazy rich Jew,” who is clearly the dominant intellectual mover on the committee. This character is also accompanied by a young African man whom he brings with him almost as a ‘curiosity.’ And then there is Moosbrugger, a murderer and rapist in the news who has been convicted and condemned for the murder of a prostitute. Ulrich constantly wonders if Moosbrugger can be held responsible for his actions. Ulrich brings this topic up for discussion at the most inopportune times, sometimes making people wonder about Ulrich’s sanity.

The real value of a book like this is its philosophical insight and intellectual nuggets on essentially every page. A few examples:

“It is a fundamental characteristic of civilization that a man most profoundly mistrusts those living outside his own milieu, so that not only does the Teuton regard the Jew as an incomprehensible and inferior being , but the football-player likewise so regards the man who pays the piano.”

[With science] “We have gained in terms of reality and lost in terms of the dream.”

“But in science it happens every few years that something up to then was held to be error suddenly revolutionizes all views or that an unobtrusive, despised idea becomes the ruler over a new realm of ideas; and such occurrences are not mere upheavals but lead up into the heights like Jacob’s ladder.”

“At times he felt just as though he had been born with a gift to which at present there was no function.”

“Philosophers are violent and aggressive persons who, having no army at their disposal, bring the world into subjection to themselves by locking it up into a system.”

“…a man who does great things usually does not know why. As Cromwell said: ‘A man never rises so high as when he does not know where he is going.’”

“…fame, such as is acquired by intellectual achievements, melts away with remarkable rapidity as soon as one associates with those to whom it attaches…”

“Accordingly civilization meant, for her, everything that her mind could not cope with. And hence too it had for a long time meant, first and foremost, her husband.”

“A great scientist, when he was once asked how he managed to hit upon so much that was new, replied: ‘By keeping on thinking about it.’ And indeed it may safely be said that unexpected inspirations are produced by no other means than the expectation of them.”

“He recollected Voltaire’s dictum that people use words only in order to conceal their thoughts and make use of thoughts only in order to justify their acts of injustice.”




This is not a light read, so it’s something you might read over a week or longer. As for a rating, It’s kind of a 4 but I’ll round up to 5 for its obvious intellectual ‘meat.’

Painting of a Vienna coffeehouse: The Café Griensteidl in Vienna, watercolor by Reinhold Voelkel, 1896. Photo by Getty. nu.aeon.co/images
Austrian stamp honoring the author from previews.123rf.com/images

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found that my glasses perfectly fit over Robert Musil's head on the cover of my paperback




WHAT IT IS LIKE

For those yet to try this famous novel you can get an idea of what it’s like by putting a metal bucket over your head and getting a friend or partner or your children to bang on the bucket for thirty minutes or so using a very sophisticated spoon.

It must be a spoon encrypted with all the subtleties of psychology and indented with the complex analyses of the five major sciences and the handle should be engraved with great mathematical formulae and the coats of arms of the major aristocratic families of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
To complete the demonstration the spoon banger should, during the banging, read out alternating verses of T S Eliot’s The Fire Sermon and George Formby’s hit “Why Don’t Women Like Me?”

After the suggested 30 minutes you will have got a reasonable idea, and you can then decide if you wish to proceed with reading the actual book.

Another way of putting it might be to imagine you are in a large room where hot air blowers are blowing thousands and thousands of very intellectual feathers over you, feathers which stick in your hair and clothes and tickle your nose and make you sneeze to the point where you can’t see the door anymore.

AN ATTEMPT TO PRESERVE MY SANITY

I decided early on that I would limit myself to VOLUME ONE, around 340 pages of this 1500 page unfinished work (1000 pages were published in Mr Musil’s lifetime and another 500 pages were later kindly supplied by his widow).

My dear friends, Volume One was enough for me for now. I may crack on with volume two in another ten years or so, maybe twenty. It is on my to-do list, but rather low down, between learning Sanskrit and getting a spiderweb neck tattoo.

THE ELUSIVE GOLDEN TAMARIN



So what we have here is a strange lumbering beast. There is not much story to be had, and readers have been known to gasp out loud when they turn a page to see actual dialogue on the next page. Sadly, it is as rare a sight as the golden tamarin in the forests of Brazil. So instead of plot and dialogue what we mostly have here is bucketfuls of character and deluges of musings. Pages and pages. This main guy Ulrich has a thoughtful turn of mind. He’s a rich 32 year old mathematician and we are in Vienna in 1913, just before the roof fell in on this elaborate aristocratic world he floats around in.

WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY THIS IS A NOVEL OF IDEAS

When I say that Ulrich (and the narrator) like to philosophise, I mean this kind of thing :

all moral events took place in a field of energy the constellation of which charged them with meaning, and they contained good and evil just as an atom contains the potentialities of chemical combination. They were, so to speak, what they became, and just as the one word ‘hard’ describes four quite different entities according to whether the hardness relates to love, brutality, eagerness or severity, so the significance of all moral happenings appeared to him the dependent function of others. In this manner an endless system of relationships arose in which there was no longer any such thing as independent meanings, such as in ordinary life, at a crude first approach, are ascribed to actions and qualities. In this system the seemingly solid became a porous pretext for many other meanings; what was happening became the symbol of something that was perhaps not happening but was felt through the medium of the first; and man as the quintessence of human possibilities, potential man, the unwritten poem of his own existence, materialised as a record, a reality, and a character, confronting man in general.

If you are still reading, this massive book is the novel you have been waiting for your whole life.
But it’s not all like that, no.

WHAT THE HELL – A DEAD CAT!

Ulrich gets involved with a very dull business called the Parallel Campaign, which is a committee of great ones to celebrate the 30 year reign of Emperor Franz Joseph. Just when you are thinking “how dull is this book going to get?” Musil suddenly throws a dead cat onto the family Christmas dinner table, in the form of a guy called Moosbrugger, who is a sex murderer. Blam – just like that – in the middle of all the tinkling chandeliers and the ptarmigan brain pate we are contemplating a very gruesome crime, and the novel begins to talk about curiously modern issues. For instance, this Moosbrugger is a prototype Gary Gilmore, insisting that he be executed when the lawyers are trying to get him pardoned. And then the whole issue of diminished responsibility is debated.

This Moosbrugger part is an excellent strategy, setting off the glittering jawbreaking hoity toity parties with this hideous dose of human misery. The two realities lie side by side on the reader’s plate.

MASSIVE PATIENCE REQUIRED

I think Musil’s greatest fans would have to admit that he is asking massive patience from readers and the stuff about the committee to celebrate Austria is deadly dull. BUT there are always always glints of gold in the bleak granite, Musil suddenly breaks out a great turn of phrase or wicked one-liner. You never know when he’s going to do it! He can be really funny. He isn’t often enough for me but he can do it when he feels like it.

A great many people today feel themselves antagonistic to a great many other people.

(Yes, Robert – they do ! They do !)

the tenderer feelings of male passion are something like the snarling of a jaguar over fresh meat – he doesn’t like to be disturbed.

Walter smiled like a fakir preparing not to bat an eyelash while someone runs a hatpin through his cheeks

Diotima barricaded herself in her tall body as in a tower marked with three stars in Baedecker

(that last one could almost be Raymond Chandler!)

And a summing up of our whole human dilemma :

Permit me to say that we’re in a very peculiar situation, unable to move either forward or backward, while the present moment is felt to be unbearable too.


STUMBLING INTO THE LIGHT

Musil’s prose is so dense at times it’s like he wanted to be the black hole of literature, sucking every subject into his novel and not letting anything out again. It’s some kind of monumental achievement, all right, but just as surely it’s not for most readers. It took me forever just to get through volume one and I humbly salute all those great readers who made it to the end.

Obviously this is a five star masterpiece but I was only intermittently in love with it, so three stars from this churlish reviewer.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is huge in every respect. It is a culmination and at the same time marks a decisive point in my reading life. For the books from the same league as this one, the bar is now set quite high.

Musil's Ashes

In this special case I think I have to say something about the author and the way the book was published: The novel remained fragmentary. Robert Musil died of a stroke while working on the last part in April 1942. At this time he lived with his wife in exile in Switzerland near Geneva, almost penniless and nearly forgotten. Only 18 people attended his cremation before his wife scattered the ashes of her husband in a forest. His books were banned in Germany since 1933 and also in his native country Austria after the Anschluss in 1938. Although the Musils just barely came to make ends meet and had to live on charity, he continued to write on his Magnus Opus. The first volume was published in 1930. The second volume (1933) appeared only half because Musil had withdrawn a part of the manuscript, but the publisher still wanted "something" to sell. The third volume appeared posthumously in 1943, initially in a rushed version compiled by Martha Musil, which was later (November 1952) revised and updated by Musil admirer and archivist Adolf Frisé. That's the one I read. All this was possible because Robert Musil had produced an extraordinary bundle of 12,000 sheets with 100,000 notes, chapter drafts, and cross-references. Approximately 75 of the total of 270 chapters at the end of the novel are thus marked as "draft", "early draft" or "study". These chapters still carry a copyright, the rest (about 70% of the novel) don't, and are therefore to buy in many different versions, at least as an e-book, for small money. I have started with a cheap Kindle version, but then quickly switched to a hardcover (5th edition, 1960), to be able to actually read everything of this fascinating work.

The Plot

What is the book about? It's set mainly in Vienna in the period from summer 1913 to the "July crisis" in 1914. The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. will celebrate his 70th jubilee in 1918. For this occasion, the so-called Parallel Action is started: Representatives of all social groups are expected to contribute ideas on how this festive event can be celebrated. Among this group is Ulrich, the titular man without qualities, who, after military service and studies in the fields of engineering, mathematics, philosophy and psychology, want to take a year long vacation from life, doing basically nothing. Ulrich makes a large impression on the group with his profound and philosophical thoughts. One sentence about him sums up his character (at least as far as the first part of the novel goes):

Alles, was Ulrich im Lauf der Zeit Essayismus und Möglichkeitssinn und phantastische, im Gegensatz zur pedantischen Genauigkeit genannt hatte, die Forderungen, daß man Geschichte erfinden müßte, daß man Ideen-, statt Weltgeschichte leben sollte, daß man sich dessen, was sich nie ganz verwirklichen läßt, zu bemächtigen und am Ende vielleicht so zu leben hätte, als wäre man kein Mensch, sondern bloß eine Gestalt in einem Buch, von der alles Unwesentliche fortgelassen ist, damit sich das übrige magisch zusammenschließe, – alle diese, in ihrer ungewöhnlichen Zuspitzung wirklichkeitsfeindlichen Fassungen, die seine Gedanken angenommen hatten, besaßen das Gemeinsame, daß sie auf die Wirklichkeit mit einer unverkennbaren schonungslosen Leidenschaft einwirken wollten.

Everything that Ulrich had called over time essayism and the sense of possibility, as opposed to the pedantic accuracy, the demands that you should have to invent history, that you should live ideas- rather than world-history, that you should seize which can never be quite realized, and perhaps to live at the end not like a human, but merely like a character from a book, omitted from all non-essential to ensure that the rest magically comes together, - all these, in their unusual worsening reality hostile versions that had adopted his thoughts, had this in common, that they wanted to act on reality with an unmistakable relentless passion.
[translated by me]

Ulrich's settings will change later on, after he's reunited with his long lost sister Agathe.

Style and Meta-Style

Musil's view on the early 20th century is always precise, his diction stringent, literary, and often satirical/ironic. The prose is dense in many places, which has repeatedly forced me to take brakes from reading to process the material. There is no coherent plot actually. The narrative is repeatedly interrupted and gives the impression of volatility, especially in the second part. The style is essayistic and is also called a "novel of ideas". Musil drives these things to extremes – deliberately. The search for ideas he lets the protagonists make themselves. Essayism is Ulrich's preferred form of expression, and he even says so himself. The volatility reflects the state of the society and is found as a theme in the plot. I find this approach pretty awesome, although I have to admit that readers can also be put off by it.

More themes, more people

There are so many themes in this book that it's impossible to name them all and hard to pick the right ones. Maybe it's enough if I just list the most serious terms here. Any of these topics is treated more or less in detail, whether by the characters, or in the above mentioned essay-like fashion:
Truth vs. Possibility
Lunacy vs. Normality
Ingenuity
Soul and Spirit
Science and Mysticism
Emotions, Instincts, Love
Logic and Mind
Language, Words, and the lack thereof
[Not often, but several times, etymological considerations about the respective (German) words are made. How to translate this, is beyond me.]

There is an illustrious cast of additional characters around Ulrich, representing all walks of life. Many of them I will remember for a long time: A lunatic murderer, a count, a salon lady, a Jewish banker, a Nietzscheian philosopher, an Aryan hooligan, and many more. One of my favorite characters is General Stumm von Bordwehr, who is anything but stumm (German for "mute"). I mention him, because he is, as far as I know, the only one who reappears in another book by another autor: Die Hochzeit der Einhörner (The wedding of the unicorns). The list of real people who appear in The Man Without Qualities, is also quite long: Archimedes, Strindberg, Murillo, Clausewitz, Dalai Lama, Velázquez, Swedenborg, Dostojewski, Drake, Franz von Assisi, Nietzsche, Flaubert, Homer, Balzac, van Helmont, Fichte, Goethe, Tolstoi, Stendal, Claudius, Maeterlinck, Michelangelo, Novalis, Bismarck, Rosegger, Platon, Raffael, Rilke, Emerson, Chamberlain, Lagerlöf, Freud, Mann, van Gogh, Raleigh, Zarathustra.

The Writer's workshop

Like I said, the last 30% of the novel contain merely chapters with drafts and studies (although what Musil calls a "draft", some authors would be lucky to have as a final version). I like this part of the novel for two reasons: The reader can sneak a peek at the writer's workshop. Some early drafts and studies unveil Musil's thought processes pretty clearly. This I find most fascinating. The other reason is that the actual story somehow withers. Although unintentional, this reflects the state of the pre-war society in a way. Everything kind of falls apart, but no one actually cares too much while Europe slithers into the seminal catastrophe.

In my edition there is also an addendum with additional fragments, early studies, so called "sheets of ideas", unpublished forewords, afterwords, and a short CV. Those are also very interesting to read and I even consider to buy Musil's complete work on CD-ROM, the Klagenfurter Ausgabe , which will hopefully be published this year, and will contain everything Musil has ever written and even includes facsimiles of his hand written notes.

The Magic Mountain

I don't remember how this book found me, and when I started it I had no idea what to expect. Reading this huge book was like climbing a mountain, a magic mountain as it turned out to be. There are steep sections and shallow ones, there are all kinds of things to marvel at along the way. If you don't rush it, take some brakes, breathe, you'll eventually get to the top, and the view from there is terrific. Comparing the book to a magic mountain is not accidental. I read Thomas Mann's novel not too long ago, and I liked it very much, but I have to say it pales in comparison to Musil's work, although both books have a lot in common too. Thomas Mann said about Musil in 1939:

»Es gibt keinen anderen lebenden deutschen Schriftsteller, dessen Nachruhm mir so gewiß ist.«

»There is no other living German writer whose posthumous fame is as certain to me.«
[translated by me]

Unfortunately this prophesy didn't work out for Musil. But it should have.
________________
Update 10/12/15
I just learned that work on the above mentioned Klagenfurter Ausgabe has been canceled! It's said to be replaced by an open-access-portal called Musil Online in autumn 2016.
We shall see...
________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 5 out of 5]

IL SENSO DELLA POSSIBILITÀ



La mia natura è simile a una macchina per svalutare continuamente la vita.

Musil, con questo suo mastodontico libro in particolare, considerato il suo capolavoro (considerato un capolavoro tout court da qualcuno, tra cui il presente digitante), ha un primo fantastico anticipatore, Gustave Flaubert da Rouen, con quell’altro capolavoro (uno dei suoi) pubblicato postumo cinquant’anni prima di questo, Bouvard et Pécuchet.


Egon Schiele

Ma questa meraviglia di Musil non può essere appiattita solo al suo carattere di canto della stupidità umana: c’è tanto altro, c’è ben altro.
Non foss’altro quella forma di erotismo che io percepivo leggendolo (e chissà cosa ingerivo propedeutico alla lettura), tra fratello e sorella gemelli, entrambi belli e intelligenti, quell’unione mistica, incestuosa ma casta, consumata solo sotto forma di “amplesso dell’anima”, che io come dicevo trovavo oltremodo erotica. Non fosse altro per quel loro essere diversi, contro, fuori dal mainstream, che negli anni in cui l’ho letto era concetto e fatto messo al bando come lo è anche ora: solo che ora non è più un’aspirazione, adesso “massa è bello”.



La follia pazzia di Moosbrugger, l’enorme falegname reo di più omicidi che Ulrich si ostina a salvare, proprio lui, uomo senza qualità. Nietzsche sovrasta attento.
La coppia di amici, Walter e Clarissa, il disfacimento del loro matrimonio, lo scivolare di lei in una sorta di malattia mentale. Freud supervisiona curioso.
L’Azione Parallela, il comitato incaricato di organizzare i festeggiamenti per il giubileo del re imperatore, il kaiser Francesco Giuseppe, di cui Ulrich diventa segretario (suo malgrado). Festeggiamenti che si sarebbero dovuti svolgere nel 1918, il comitato si forma nel 1913 per individuare un’idea memorabile che renda la celebrazione unica e indimenticabile: in mezzo scorre la Grande Guerra che tutto spazza via.
La Cacania, ma meglio Kakania, imperiale e regia, doppia k, kaiserlich e königlich.
Il superiore Regno Millenario dei fratelli siamesi e delle anime gemelle.


Egon Schiele

Non esistono stellette sufficienti per questo libro. Capolavoro. Grande tra i grandi. L'ho letto e ripreso in mano più volte, leggendo qui e là, come un libro da consultazione. Sentendomi Ulrich, sentendomi Agathe.
E mi chiedo se senza le dritte dell'Alberto da Voghera sarei riuscito a incontrare Musil così presto nel mio percorso di lettore (inconsapevole) e con così tanto entusiasmo da parte mia.


Egon Schiele

Mia personale convinzione è che se questo mondo fosse popolato da più uomini senza qualità come Ulrich, o donne senza qualità come Agathe, sarebbe un luogo ben migliore. Viva questa mancanza di qualità.

E accadeva sempre così, Diotima iniziava il discorso come se Dio, al settimo giorno, avesse riposto quella parola che è l’uomo nella conchiglia del mondo e lui allora le ricordava che l’essere umano è un mucchio di puntini sullo strato più superficiale di un piccolissimo globo.


Cartolina postale del 1915 che raffigura l'Imperatore Francesco Giuseppe I in preghiera per la vittoria dell'Austria nella Prima Guerra Mondiale.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Man Without Qualities is an unusual novel. More a work of philosophy than fiction, the Socratic interactions of its two dozen or so characters provide the framework for Musil's philosophical investigations. These conversations, deep and varied in scope, are the fat formed about the scant bones of the ineffectual Parallel Campaign. The philosophical musings are usually quite abstract and esoteric, though sometimes a little (understandably) absorbed in the specific concerns of the time. Nonetheless, this is a masterful work, and well worth reading.

However, The Man Without Qualities is not a polished or consistent book. Musil's approach to the novel is haphazard, full of diversions and distractions, and a disregard for conventional narrative structure. Even the Parallel Campaign, which is at the core of the novel, is abandoned for long intervals, and is rarely developed in any significant way. All this gives the impression that a completed Man Without Qualities would have to be several times longer than the already dense, 1100 pages of this unfinished version. However, resolutions of plot and thought being so rare within the novel, perhaps its incompleteness is perfectly aligned to its natural state. This is a complex and enigmatic novel, which defies simple analysis.

Musil was consumed by this book, which he worked on at some personal cost until his death. Being unfinished, there is some cohesive, unifying quality, which it lacks. Nonetheless Musil absolutely deserves full credit for what he has achieved; for his breadth of ambition and dedication to the ideal of producing the singular, great artistic work of which one is capable.

[Violet wells · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure how I made it to the end of this windbag of an unfinished novel. Especially given it bored me on practically every page. Musil reminds me of a fascist dictator with his megalomania, his swaddled love affair with the sound of his own voice. It's commonly referred to as a novel of ideas. Often code for a novel of talking heads bereft of plot or credible characters. I can't say there were many ideas, if any, which blasted forth a kindling of sunlight. I'm not even sure I could tell you what any of these ideas are. I thought the book's most popular quotes here might provide some illumination. The most liked on Goodreads is this - The secret of a good librarian is that he never reads anything more of the literature in his charge than the title and the table of contents. Anyone who lets himself go and starts reading a book is lost as a librarian...He's bound to lose perspective."
Is that an idea that has enriched our culture? It sounds clever - Musil's greatest talent is sounding clever, at implying he has all the answers. It's also a novel hailed as a pioneering work of post-modernism. Yet architecturally it couldn't be more commonplace. Of course there is brilliance. It wouldn't be a book that's still read if there wasn't. ("For it is only criminals who presume to damage other people nowadays without the aid of philosophy.") But I'd say the brilliance occupies about fifty of the novel's 1130 pages. There's also the sense that this novel would never have been finished even had Musil lived another twenty years. As is the case with all fascist dictators I can't imagine him ever shutting up.

I now know my answer if anyone asks me what I think the most overrated novel hailed as a masterpiece is.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nessuna altra opera letteraria finora letta -e dubito che nessuna altra mai- ha avuto in me un effetto così travolgente come “l’uomo senza qualità”. Come ho già detto ad alcuni amici, leggere Musil è stata una palestra per i miei neuroni acciaccati. E quando vai in palestra per la prima volta dopo anni di inattività, ne esci per giorni con le ossa rotte, torni a casa indolenzita, hai voglia a fare massaggi e spalmare creme lenitive! Così è stato l’approccio con Musil: difficile, difficilissimo. Mi sono trovata davanti ad una congerie di aforismi, monologhi, saggi dialogati, digressioni filosofiche, riflessioni dei personaggi, considerazioni dell’autore che formano saggi a sé stanti, di una lucidità e genialità dirompenti, con guizzi di intelligenza acutissima, di ironia pungente e momenti di poesia, di dolcezza e grazia incantevoli. Ero frastornata.
All’improvviso qualcosa è scattato e dinnanzi a me si è aperto un mondo vivissimo, fatto di una molteplicità di personaggi che, grazie al perfetto disordine, alla lucida precisione del pensiero, alla scrittura impeccabile di Musil sono diventati vivi, carnalmente presenti davanti ai miei occhi, nei loro pregi e difetti, mi sono vista costruito, come una ragnatela tessuta da un abilissimo tessitore, un mondo, quello della buona società austroungarica dell’inizio del secolo XX, colta sull’orlo della sua inesorabile fine. In questo mondo ho assistito alle innumerevoli vicende che sempre sembrano condurre da qualche parte e da alcuna parte alla fine portano, a partire dall’Azione Parallela, organizzazione creata per festeggiare il regno dell’imperatore Francesco Giuseppe i cui membri sono in continuo impegnati a trovare un’Idea (che non troveranno)da porre a base dell’Azione, passando attraverso amori, tradimenti, passioni, fino alle scene piene di grazia tra i due "fratelli siamesi" Ulrich e Agathe, ad altre scene stupende per forza espressiva come la visita del generale Stumm alla biblioteca nazionale e la visita di Clarisse al manicomio criminale.
Nel mondo decadente e inconsistente creato da Musil non vi è un senso o un ordine, perché –dice il generale Stumm- “… prova a immaginarti soltanto un ordine completo, universale, un ordine di tutta l’umanità, in una parola un ordine civile perfetto; ebbene, io sostengo che questa è la morte di freddo, la rigidità cadaverica, un paesaggio lunare, una epidemia geometrica”. Non vi è una legge morale, perché “la morale è fantasia”; però “la fantasia non è arbitrio…”. Vi è l’uomo immerso nelle proprie contraddizioni, e per viverci in mezzo deve avere coraggio da vendere, perché “solo così si raggiunge il massimo rendimento”.
Ed ora mi sento orfana di Ulrich, di Agathe, del generale Stumm, di Diotima, anche dell’odioso Arnheim. Però vi assicuro che i miei neuroni vanno a mille.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute classic. Sort of Dilbert but in pre-WWI Austria. This first volume is outstanding. The second one was nearly unreadable. The protagonist is tasked with organizing a massive party for the jubilee of the Austro-Hungarian emperor and the story becomes absurdist, ironic and hilarious as he confronts an apathetic administration and as everything indicates the impending doom of the regime. A must read!

[Darran Mclaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the greatest demonstration of human thought I have ever encountered. It demonstrates that the novel can be the best method for deciphering and analysing the human condition and the nature of existence that we have, over and above philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology or any other ology you care to mention. His range is breathtaking, encompassing the intellect, the erotic and the spiritual, he is funny and at times sublime, and his prose is perfection. If you are the kind of person who feels an urge to take on the big beasts of the novel such as Moby Dick, Ulysses, War and Peace or Don Quixote, for god's sake read this. Anyone who finishes this book will know that they have had one of the most rewarding and important experiences of their cultural life.

[Raisa Beicu · Rating 5 out of 5]

N-am mai postat de ceva vreme despre o carte. Asta pentru că mi-am petrecut ultimul timp cu un studiu tare dificil, care mi-a consumat cam toată energia. Poate cel mai dificil studiu din toată viața mea literară: Omul fără însușiri, de Robert Musil.

O carte de idei, fără conflicte sau biografii centrale, ci doar conflicte filosofice și psihologice. Acțiunea, plasată în Viena în perioada imediat anterioară izbucnirii Primului Război Mondial, îl are în prim plan pe Ulrich, un om care își examinează propria viață urmând sfatul lui Socrate conform căruia o viață neexaminată nu merită să fie trăită.

O altă temă este genialitatea pierdută. Ulrich devine ''omul fără însușiri'' pentru că perioada în care trăiește distruge criteriile genialității.

Romanul nu a fost niciodată terminat, autorul murind în timp ce scria la el. Asta îl face cu atât mai fascinant căci, sincer, doar moartea autorului ar fi putut finaliza o carte care altfel nu s-ar termina niciodată.

N-am citit niciodată ceva mai puternic, mai greu, mai tulburător. A trebuit să iau o pauză totală de la social medial, să dedic nopți și weekend-uri întregi acestui studiu. Mi-am luat notițe, am făcut schițe, am căutat referințe și multe sensuri de cuvinte în limba română. Sunt idei tare alambicat exprimate, intercalate cu umor și apăsări emoționale, istorice, politice.

O carte care îți regândește toate standardele literare și îți dă o satisfacție extrem de mare pentru puterea de a rămâne alături de ea.

[Kilburn Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is for the Picador edition. translated by Shophie Wilkins and Burton Pike.

I don't know how people found books to read before the internet and Goodreads. Goodreads has been recommending me this book for a very long time. Finally I've managed to read it.

Anyway about the book:

This is posibilly the most accessible, inspiring, and influential philosophy book that I've read. It's also a novel. So it has a plot and characters. The book covers many concepts, themes, and ideas. Some of the themes include morality, experience, truth and opinion.

There are many allusions to Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. Which I got because I've read many of their books. But unfortunately I haven't read enough Goethe to get the allusions to him. I've only actually read Faust Part 1.

The book is supposedly incomplete. But without giving anything away. I found the ending more than adequate. Unlike the disappointing ending to other incomplete novels. Like The Castle by Franz Kafka. And Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. But like many people have said before. It's a novel of ideas so the ending isn't really that important.

I'll definitely be reading this book many times again. As there is so much to absorb. That one read really isn't sufficient enough.

If The Man Without Qualities had a fight with In Search of Lost Time. The Man Without Qualities Would kick it's ass.

[James Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comic novel. A modern novel. A novel of ideas and more. This is without a doubt my favorite novel and one that both encapsulates and foreshadows the the development of the modern condition. Musil's scientific mind is able to present a humanistic view of the world of Ulrich and the rest of the characters that inhabit this novel. Continuously inventive and invigorating for the reader, the writing is so precise and the argument Musil makes about Ulrich and his situation so intricate that it is intellectually and aesthetically involving even before it becomes emotionally so.

On rereading Musil I have come to an appreciation of why he may have found it so difficult to complete the project, for his protagonist, Ulrich - the man without qualities - was so definitely a man who considered the unlimited number of possibilities before acting. As Musil said, "What is seemingly solid in this system becomes a porous pretext for many possible meanings; . . . and man as the quintessence of his possibilities, potential man,"(p. 270); the task before him must have seemed daunting. The result - he left thousands of pages of manuscript unfinished, unedited, unpublished at his death.

At the end of the first volume of The Man Without Qualities Ulrich has just learned of his father's death and is seen heading for the train station to return home to attend to his duties. This is an ending of sorts, at least for this seven hundred page prelude to the remainder of the novel. It is a prelude that includes introductions to a roster of characters who, unlike Ulrich, portray characteristics that place them definitely in 1913 Vienna where we find most of them participating in a centennial celebration referred to as the 'Parallel Campaign'. Beside this campaign we also see glimmerings of the rise of the 'new' Germany that would emerge after the Great War which remains only, an unmentioned, possibility.

Through the whole of the first volume Ulrich both meditates internally and interacts with the other characters regarding the nature of this world and its activities and, most importantly, the possibilities facing him - the 'what if' or subjunctive nature of life. This can be summarized briefly as a discussion of the difference between the precise measurement of the modern scientific view of man and the imprecision of the artistic or more spiritual view. The society presented in the novel is particular, yet universal and in that society Ulrich is the most universal individual. As the first volume of this rather uneventful story edges toward its close suddenly several events erupt to bring some of the action into focus. These lead to a moment where Musil brings Ulrich and the reader face to face to contemplate "the narrative mode of thought to which private life still clings,". This mode of thought may give one the "impression that their life has a 'course' (that) is somehow their refuge from chaos." (p. 709) Or we may believe that it is not an impression, but a reality made through our creation of our own life through our actions and influences ("Man is not a teaching animal but one that lives, acts, and influences." - Goethe).

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not one for superlatives, but this has to be the greatest novel I have ever read, hands down (even including the Brother's Karamazov - it is almost as if this book carried the former's concerns into the 20th century, evolving them in the process). The characters, situations and philosophical discussions have a level of complexity and observational depth that I have never before encountered, and at times I almost found it hard to grasp that such a work could have been written by a single human consciousness. The conflict between modern rationality and science and the less tangible subjective world of feeling, morality, art and spirituality is one that Musil truly understood and battled, and his attempt to forge a solution is admirable to say the least. Given that I just finished it, time is needed for its effect to fully sink in; I will return with more developed thoughts, but this was a truly life changing experience. The book has lost none of its relevance; at the beginning of the 21st century, we are all men without qualities..

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genialität gemischt mit Gähnen

So kann ich kurz und knackig für mich dieses epochale Werk in seiner Gesamtheit abschließend analysieren. In diesem mehr als 1000 Seiten umfassenden riesen Ziegel, mit dem man sogar Leute erschlagen könnte, wechseln sich wahrhaft grandiose Analysen und gut gezeichnete Figuren, die in der Literatur ihresgleichen suchen, mit ganz schlechten, handwerklich schrecklich gemachten Passagen ab, wobei im zweiten Drittel wirklich der Tiefpunkt erreicht wird. Ich frage mich schon, wie die Literaturkritik vor so einem Murks, der weite Strecken des Mittelteils und das Ende betrifft, die Augen verschließen kann und das Gesamtwerk als Meisterwerk betitelt. Man muss doch ein Buch in seiner Gesamtheit betrachten und kann sich nicht nur die genialen Szenen für die Beurteilung herauspicken. Details zu meinen Kritikpunkten werde ich noch genauer ausführen. Zu Beginn dachte ich noch, der Roman wäre gar nicht lektoriert worden und meinte, ein kluges, strenges, straffendes Lektorat, das auf mindestens 400 Seiten und bei einigen nutzlosen Figuren den Rotstift ansetzt, hätte dem Roman gutgetan, nun bin ich eines Besseren belehrt worden, der Roman wurde tatsächlich lektoriert und noch viel mehr Szenen wurden gestrichen, als die Geschichte auch für Musil eskalierte, da er zu keinem Ende kommen konnte.

Aber fangen wir mit den genialen Punkten an. Musil zeichnet ein großartiges Sittenbild der österreichischen Gesellschaft um 1913 – die er Kakanien nennt. Er führt zu diesem Zweck neben sehr vielen unterschiedlichen Figuren aus allen Schichten des Landes die Parallelaktion ein, quasi ein Projekt, in dem anlässlich des Geburtstages seiner Majestät Kaiser Franz Josef in einem Salon unterschiedlichste Schichten und Branchen zusammenkommen, um irgendeine Idee für Kaisers Geburtstag kreieren. Das hat etwas von Brainstorming und modernem Projektmanagement mit viel Bürokratie in einem lockeren Rahmen, wobei das Projekt daran krankt, dass es keine Vorgaben gibt, was überhaupt dabei herauskommen soll.

Diese geniale Konstruktion erlaubt dem Autor all seine Figuren aus den unterschiedlichen Schichten miteinander zu verweben, sie teilweise an einem Ort zusammenzubringen und dabei gleichzeitig eine 360 Grad Umschau auf die Gesellschaft und einen größeren Zusammenhang herzustellen, den er ansonsten mit Figuren an den Haaren herbeiziehen hätte müssen: Die große Parallelaktion bildet auch Unteraussschüsse und wird im Hinblick auf das noch nicht definierte Ziel der großen Aktion analysiert: Wissenschaft, Presse, Militär, Beamte, Bankiers, Bildungsbürgertum, Schwätzer, Politik, Nationalismus, Rechtssystem… es fehlt eigentlich nur der Kaiser selbst in diesem.

Da gibt es beispielsweise im unzähligen Personal, das den Roman bevölkert, den Protagonisten, den Mann ohne Eigenschaften Ulrich, der früher Wissenschaftler war, den deutschen Schwätzer und Industriellen Arnheim, ein Hansdampf und Blender in allen Gassen, Ulrichs Cousine Diotima, die den Salon führt, ständig mit den Intellektuellen liebäugelt, um ihr fades Leben als Beamtengattin aufzumotzen, die deutsch-jüdische Bankiersfamilie Fischl, die mit dem Antisemitismus ihrer eigenen Tochter kämpft, die sich in einen jungen deutschnationalen Burschen verliebt hat, der General Stumm, der durch seinen militärischen Hintergrund als einziger fähig ist, ein bisschen Ordnung in das Chaos des Projektes und der vielen Ideen zu bringen, ein paar Geliebte des Protagonisten Ulrich, Ulrichs Freund Walter mit seiner Frau Clarisse und noch viele weitere Figuren.

Die politische Analyse auf Basis der Gesellschaftsanalyse ist grandios. Mit jeder Faser spüren die Figuren dieser Zeit, dass etwas mit den Menschen und der Gesellschaft im Argen liegt bzw. den dräuenden Weltenbrand und das geht weit über Kulturpessimismus, den es zu allen Zeiten gab, hinaus. Weiters werden selbstverständlich mit viel Humor in treffenden Analysen die Probleme des Vielvölkerstaates aufs Tapet gebracht.

Am Ende des ersten Drittels, nicht nach Kapiteln sondern so nach etwa 350 Seiten, hat sich Musil bis auf ein paar Lichtblicke meiner Meinung nach total übernommen. Da die Figuren in ausreichender Tiefe schon eingeführt sind, wird eine erneute Analyse abseits einer menschlichen Weiterentwicklung zum nutzlosen Geschwätz. Die Gesellschaftsanalyse kommt eben nur in den Kapiteln mit Lichtblick voran, die nun spärlich werden. Musil hat sich verphilosophiert und scheitert auch an seinem eigenen Anspruch, denn er kann die Qualität, die zu Beginn permanent aufblitzt nicht auf Dauer halten. Zugegeben, man kann man als Autor nicht immer nur auf der Spitze des Niveaus operieren, aber die qualitativen Täler, durch die man als Leser waten muss, werden mit zunehmender Länge des Romans bedauerlicherweise breiter und häufiger.

Unnötige, schlecht gezeichnete Figuren und schlecht recherchierte Theorien

Was ich nie ganz verstehen will, sind einige Figuren, die zwar mitspielen, aber weder etwas für die Handlung tun, noch irgendwelche Beiträge zum philosophischen Unterbau leisten. Zum Beispiel der ausladende Erzählstrang des Frauenmörders Moosbrugger, dessen Verurteilung zum Tode nicht nur in den Salons mit gruselnder Bewunderung ob der ziellosen Gewalttätigkeit diskutiert wird – was ich ja verstehen kann - sondern der in einzelnen gähnend langweiligen Szenen auch noch mitspielen muss.
Mir kommt diese Figur als fiktives Zeitgeistphantom vor, das man aus den damaligen Medien kennt, so wie Charles Manson, der in den 70er Jahren als verehrtes Monster in die Hippie-Kultur einging. Das war so ein fernes fiktives Monster, das einen erschaudern ließ, über das man diskutierte und das man verehrte, aber sicher nicht in der Realität in der Nachbarschaft haben wollte.

Bei all dem Geschwafel der Protagonisten, konnte mir Musil auch nie die Motive von Clarisse, der Frau des Freundes Walter erklären. Sie verhält sich völlig ambivalent bekloppt und wird als etwas wahnhaft beschrieben. Aber selbst Personen mit massiven psychischen Störungen und wahnhaftem Verhalten haben in ihrem Wahn Motive, die zwar nicht dem Normalbild entsprechen, aber in sich konsistent sind. Clarisse verhält sich total uneinheitlich und setzt Handlungen ohne ersichtliche Motivlage. Sie ist als Figur nämlich extrem schlampig gezeichnet. Vor allem auch dem Umstand geschuldet, dass es 1913 schon sehr viele Ansätze der Psychologie und Psychiatrie gab und eben verrückte Frauen von Männern nicht mehr total unlogisch abkategorisiert wurden, sondern in Psychoanalyse und Psychiatrie durchaus schon konsistente Erklärungsmuster bestanden, die zwar im Gedankengebäude nicht unbedingt stimmten, aber dennoch in sich stimmig waren. Siehe Hysterie und sexuelle Obsession.

Insofern fand ich dann Musil in dieser Hinsicht doppelt schlampig, denn er hat die psychiatrischen Inhalte durch die Hansdampffigur und Erklärbär Arnheim erläutern lassen und durchaus schon aufs Tapet seines Romans gepackt. Musil war aber dann selbst offensichtlich entweder zu faul, zu schlampig oder zu ungebildet, die erwähnten und verwursteten damals bekannten wissenschaftlichen Hintergründe auch tatsächlich zu recherchieren, zu lesen, zu verstehen und somit auch korrekt in seinen Roman, die Handlung und die Figurenkonzeption einzubauen. Letztendlich fürchte ich, dass Musil leider mit dem Zitieren von psychiatrischen und psychoanalytischen Theorien, dasselbe verfolgt hat. Gleich seinem Protagonisten Arnheim wirft er aus bildungsbürgerlicher Eitelkeit ein paar Theorien in den Roman, um als klug und belesen zu gelten, ohne sie jemals gelesen, geschweige denn verstanden zu haben, in der Hoffnung seine Zeitgenossen kennen sich eh nicht aus und hinterfragen nicht. Quasi Bullshitbingo und Namedropping um 1913. Der Herr Doktor Schnitzler hätte ihm sein Manuskript zerrissen, währenddessen er ihn ausgelacht, ihn anschließend eingewiesen und zu Sigmund Freud in die Zwangstherapie gesteckt hätte. Damit er endlich weiß, wovon er schreibt.

In dem Zusammenhang kann auch gleich Clarisses Ehemann Walter und der Freund der Familie Meingast zusätzlich aus dem Roman gestrichen werden, denn auch sie tragen nahezu nichts zur Handlung und zu den Theorien bei. Außer dass Meingast anscheinend den deutschnationalen Philosophen Ludwig Klages verkörpert und zudem als Kinderschänder dargestellt wird.

Im Bereich unkorrekter Theorien soll auch noch das Wissenschaftskapitel erwähnt werden, das recht einseitig betrachtet ist und sogar schon falsch zur damaligen Zeit, denn Musil beurteilt die Wissenschaft nur als theoretische Disziplin mit Theorien und Modellen und nicht als angewandte und empirische Forschung inklusive Innovationsmanagement mit harter Arbeit und vielen Versuchen. Selbst um 1900 gab es in der Forschung nicht nur den Tesla-Prototyp eines Wissenschaftlers, sondern es gab schon seit längerer Zeit auch die Edison-Methode, die mit viel Arbeit, viel Manpower und vielen Versuchen im Rahmen eines kontinuierlichen Verbesserungsprozesses neue Forschungsergebnisse produzierte. Wenn ich über ein Gebiet, von dem ich keine Ahnung habe, philosophiere, muss ich entweder ordentlich recherchieren, oder die Finger davon lassen.

Auch meine so geliebte Figur des Angelo Soliman, der eigentlich ein historischer Anachronismus ist, denn die reale Person lebte um 1750, trägt so gut wie gar nichts zur Handlung bei und kann damit auch aus diesem ausufernden Konvolut gestrichen werden.

Auch wenn manche der von mir aufgezählten Figuren ein klitzekleines Schäufelchen zum Roman beitragen, ein modernerer nicht so mühsamer Schriftsteller wie Musli, der offensichtlich unter der Zwangsstörung Figurenmessie leidet, hätte sie abgemurkst, wenn sie dem Roman nicht mehr dienen. Ich denke nun mit Wehmut an Robert Menasse, der dieses Problem in seinem auch ausufernden Roman, die Hauptstadt, derart recht elegant gelöst hat, und beiße mir auf die Zunge, dass ich überhaupt Kritik daran geübt und ein Sternderl abgezogen habe. Letztendlich habe ich mich bei all diesem unnötigen Personal immer gefragt XXX? Tut der/die was zum Roman? Erkenntnis? Handlung? Katalysator? Anything? … und wollte nur noch als fiktive Lektorin wild und gnadenlos mit dem Rotstift Figuren metzeln und ein veritables Blutbad anrichten.

Im dritten Teil wird es am Anfang wieder besser. Ulrichs Schwester Agathe bereichert den Roman, die Reise zum letzten Wohnsitz des Vaters wirkt wie ein Urlaub von den mühsamen Wiener Protagonisten. Vor allem auf Ulrich wirkt sie sehr positiv und sie sieht zu Beginn auch tatsächlich wie die erste vernünftige Frau aus, in diesem Meer an hysterischen nutzlosen Weibern … aber dann … was hat sich der Autor dabei gedacht, hier die recht liebevolle, normale Bruder-Schwester Beziehung plötzlich und ohne Vorwarnung in ein inzestuöses Verhältnis kippen zu lassen, das auch nur gedacht, angedeutet und nie vollzogen wird. Innerhalb von einem Tag will Agathe ihrem Mann das geerbte Vermögen nicht zugestehen - total logisch, wenn sie sich scheiden lassen will - dann hat sie Todessehnsucht und will sich umbringen, was die erste Aktion total sinnlos macht und zum Schluss träumt sie in den nächsten zehn Minuten vom Inzest mit dem Bruder. Total bekloppt diese Konstruktion und psychologisch überhaupt nicht nachvollziehbar, wenn man ein bisschen Freud gelesen und auch verstanden hat. Aber es wird noch toller, die Handlung zerfleddert ins totale Nirwana. Agathe, die sich schon seit Jahren aufs Umbringen vorbereitet hat, hat, als sie endlich Ernst machen will, das Gift vergessen, auf den Friedhof mitzunehmen. Nun steht sie da, diese Dilettantin (wobei ja der Autor der Dilettant ist, dem so etwas einfällt), will sich umbringen und weiß nicht womit. Dann bringt sie ganz plötzlich ein Mann vom erbärmlichen Vorhaben ohne Erfolgsaussicht ab, indem er sie nur anspricht und die Guteste schöpft aus unerklärlichen Gründen spontan in der Sekunde wieder Lebensmut. Die angedeutete inzestuöse Beziehung zwischen Agathe und Ulrich verpufft auch gleich wieder ins Nichts, genauso überraschend, wie sie gekommen ist. Also das ist keine konsistente Figurenentwicklung – von Meisterwerk brauchen wir hier wirklich nicht zu sprechen. Mein Lesefreund Armin hat mir gesteckt, dass in den herausgestrichenen Skizzen aus Musils Gesamtwerk der Inzest genauer thematisiert wird, aber durch das Lektorat keinen Eingang in den Roman gefunden hat. Also entweder fehlt hier viel zu viel oder man hätte alles umschreiben und streichen müssen.

Dass am Ende bei der Parallelaktion nichts rauskommt und der Roman wirkt, als ob Musil einfach aufgegeben und die Schreibmaschine hat fallen lassen, ist nur symptomatisch für dieses unrunde, unausgegorene, ausufernde Werk, das offensichtlich wie eine alles verschlingende Hydra an Handlungssträngen und Figuren nicht mehr zu beherrschen war. Wie gesagt, ein strenges besseres Lektorat hätte die genialen Analysen herausgestrichen, die schlechten Teile gestrafft und somit die großartigen Passagen derart in den Vordergrund gerückt, sodass der Gesamteindruck besser gewesen wäre.

Fazit: 3 Sterne denn die gähnende Langeweile und das schlechte Handwerk wogen bedauerlicherweise gleichschwer wie die genialen Passagen.

[Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘A creature as complicated as man can be seen from many different angles,’ frets the protagonist of this book, ‘and whatever one chooses as the axis of the theoretical picture one gets only partial truths…’ The problem he was faced with, as he tried to get a grasp on humanity, is very much the problem I am faced with as I try to come up with a way to encapsulate The Man Without Qualities, which teems irreducibly with life.

It’s not that the plot is complicated – in fact, there isn’t much plot at all. Our eponymous hero Ulrich (we never learn his last name), who’s had a brief but creditable career first as a soldier and then as a mathematician, resolves to take a year out to decide how best to live his life. The year is 1913; the place, Vienna. Ulrich is roped into helping organise a campaign to celebrate the upcoming seventieth anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I, due in 1918.

Musil and his readers know, of course, that by 1918 Franz Joseph would in fact be dead and his empire would no longer exist; from which you can conclude that the predominant mood of this whole dense book is one of historical irony. And the irony permeates the whole novel, down to the level of the sentence: even the chapter titles make you feel you’re in for a good time, beginning with chapter one, ‘From which, remarkably enough, nothing develops’, and including such headings as ‘In a weak moment Ulrich acquires a new mistress’ and ‘To the legal mind, insanity is an all-or-nothing proposition’. The book is often just out-and-out funny, which at more than eleven hundred pages is just as well.

So that’s your plot – easily dealt with. Nor is the cast unmanageably large, given the size of this thing. Apart from Ulrich himself, you have his cousin Diotima, a salonnière at whose house most of the characters come together; Ulrich’s concupiscent mistress, Bonadea; Paul Arnheim, a Prussian financier and intellectual, in some sense Ulrich’s nemesis; childhood friends Walter and Clarisse, navigating a sexually fraught marriage; and, introduced a mere seven hundred pages in, Ulrich’s long-lost sister Agathe. A few other minor personages pop in and out. Special mention goes to the shadowy figure of Moosbrugger, a sex murderer awaiting punishment, with whom many of the other characters are morbidly obsessed; like Blaise Cendrars’s Moravagine, he offers a troubling counterpoint to civilised society – ‘like an obscure poem in which everything is slightly distorted and displaced’ – representing the suppressed urges of modernity.

With so few characters and so little plot, what actually happens in this book? I wish I could tell you. Mostly, people have intense conversations about morality, or sit on trolley cars thinking about empiricism and feeling vaguely horny. Some sections are undeniably tedious. It’s very difficult to understand why it’s so compelling, and perhaps this is why it’s so hard to talk about – which it is. (I heard a German professor on a podcast saying that he’s not aware of even one brilliant essay about this book.)

The difficulty perhaps comes down to the fact that Musil’s subject, ultimately, is precisely the un-sum-uppable quality of existence, its impossible plurality. This plurality was the main feature of Austria-Hungary itself, here renamed ‘Kakania’ after the German ka-ka sound heard in that ubiquitous Habsburg descriptor ‘k&k’, which stands for ‘imperial and royal’, but also has all the scatological harmonics that caca suggests. In Kakania there are a hundred different peoples, nations, languages and impulses, all of them just as valid as each other; this is the world of Einsteinian relativity, where point of view is everything; it is also the world of Freud, where internal motivation is dark and endless. And it’s a world of modernity which is as contemporary as ever:

It was an intelligent country, it housed cultivated people who, like cultivated people all over the globe, ran around in an unsettled state of mind amid a tremendous whirl of noise, speed, innovation, conflict, and whatever goes to make up the optical-acoustical landscape of our lives; like everybody else, they read and heard every day dozens of news items that made their hair stand on end, and were willing to work themselves up over them, even to intervene, but they never got around to it because a few minutes afterward the stimulus had already been displaced in their minds by more recent ones; like everyone else, they felt surrounded by murder, killings, passion, self-sacrifice, and greatness, all somehow going on within the Gordian knot that was forming around them, but they could never break through to these adventures because they were trapped in an office or somewhere, at work, and by evening, when they were free, their unresolved tensions exploded into forms of relaxation that failed to relax them.

Those working on the campaign for the emperor’s anniversary struggle to reconcile the opposing poles of society – colliding ‘capital and culture’, in the words of the aristocratic Count Leinsdorf; or ‘mathematics and mysticism’, as Ulrich has it; or, in Musil’s own preferred terminology, fighting an endless battle between Verstand ‘reason’ and Seele ‘soul’. Do art and spirituality represent ‘the simple language of the eternal that binds all mankind together’ (as Walter believes), or are they simply leading to ‘the dethronement of ideocracy, of the brain, the displacement of the mind to the periphery’ (as Ulrich worries)?

Science had begun to be outdated, and the unfocused type of person that dominates the present had begun to assert itself.

Unable to square the circle, everyone is paralysed into inaction. And this isn’t just an academic problem, because above the whole novel, sensed but not known by the characters, is the looming apocalypse of the war. ‘Really great crimes come about not because somebody commits them,’ Clarisse says portentously, ‘but because we let them happen.’

This makes The Man Without Qualities sound rather dry and theoretical, and I suppose many passages are. But somehow it can also often feel thrillingly immediate, emotional, and even passionate – not least because of the quality of the writing itself, which zooms from the impersonal to the personal with dizzying brilliance. (‘Within the frozen, petrified body of the city he felt his heart beating in its innermost depths.’) After several paragraphs of philosophising, Musil will suddenly distill his ideas down to a perfectly crystallised thought, making him very quotable in a way that, for example, Proust isn’t. And there are many long passages of sustained brilliance, like this paean to women’s dress:

Nowadays, when a woman’s appearance suggests that of a well-plucked fowl ready for the oven, it is hard to imagine her predecessor’s appearance in all its charm of endlessly titillated desire, which has meanwhile become ridiculous: the long skirt, to all appearances sewn to the floor by the dressmaker and yet miraculously in motion, enclosing other, secret gossamer skirts beneath it, pastel-shaded silk flower petals whose softly fluttering movements suddenly turned into even finer tissues of white, which were the first to touch the body itself with their soft foam. And if these clothes resembled waves in that they drew the eye seductively and yet repulsed it, they were also an ingenious contrivance of way stations and intermediate fortifications around expertly guarded marvels and, for all their unnaturalness, a cleverly curtained theater of the erotic, whose breathtaking darkness was lit only by the feeble light of the imagination.

I mean…come on now. This book is often seen as the German-language equivalent of Ulysses in English and À la recherche du temps perdu in French, and certainly there are ways in which that feels right (all three are in some sense all-encompassing, all play with viewpoints and interior monologue, all assert the primacy of the erotic, all celebrate the unstable yet transcendent power of creative language). But one major difference is that Musil is not ‘difficult’ in the way Joyce or Proust are, at the level of the sentence; there are no complexities of vocabulary to decipher, no entangled grammatical contingencies to unpack. His prose is deceptively clean and classically beautiful to read.

Musil spent twenty years constructing this behemoth, first in Austria and then (following the ‘nationalism and racism…convulsing half of Europe with hysterical ideas’ that he diagnosed in its pages) in exile in Switzerland. He never finished it, and there’s every chance that if he’d lived longer it would, like Proust’s novel, have kept on ballooning into new volumes. As it is, it ends mid-stream, with a chapter that would have been somewhere in the third quarter of the whole project.

Yet because the book is about precisely the incommensurability that its unfinished state demonstrates, it hardly seems to matter. In fact there’s probably no other project better suited to being left without an ending. One character in here talks about the ‘Mystery of the Whole’ (das Geheimnis des Ganzen), the strange way that great people and great things seem to be more than the sum of their parts, how they seem to contain a ‘magical something that makes even small defects useful’. The Man Without Qualities is the perfect illustration of the concept.

It’s huge, it’s frustrating, it’s not really like other novels, but it’s also very affecting in strange new ways, and so convincing of its own qualities that it makes all other books look too short and trivial. It doesn’t quite do what we expect it to, but it does something else instead, connects in some other way, often striking us – like Diotima’s idea of modern music – as ‘quite unsatisfying, and yet full of something excitingly different’.

[مروان البلوشي · Rating 5 out of 5]

تاريخ القراءة الأصلي : ٢٠١٢
رواية ألمانية ضخمة بكل معاني الضخامة، ضخمة الحجم والفلسفة، إنها رواية أفكار عظيمة كما أنها شهادة مؤثرة على رفض الإنسان لفقد إنسانيته عبر عيش ابسط واجمل معاني التعبير الحياتي اليومي

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

You cannot read this novel fast - you need to stop and think at almost each sentence. And this becomes quite hard work - I ended up reading with the pencil in my hand- but it is really rewarding if you are up to 1000 pages of ideas.

This novel, Proust and Ulysses are deservingly considered to be three pillars of the modernist literature of the 20th century. I have not read Ulysses yet but this novel is quite different from "In a search of a lost time". Proust investigates more the subconsciousness of people and their psychology. While Musel is more interested in the ideas and causal explanations of the reality.

In my view any book has got his optimal age when you would enjoy or benefit from it the most. For example I think to read Anna Karenina before you 30 is not to get the maximum out of the depth of the novel. You ought to have life experience to resonate with the story. Of course it is rather subjective. But in terms of this novel I regret I have not read it when I was 20 as a student at the University. Early 20s is the age when you start to rationalise the reality around yourself and try to explain it. Plus you are like sponge absorbing new knowledge and ideas. I am sure I would enjoy it even more than I enjoyed it now.

This novel is very modern and relevant today. The book can be practically split into the quotes. Here there are a few:

"There is no longer a whole man confronting a whole world only a human something moving about in a general culture medium."

"People use words only to hide their thoughts and use thoughts only to justify the wrongs they have done."

"Ideas have curious properties and one of them is that they turn into opposites when one tries to live up to them."

" In these last hundred years we've become much better acquainted with ourselves and nature and everything. But as a result the better we understand things in details the less we understand the whole. What we get is a great many more systems in order and much less order overall."

[Miloš Kostić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ovo je bukvalno i figurativno najveće delo koje sam pročitao. Ima preko hiljadu i po strana, ali se osećam kao da sam pročitao deset puta toliko. I još nije završeno, nažalost (ili na sreću - autor je izgleda planirao još mnogo stotina, možda hiljada stranica). Zahteva mnogo vremena i truda, mnogo traži ali još više daje. Žanr: filozofski roman; rečenice su dugačke, a zaplet zamršen. Stvarno ima mnogo filozofiranja (mnogi bi rekli i previše) ali više otvara pitanja nego što daje odgovore na njih. Glavni lik, čovek bez osobina, je ironičan i poprilično ambivalentan prema svemu. Mnogo više teksta je posvećeno razmišljanju i raspravama nego događajima, tako da su likovi razrađeni do najsitnijih detalja iako ih autor veoma često koristi da bi izneo svoje filozofske misli. U knjizi ne dominira nijedna tema a neke od njih su čula i emocijie, moral i krivica, ljudski duh i duh vremena, religija i nauka, ljubav, rat i mir i još mnoge druge.
Delo sam otkrio preko Goodreadsa, gde mi je preporučen jer sam čitao roman Čarobni breg Tomasa Mana kome je vrlo sličan po stilu i koga čak i nadmašuje. Retko remek-delo, i više od toga.

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hardly anyone still reads nowadays. People make use of the writer only in order to work off their own excess energy on him in a perverse manner, in the form of agreement or disagreement.

it was perhaps fitting that I finished this at the strike of the Eleventh hour as Janus faced the novel looks towards the Guns of August (and the implicit Armistice) as well as back to not only the exile of Musil but a yokel in Indiana who sighs as he sets the book down with a satisfied bewilderment. I often thought of the academic in Dissident Gardens who read Musil each night before bed. I am not sure in this brilliant sunshine whether this novel is a towering achievement of Essayism or simply a lurid bracketing of a sex murderer and a treatise on incest. I supposed it is both gauzed in mysticism and sociology. The author appeared often hapless and humble amidst urgent cries to bring this endeavor to an end.

This is novel is often a collection of essays on the industrial soul in a time of transition, Emerson and Nietzsche beckon amidst the death throes of the Hapsburg Empire and the droning of global Fordism. Its ambition is simply to encompass everything. The stage is dominated by Ulrich, a Musil stand in, who with aristocratic athleticism explores the arts and sciences to only find solace in playing house. It is the concept of the dwelling which illuminates so many set pieces whether that be salon of Diotima and the ill fated Parallel Campaign or the safe house for Moosebrugger and Rachel. These are the rites and this is how we live now.

I had noted earlier how I found it odd that Freud isn't mentioned until page 219 and how perfection is sought in ennui, I thought of Albert Cohen more than the later Tolstoy. These new myths both secure and anchor but perhaps in terms of binding. Throughout it is Vienna which defies realism and at times even narrative, explication and query predominate in a sidestep of tradition. The second volume is largely drafts of potential direction as this unfinished albatross became a divining rod for dark times in Mitteleuropa.

More to come .. .

[Chris Via]

Video reviews:

Playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

Part 1 - ‪https://youtu.be/KMQjElfsP_o‬
Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtE6Q...
Part 3 - https://youtu.be/9Lhtig9HHD4
Part 4a - https://youtu.be/VmAADO0HFJ8
Part 4b - https://youtu.be/THFftH8UkNo
Part 4c - https://youtu.be/PDoCmei_wUU

[Leo Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here’s a song for you.

The song is ‘Bros’ by Panda Bear, maybe you’ve heard of it. Anyway, have a wee listen to it now, a minute or so (or it'll make good background music while you read this review!) Okay, fine, it’s a breezy summery song, nothing too special. But did you hear the screaming, sobbing, racecar, owl hoots, or anything else that makes up the dense collection of samples? It’s blurry, messy, no two listens are alike. You pick up on different things each time. To me at least, listening to the song is like listening to life. I have no doubt it was written by a really clever guy.

It’s this same effect that The Man Without Qualities gave me, written by a clever guy, and like reading life. Like ‘Bros’, it doesn’t really begin or end, and everything between those non-existent boundaries is a dense mess. So, quite a difficult thing to review, essentially. So you have to pick out the parts that speak to you. Back to the song for a bit, maybe you start to hear the wails, screams, animals, but then you think… is that the hiss of a snake, a match being lit, a fuse? Are those children laughing or crying? Probably depending on who you are, you catch some parts, not others, and think of them one way, and not another. This brings me on to the meaning that I applied to TMWQ. It’s about the only thing I can offer by way of a review:

Pg. 188 (maybe my favourite sentence) “Arnheim had written that a man who inspects his suit is incapable of fearless conduct, because the mirror, originally created to give pleasure-as Arnheim explained it- had become an instrument of anxiety, like the clock, which is a substitute for the fact that our activities no longer follow a logical sequence”

What I love about this is how it makes you seriously reevaluate two everyday objects and consider the influence they have upon you. Try covering up anything that wants to tell you the time (there’s a bloody lot of them), stop looking in mirrors. See what happens.

*deep breath*

Pg 328 “We can begin at once with the peculiar predilection of scientific thinking for mechanical, statistical and physical explanations that have, as it were, the heart cut out of them. The scientific mind sees kindness only as a special form of egotism; brings emotions into line with glandular secretions; notes that eight or nine tenths of a human being consists of water; explains our celebrated moral freedom as an automatic mental by-product of free trade; reduces beauty to good digestion and the proper distribution of fatty tissue; graphs the annual statistical curves of births and suicides to show that our intimate personal decisions are programmed behaviour; sees a connection between ecstasy and mental disease; equates the anus and the mouth as the rectal and the oral openings at either end of the same tube- such ideas, which expose the trick, as it were, behind the magic of human illusions, can always count on a kind of prejudice in their favour as being impeccably scientific. Certainly they demonstrate love of truth. But surrounding this clear, shining love is a predilection for disillusionment, compulsiveness, ruthlessness, cold intimidation, and dry rebuke, a spiteful predilection, or at least an involuntary emanation of such kind.”

Here we have the dichotomy of science as a reasoning tool, demonstrating how little it actually helps us just to live. Man cannot live by science alone.

Pg. 409 “Science is possible only where situations repeat themselves, or where you have some control over them… A cube would not be a cube if it were not just as rectangular at nine o’clock as seven…. if you had never seen the moon before you’d think it was a flashlight. Incidentally, the reason God is such an embarrassment to science is that he was seen only once, at the Creation, before there were any trained observers around.”

This quote best shows where Musil tries to blend mysticism with science, which I think is a brilliant idea, and something that is considered quite a contemporary movement (David Foster Wallace stating that ‘You get to choose what to worship’, or Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists, all three of them are on to something).

And two instances of him referencing awesome things other people said:

Pg 386 “You know what Nietzsche says? Wanting to know for sure is like wanting to know where the ground is for your next step, mere cowardice. One has to start somewhere to act on one’s intentions, not just talk about it.”

I love this because “wanting to know where the ground is” is introduced as preposterous, not generally how it is thought of, but it is. We take for granted when we walk that there’s something there. But maybe we all live with more risk than we think. It’s correcting the attitude. Back to de Botton, this time How Proust Can Change Your Life, he argues that when you read classics, you are collecting pairs of glasses through which you see the world with different eyes. In this case, albeit not a direct Musil quote, I think you see a world with an accelerated risk all around, in every action, which makes you feel brave, since you’ve been being brave all along, just by living. I find that empowering.

Pg 1030 “The English writer Surway… distinguishes five [steps] in the process of successful reasoning: (a) close observation of an event, in which the observation immediately reveals problems of interpretation; (b) establishing such problems and defining them more narrowly; (c) hypothesis of a possible solution; (d) logically developing the consequences of this hypothesis; and (e) further observations, leading to an acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis and thereby to a successful outcome of the thinking process.”

Often all skipped.

I had no idea that this book was in part an analysis of ‘living scientifically’, but that part was clearly the most important to me. For obvious reasons, there’s not a lot of it in literature, at least that I’ve found. I think I’m supposed to be reading science fiction, but I find a lot of it- even the serious stuff- a bit cheesy and obvious, and as for how we’re supposed to live with science, unhelpful (yeah that is too much- and I still read science fiction, but mostly just for pleasure). I’m about to embark on a career in chemical engineering, and strongly believe it’s what I was meant to do. People were always born writers, singers, artists, never chemical engineers, although I went to a really interesting lecture where professors of the Medieval Studies department described us as modern day alchemists, so yes, chemical engineering is an innate calling, but up until recently we’ve just been untrained observers. I think that was my argument all along, or maybe Musil just helped me see it. But science and mysticism are knit together, you need not choose one or the other, and both may well be necessary for life satisfaction. This is what I got from The Man Without Qualities, but you can see the slant it has towards my opinion or attitude. The book is massive, perhaps you don’t agree with me or my interpretation, but you can at least see that intellectual exercise and depth that the book offers, and that’s still there for you to enjoy.

What will you see when you put on Musil’s glasses?

[Carlo Mascellani · Rating 4 out of 5]

In un contesto sociale di stereotipi e persone dotate di una "qualità", si spiega la vita di Ulrich, uomo che, più che senza qualità, oserei definire irresoluto o inconcludente. Dotato di grande cultura e fine propensione all'analisi psicologico-filosofica (il romanzo è densissimo di richiami a Nietzsche, Goethe, mistici, scrittori, artisti e via dicendo), Ulrich è straordinario nel riuscir ad analizzare la vita e società in cui si ritrova a vivere, salvo poi non fare seguire affatto l'azione al pensiero. Dopo lunghe disquisizioni in merito a una questione, il protagonista sembra paralizzarsi nel momento in cui tali riflessioni andrebbero tradotte in pratica e richiudersi nuovamente nel proprio guscio dorato. Quasi avesse in mano le chiavi per spalancare ogni porta ma, consumato da mille dilemmi, non si sentisse all'altezza di un simile compito. Probabile emblema della crisi esistenziale, valoriale, etica che si consumò a inizi Novecento (e ancor di più dopo la seconda Guerra mondiale) e che anche riferita al contesto contemporaneo lascia trasparire la sua straordinaria attualità.

[Nate H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

BEST DAMN FICTION I HAVE EVER READ. And it's even unfinished. I can't imagine the finished book. Long live Herr Musil in the heavens of literature.

[AJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I completely understand why there are so many negative reviews. Having said that, for me this is instantly placed on the shelf of shelves that all readers have reserved for the few very special reads.

I speak a lot in my reviews about the crucial moment most of us go through with a varying degree of intensity depending upon how much of an inner life one lives: namely, that disappointment produced from the drastic difference between what we expected life to be like, and what it actually is like. In other words, we were mentally prepared and taught to expect certain things out of this world, and were set up for tremendous failure. Some of this is the fault of the systems we look up to to guide us that do not sufficiently prepare us for the ugliness involved in being human, and some of it is our own fault for being unwilling or unable to face this ugliness head on and cope with it.

Cue Musil and his 1,130 page (my edition) unfinished study of a certain place and time in history: pre-WW1 Vienna. And when I say pre-WW1, I mean literally 1913. These poor fools in this book have absolutely no idea what is coming, and Musil expertly uses that detail to critique the era, while at the same time showing that the universality of humanity’s potential for ignorance, brutality, and egotism is by no means exclusive to any specific era.

Ulrich, our main character, the “man without qualities,” is stuck with all of these ideas like a fossilized mosquito. He is not sure not only which way to move, but how to move, if he can move, and even if he can if moving is worth it. He is an extremely intelligent, and therefore extremely uncertain human being. He cannot double down on any philosophy, -ism, or way of life because just as he is about to adopt a potential idea or action, the application of it stalls out in his uncertainty. The thinking being is plagued with the irony of understanding that the more knowledge they gain, the more they learn how truly little they will ever know.

So Ulrich is stuck. In a state of ennui resulting from what he feels to be the insignificance of his past achievements and the futility of any potential endeavors, he decides to take a break and detach himself from the world to become an indifferent observer. But he is of course not indifferent nor is he truly a “man without qualities.”

He is an angry and bitter man. Enraged at a humanity whose priorities are all fucked up. As someone who lives almost entirely in his own head, he laments the value of the idea being almost entirely lost in this new age of materialism. Not only that, but in this rapidly changing world, he believes that there is no system of morality that one can point to as objectively “THE” right way to live. He rightly points out that what was considered moral by society yesterday, can be considered the worst of crimes today, all that changes is the perspective of society. So how does one live in light of this constantly shifting zeitgeist?

He would say practically as a being detached entirely, but ideally we could find someone with whom we could love, not in the conventional sense of love as we know it, aka possessive love, but an unselfish love in which we live wholly for the other person, and the other person for ourself, so that there can be no system of morality since morality is itself the state of our being. But anytime Ulrich is on the verge of physically implementing any of the staggeringly beautiful ideas he has, his uncertainty pulls him back just as he is about to pull the trigger.

Because he is never sure if he truly believes in any of his ideas, which is another thing that plagues many who are caught up in the life of the mind. We know how little we know, so making a commitment to any definitive way of living is often very difficult. This is why I started off by saying I understand the negative reviews of this book. It is an incredibly long book during which almost nothing concrete takes place, and during which there are endless difficult philosophical conversations. Contradictory philosophical discussions at that.

This is not most people’s cup of tea. It is challenging, dry, and Musil does not seem interested in the slightest in keeping the reader entertained. He expects you to work in reading and engaging just as hard as he clearly worked in writing this. And hey, we have a short time here, and if it’s not for you, I understand moving on. But for those who care about the inner life and the fundamental ideas of morality and humanity around which this novel revolves, do yourself a favor and take the time to read this absolutely wonderful and profound work of genius.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

“…the difference between a normal and an insane one is precisely that the normal person has all the diseases of the mind, while the madman has only one!”

“How to describe it, then? Whether one is at rest or in motion, what matters is not what lies ahead, what one sees, hears, wants, takes, masters. It forms a horizon, a semicircle before one, but the ends of this semicircle are joined by a string, and the plane of this string goes right through the middle of the world. In front, the face and hands look out of it; sensations and striving run ahead of it, and no one doubts that whatever one does is always reasonable, or at least passionate. In other words, outer circumstances call for us to act in a way everyone can understand; and if, in the toils of passion, we do something incomprehensible, that too is, in its own way, understandable. Yet however understandable and self-contained everything seems, this is accompanied by an obscure feeling that it is only half the story. Something is not quite in balance, and a person presses forward, like a tightrope walker, in order not to sway and fall. And as he presses on through life and leaves lived life behind, the life ahead and the life already lived form a wall, and his path in the end resembles the path of a woodworm: no matter how it corkscrews forward or even backward, it always leaves an empty space behind it. And this horrible feeling of a blind, cutoff space behind the fullness of everything, this half that is always missing even when everything is a whole, this is what eventually makes one perceive what one calls the soul.”

[Jeroen Vandenbossche · Rating 5 out of 5]

“De Man zonder Eigenchappen” is de meest verbluffende roman die ik 2023 heb gelezen.

Toen ik hem in april uit had, had ik al een sterk vermoeden en nu kan ik het dus formeel bevestigen. Het boek is een monumentaal, meerlagig, meanderend meesterwerk (sorry!😉).

Het verscheen in 2 delen in 1930 en 1933 en telt meer dan 1300 bladzijden in de Nederlandse vertaling. (Musil’s weduwe publiceerde na diens dood ook een derde deel in 1943 maar dat werd bij mijn weten niet in het Nederlands vertaald). Het is echter niet enkel de lengte maar ook de literaire ambitie en de veelheid aan onderwerpen die erin worden behandeld die de roman monumentaal maken.

De centrale plot die de verschillende personages bij elkaar brengt laat zich nochtans eenvoudig samenvatten. In het Wenen van 1913 besluiten een aantal notabelen dat de zeventigste verjaardag van de troonsbestijging door Keizer Frans Jozef in 1918 de gepaste luister moet worden meegegeven door een grote viering. Dit is des te belangrijker voor de Oostenrijkse aristocratie daar ook in Duitsland in hetzelfde jaar een grote viering wordt gepland ter ere van keizer Wilhelm II. Vandaar de idee om er een groots jubileumjaar van te maken. Een organisatiecomité voor deze zogenaamde “parallelactie” wordt opgericht onder leiding van Zijne Doorluchtigheid graaf Leinsdorf met als bedoeling commissies uit alle groepen van de bevolking te raadplegen over de precieze vorm die het jubileumjaar moet aannemen. Ulrich, het hoofdpersonage uit de roman die door zijn vriend als “man zonder eigenschappen” wordt omschreven, raakt tegen zijn zin bij het organisatiecomité betrokken. De jonge professor wiskunde die net had besloten “een jaar vakantie te nemen van zijn leven” draagt zelf weinig bij tot de oeverloze vergaderingen en discussies maar kijkt schijnbaar geamuseerd toe hoe iedereen benadrukt dat er “iets” moet gebeuren om van het jubileumjaar “een luisterrijke manifestatie van Oostenrijks levenskracht” te maken maar niemand in staat lijkt te zijn dat “iets” ook maar enige concrete inhoud te geven.

Naar goede modernistische traditie laat Musil dit ogenschijnlijk flinterdunne plotlijntje uitgroeien tot een tegelijk groots en grotesk epos over de menselijke conditie ( Ulysses iemand? https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). “De Man zonder Eigenschappen” snijdt zoveel thema’s aan dat het moeilijk is om aan te geven waar het precies over gaat. De ontnuchterende en destabiliserende ervaring van de moderniteit, de geopolitieke ambities van het Oostenrijks-Hongaarse Keizerrijk aan de vooravond van de eerste wereldoorlog, het demonische in de kunst, de onvermoeibaarheid van de bureaucratie, schuld, boete en het bestaan van de menselijke vrijheid, de spanning tussen onze individuele identiteit en de sociale rollen die we worden geacht te vervullen; het zijn maar enkele van de thema’s die Musil schijnbaar achteloos doorheen de vertelling weeft zonder de interne samenhang van die laatste te ondermijnen (Nu ja, het boek is nooit echt “af” geraakt natuurlijk, maar de twee gepubliceerde delen vormen in elk geval een coherent en erg leesbaar geheel).

Ook de stijl van het boek is grandioos. Het staat bol van de meest fraaie volzinnen en welsprekende metaforen waarvan ik dacht dat alleen Proust en Thomas Mann er een patent op hadden. De toon is echter onmiskenbaar anders dan die van deze twee laatste auteurs; een stuk bijtender en dreigender en badend in naar sarcasme neigende ironie. Het hele boek lang rekent Musil genadeloos af met de kleinburgerlijke mentaliteit van de Oostenrijkse betere klassen die zichzelf verliezen in hoogdravende onbenulligheden aan de vooravond van het allesverwoestende conflict. Neem bijvoorbeeld deze beschrijving van Directeur-Generaal Tuzzi van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken:

"Zoals alle mannen wier fantasie niet aangetast wordt door het erotische, was Tuzzi in zijn vrijgezellentijd een rustige bordeelbezoeker geweest, en hij bracht de regelmatige ademhaling van deze gewoonte mee ten huwelijk. Diotima leerde de liefde zodoende kennen als iets heftigs, aanvalsgewijs, kortaangebondes, dat door een nog sterkere macht slechts een maal per week werd losgelaten."

Of deze wat puntigere omschrijving van Ulrich's jeugdvriend, de romantische kunstschilder Walter : "Hij had altijd een heel bijzonder vermogen bezeten om hevig te beleven. Hij kwam nooit toe aan wat hij wilde omdat hij zo veel voelde."

Musil’s sarcasme richt zich overigens niet uitsluitend tot een welbepaalde klasse uit het Oostenrijk van zijn tijd. De hele van dilettantisme doortrokken Duitse cultuur wordt op de korrel genomen aan de hand van een hele stoet van personages die elk op hun manier redeloos verloren blijken in de gefragmenteerde moderne samenleving waarin de kennisproductie in gedifferentieerde deeldomeinen een onmenselijk snelle vlucht heeft genomen. Zo is er de grootindustrieel Arnhem, de antisemitische pangermaanse nationalist Sepp, de Nietzscheaanse Clarisse, de geesteszieke moordenaar Moosbrugger en de ongeletterde maar listige generaal Stumm. Ze hebben elk een eigen overlevingsstrategie en kampen elk op hun eigen manier met de “onoverzichtelijke verscheidenheid van twijfels en mogelijkheden” die de contemporaine cultuur uitmaken. Geen van hen slaagt erin om het overzicht te bewaren. Ook Ulrich zelf is daar niet toe in staat maar hij lijkt het er zich als “man zonder eigenschappen” op het eerste zicht mee te hebben verzoend. Ook diens permanent ironische houding ten aanzien van de hem omringende werkelijkheid blijkt echter onhoudbaar. Wanneer Diotima hem vraagt wat hij zou doen indien hij een dag lang de wereld zou kunnen regeren geeft hij toe dat “het gevoel vaste grond onder je voeten te hebben en stevig in je vel te zitten, wat de meeste mensen zou natuurlijk lijkt, bij hem niet erg sterk ontwikkeld is” en dat er hem dan ook “waarschijnlijk niets anders zou overblijven dan de werkelijkheid af te schaffen.”

Je voelt allicht al aan dat “De Man zonder Eigenschappen”, ondanks de vaak rake humor, niet echt een vrolijk boek is geworden. Toch is het wat mij betreft een echte aanrader, als je er van houdt om af en toe van je sokken te worden geblazen tenminste.

Veel leesplezier alvast.

[Alessandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inizio l'anno così: terminando una lettura lunga, probante, audace e tremendamente complessa. Personaggi vari (maschili e femminili, questi ultimi particolarmente interessanti e contemporanei), interpreti di varie realtà e di prospettive: "L'uomo senza qualità" è un romanzo caleidoscopico che restituisce l'impasse dell'uomo e cittadino novecentesco alle soglie della prima guerra mondiale, un uomo (Ulrich sopra tutti) alla ricerca dell'Assoluto, del Totalizzante, della Perfezione, dei propri confini liquidi e della fusione di sé col mondo verso l'ambizioso obiettivo dell'Estasi; in continua tensione platonica (e poca praxis), alla ricerca-definizione e continua riformulazione del concetto di uomo, di amore, di giusto e sbagliato, di mondo e di colpa, di debolezza e di istinto, di isolamento e contatto, di tutto. C'è tutto in questo romanzo. Un romanzo-infinito rimasto incompiuto ma che nell'incompiutezza trova la sua reale chiusura. Immagino Musil e lo immagino scrivere ancora e ancora fino alla fine, e avrebbe continuato -ancora e ancora-, se la fine non fosse stata nel '42. Un romanzo infinito perché infiniti gli spunti di riflessione, nel tempo e nella Storia, soprattutto per un uomo pieno di qualità, qual è in realtà quello di Musil, ma vittima dell'intellettualismo dei tempi, dell'inettitudine pragmatica, di interrogativi e di risposte che deflagrano in nuovi interrogativi e nuove risposte e così all'infinito.

[Prickle]

To read this book from cover-to-cover is a sure sign of a deeply neurotic person and it is often times a unique exercise in punishment, so there is little doubt that we are in good company here as you must remember someone still had to write the entire thing (whether I'm referring to the novel or the review I leave to the reader's interpretation).

Everything about this book is enough to make one enormously dizzy. Is that how the world must have seemed in the 1910's, 20's, and 30's to those who were born in the last three decades of the 19th century, and is that perhaps why that generation in particular were able to write such good books? As Musil has done with this one, one often cannot present complete and total answers, but instead only offer partial solutions.

In proper Viennese fashion, I considered leaving the entire review with "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", if it had not become a cliche in itself.

I can say this book is like nothing I've read before, including history, philosophy, and Ulysses of course (it is also extraordinarily curious to consider how Musil and Joyce were born 2 years apart, and died only 1 year apart—what they would have thought of one another is anyone's guess and probably would have gone just as well as Joyce's "famous" meeting with Proust). Musil at least can be considered admirable in his completely uncompromising nature not to "dumb things down", or to reduce things to their most simple and easy-to-understand form in his own thought. He even prophetically suggests as much that such an effort is the prelude to war, not to mention the lack of rigor in philosophy and psychology that he detested. Perhaps his training as a scientist and engineer shines through here, but that philosophy, mind, emotion, politics, etc. themselves are more or less a muddle to an even slightly inquiring mind (especially one who was a former citizen to that infamous body known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire) is something he exposes thoroughly in his novel, as it is very much not a book that presents answers or banal "insightful" discussions into anything in particular really, but questions and digressions, all held together by the most precarious tightrope of a narrative string ever concocted. He even acknowledges himself that (almost) precisely nothing happens in the second book, the one he never managed to finish.

Oh, but one must read the entire thing despite all that, as its positive qualities (ironically) are numerous, as is the innately parasocial phenomena of enjoying the presence of someone more intelligent than you and pretending to follow along, for it would take a special person indeed to admit they understood every little discussion in the story. The best thing I can probably say about it is that despite its unfinished nature, I still feel very strongly that there is one very good place to end on, "The End of the Entry" published in the Posthumous Papers, even if it may not strictly be the end chronologically (in fact the entire chronology explodes and scatters apart in the unpublished sections like it never existed in the first place). There is also an extremely interesting section where Musil considers a potential epilogue after a possible "A Kind of Conclusion" (attempting to mirror "A Sort of Introduction" that starts the novel, both of which express the essence of the book in two succinct phrases) where the main character Ulrich writes a final section containing the character's own aphorisms during WW2 which he presumably would have lived to see like Musil, which is all immensely fascinating to say the least if only just as a thought experiment of an ending.

To say that the novel has no overarching or dominating themes, as I have seen written elsewhere in blurbs about the book, is demonstrably false, but because one can read hundreds of pages between a similar discussion and that hardly any philosophical knots are untied by the end, the reader is really left in a state of extreme unease as one has likely never encountered anything like it before. Other avant-garde and experimental writers, though they might be more radical otherwise, are never so focused on ideas as Musil, which is why an "unfinished" or vague impression is left on the reader who doubtless feels themselves left at sea without a single philosophical anchor or sighting of land they can fall back on, but one can infer Musil's intentions behind this easily enough. And the whole narrative, at the risk of making it sound like a Bildungsroman though the protagonist is in his thirties, is actually quite a moving story of self-discovery of a person deeply unsure of his position in society and history, and yes even a love at the end of the day, with every ecstatic declaration elevated to tragedy. And how the centerless, diffuse, essayistic, and Expressionist aspect of the novel tie thematically into it being set primarily in Vienna in the years 1913/14 is too obvious of a connection for me to mention here, and likewise Musil hardly ever dwells on that explicitly, but on threads of thought that would never be obvious to the average reader, which can make each one either fascinating or an exquisite form of torture to read unless somehow treated as an elaborate joke.

Indeed there are a few sections of the book that are actually amazingly unenjoyable and border on the superfluous. One can always make the excuse though that they are merely unpolished, because for the vast majority of the novel everything actually manages to hang together, with the worst parts in my opinion making up the drafts for the continuation of the novel at the start of the Posthumous Papers. Don't be fooled though, some of my favorite material was also in the later parts of that section, including amazingly enough a really riotous draft of an attempted prison break where I thought I slipped into Berlin Alexanderplatz territory for a moment.

The publishing of a translation of the previously untranslated and unpublished material was a major justification for this two-volume edition of the book, and it's a shame that such an undertaking will always be imperfect at best. Some parts I felt where the translators were going for some metaphorical or poetic interpretation of a phrase (and in hindsight, how could they not with the way Musil writes), resulted in something that, I cannot emphasize this enough, literally makes no sense. The translator at least emphasized in the afterword that "[Musil] often writes on a level of semi-abstraction that is meaningful and focused in German but that only produces indigestion in English, the most ruthlessly concrete of languages". That incidentally reminds me of an anecdote about Lord Byron in communication with the Greeks during their War of Independence in the 1820's, when they remarked to him how there were 10 or so different ways of saying no in Greek without actually committing to anything, while in English one had to be annoyingly precise.

And since we are quoting now, and because I have characteristically failed to say what the novel actually is, I'll end this review with a section Musil wrote himself about what the novel is not, a suitably oblique way of expressing things which he clearly preferred:

It is not the Great Austrian Novel people have been awaiting for ages, although...
It is not a depiction of the time, in which Herr... recognizes his spitting image.
It is just as little a depiction of society.
It does not contain the problems we're suffering from, but...
It is not the work of a writer, insofar as... has the task (to repeat, what...) but as far as... constructive variation.

It is not a satire, but a positive construal.
It is not a confession, but a satire.
It is not the book of a psychologist.
It is not the book of a thinker (since it places the ideational elements in an order that—)
It is not the book of a singer who...
It is not the book of a successful unsuccessful author.

It is not an easy and not a difficult book, for that depends entirely on the reader.

[Domenico Fina · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Riprendo il mio commento su Anobii, di due anni fa, lungo ma sentito)

"Chi può dire oggigiorno se il suo sdegno sia per davvero il suo sdegno."

Uno dei massimi libri della letteratura moderna. “Il difetto di questo libro è di essere un libro. Di avere una copertina, un dorso, un’impaginazione. Si dovrebbe stenderne un paio di pagine fra lastre di vetro e cambiarle ogni tanto. Allora si vedrebbe che cosa è..."
(Robert Musil nei diari a proposito de L’uomo senza qualità)
Ho riletto alcune parti dell'Uomo senza qualità (USQ) e letto per la prima volta le parti non concluse e pubblicate postume (dopo il ‘42), capitoli che egli non fece in tempo ad aggiungere. Come si capirà leggendolo egli non fece in tempo poiché le variazioni di vita che aveva sperimentato conducevano a un vicolo cieco. Per cui Musil si sente come Ulisse che supera le colonne d’Ercole e finisce in mare aperto e sconfinato. L’Ulisse di Dante e non quello di Joyce. Un rivolo d’acqua si gonfia sempre più e diventa mare. Ma in questo mare si possono rintracciare storie interne, relazioni tra i personaggi, ed è questo che conta davvero; relazioni rese in modo stupefacente che ancora oggi sono di una grandezza e modernità sconcertanti quanto a stile, presa sul lettore, scintillare delle idee. Confrontando i Diari di Musil, la sua biografia e l’USQ si scoprono molte cose interessanti.
Come è noto l’ultima parte de l’USQ riguarda Ulrich, il protagonista, che reincontra sua sorella Agathe che aveva visto ben poco in vita sua. Lei è reduce dal secondo matrimonio, il primo marito, che amava, è morto e con il secondo che non ama si sta lasciando. Lei ha 27 anni e Ulrich 33. Siamo nel 1913. Tutto il libro è ambientato in quell’anno. L’USQ potrebbe finire qui, con il padre di Ulrich e Agathe che muore e loro due che si rivedono, ma Musil prosegue e si incanala in una sorta di viaggio tra Ulrich e sua sorella, fatto di comprensione per le loro vicissitudini, fatto di spirito e di corpo che non approda a nulla, bello solo da leggere per alcuni passaggi molto poetici (come Il famoso Viaggio in paradiso). Per cui l’USQ è per molti aspetti concluso già all’inizio della terza parte. Circa 130 capitoli e 900 pagine.
Ecco, dopo questa introduzione un po’ doverosa e pedante entro nelle vene dell’opera.
Beh, di cosa tratta l’USQ? Non è vero che è impossibile spiegarlo, è invece abbastanza facile. L’USQ è un libro in cui i personaggi vogliono vivificarsi come facciamo tutti, ma per vivificarci, Musil lo chiama l’altro stato, non possiamo che andare e tornare da questo stato, come succede quando gustiamo un film che ci commuove, che ci scuote particolarmente, come facciamo con l’amore, con una vacanza, come facciamo con tutti i momenti vivificanti, non possiamo sostare ma andare e riandare. In questo andare e riandare Musil inserisce un po’ di tutto, la conversazione, che può essere eccitante quando si affrontano argomenti interessanti in uno spirito giusto. Quindi il ruolo del talento, dell’arte, della musica, della comunicazione, della stampa, della politica, delle emozioni, del sesso, delle nevrosi eccetera. Facebook, la rete in generale, sarebbe stato un ottimo argomento aggiuntivo per Musil. Ma tutto questo ipotizzare Musil lo rende vivo perché i suoi personaggi sono stati vivi, con lui. Egli inizia ad annotare alcune bozze di comportamenti di amici, conoscenti e gente nota della sua epoca fin da quando aveva 25 anni. A più riprese li modifica. A 40 anni comincia a scrivere l’USQ, lo porta avanti per nove anni senza comporlo. Poi nel 1929, in un anno e mezzo scrive e compone in bella copia le prime 850 pagine. 123 capitoli. Escono a novembre del 1930 quando ha appena compiuto 50 anni.

Così scrive Bianca Cetti Marinoni nell’introduzione: “(l’altro stato) attingibile da ciascuno in intense esperienze amorose così come nel pieno godimento dell’arte e della percezione profonda del sacro, non può essere uno stato durevole ma solo intermittente: esso consiste in una temporanea uscita dalla vita consueta, in cui si rientra portando con sé il proprio sentimento di quest’altra dimensione. E dunque proprio qui, nella vita consueta, si gioca per Musil la difficile partita conclusiva: vi si può rientrare chiudendo quell’esperienza nella parentesi di una vacanza, tornando a quella coesistenza separata e contraddittoria di interiorità e calcolo, passione e ideologia che già abbiamo visto scatenare l’ironia di Musil; oppure facendo sì che questa vita sia guidata dalle motivazioni dell’altra, e perseguire questa meta per approssimazioni successive, per tentativi casuali ma dotati di senso, ossia organicamente correlati.”

In altre parole, i personaggi di Musil (almeno alcuni) fanno in modo di conquistare la realtà senza perdere il sogno, portano con loro, sempre presenti, il desiderio, di quello che hanno bramato, ma un desiderio che sfugge a loro stessi. Alcuni sono professionisti e inseriti nel mondo degli affari, altri come Ulrich (ex matematico) hanno un ruolo diverso, mettono in luce gli aspetti più irrequieti degli altri. Taluni sconfinano nel deliquio, come Clarisse e Moosbrugger.
Ulrich perturba i salotti con cui viene a contatto. Qui entro nella vita di Robert Musil, per forza di cose. Prendiamo Walter e Carisse, personaggi fondamentali. Due amici sposati di Ulrich. In realtà Walter si chiamava Gustav Donath ed era amico d’infanzia di Robert Musil, Clarisse si chiamava Alice Charlemont. A 25 anni Musil annota pagine piuttosto forti su Alice, scrive che Alice veniva da una famiglia ebraica in cui “la sensualità era un fatto di famiglia”, Musil scriveva istoriando le sue informazioni, alla maniera impressionistica dell’epoca e con i 25 anni che aveva allora (stava scrivendo il Torless). Ma Alice Charlemont aveva effettivamente una sensualità spiccata, “fu arrotolata dalla sensualità come un foglio dal calore”. Musil scrive che anche sua sorella l’aveva e che in casa sua avevano deciso di legarle le dita per evitare che si masturbasse di notte. Anche la sorella di Alice finirà come personaggio ne l’USQ, si chiamerà Marion. Il padre di Alice ha sposato sua madre, scrive Musil, esclusivamente per le sue qualità sessuali, di giorno sono ai ferri corti e di notte si amano con sfrenatezza. Questo Alice lo percepisce. Alice lo sa. In questo senso Musil, sembra riportare i sentimenti del Torless quando immagina tutto ciò che gli amanti fanno di notte in una camera da letto, ma il mondo non lo sa, lo sa per interposta immaginazione, lo sa soltanto dalle facce miti a colazione. Alice viene sedotta in adolescenza da un amico di famiglia, filosofo, che ne l’USQ si chiama Meingast. Alice ha un neo grande quanto un medaglione sul pube, “dove la linea tra anca e ventre va a finire tra i peli”, verrà chiamato l’occhio del diavolo nel libro. Nei diari Musil annota anche il giorno in cui Alice Charlemont ebbe i primi segni di esaurimento nervoso (1910) e fu portata a Venezia in un istituto e all’interno di quell’istituto ella s’invaghì di un greco, omosessuale, al quale Alice spediva lettere e cercò di inseguire fino in Grecia.

Gustav, l’amico di Robert Musil, aveva sposato Alice nel 1907 e Musil ne sarà il testimone di nozze. Ne l’USQ, Clarisse sente un debole per Ulrich ma egli non fa altro che acutizzare le nevrosi che porteranno al ricovero Clarisse. Nell’ultimo capitolo della seconda parte, un capitolo che secondo me avrebbe potuto essere quello conclusivo dell’opera, il Cap 123, Clarisse non vuole un figlio da suo marito, col quale non va più d’accordo ma si presenta in casa di Ulrich e cerca di sedurlo; vuole un figlio da lui, poiché lo ritiene spiritualmente l’unico capace di comprenderla. Ma Ulrich si rifiuta. Scrive che quel suo modo di fare era in qualche modo quasi convenzionale agli occhi di Ulrich, come se alcune sue frasi fossero una riga di un libro capitata per sbaglio in un altro libro. Come se fosse essa stessa fatta di diversi testi interpolati. Infatti Clarisse nel libro non esordisce con frasi ammiccanti ma si presenta da Ulrich per fargli le condoglianze per la morte di suo padre, tuttavia nel farlo usa un’espressione che Ulrich ritiene irritante e fuori luogo: “Ti faccio le più sincere condoglianze, allora, ragazzo mio!”.
Musil non è buono neppure con se stesso quando scrive riferendosi a Ulrich: “Il mio carattere è una specie di macchina fatta per disprezzare continuamente la vita”. Oppure: “Agathe, come Ulrich, apparteneva alle gente di attività appassionata ma frammentaria”.
Musil non è buono con Clarisse e nei Diari con Alice, da scrittore grande, ma da uomo poco dignitoso o forse troppo pressato dai suoi pensieri e ansie, non si accorge che la donna che sta tratteggiando è colei, Alice, sua amica, che subirà crisi nervose fino ad essere rinchiusa. Suo marito e suo amico la lascerà. Musil stesso non è ben chiaro se ha una relazione con Alice nel 1909, quando era ancora sposata con il suo amico. Nei diari Musil non è sempre chiaro, sembra confondere un ipotetico lettore.
Egli stesso ebbe un’infanzia travagliata, i suoi genitori lo frustarono per la prima volta quando aveva 5 anni e per lui fu un trauma. La cosa più sconcertante è che quando era appena nato sua madre si fece un amante, un insegnante di meccanica alle scuole secondarie. I genitori di Musil avevano un rapporto strano, suo marito era innamorato di lei, ma lei sembrava indifferente, e l’uomo che divenne il suo amante era sempre con loro in ogni occasione, tantoché a Robert bambino quest'uomo intruso venne fatto conoscere come se fosse suo zio. Questo uomo accompagnerà i suoi genitori per decenni ma loro resteranno insieme e moriranno lo stesso anno. Nel 1928. Musil sin da adolescente, andrà in collegio e poi vedrà sempre meno i suoi genitori. Sposerà una donna (Martha) più grande che già aveva due figli dal precedente matrimonio. Due figli che seguiranno Musil e sua moglie. La moglie di Musil ne L’USQ è sua sorella, Agathe, con la quale Ulrich avrà un rapporto quasi incestuoso. Tutto ne L’USQ è trasposizione perturbante della sua vita. Musil aveva avuto una sorella morta quando egli ancora non era nato ed è anche a questa figura mai conosciuta che fa riferimento con il personaggio di Agathe.
Alice Charlemont, morì nel 1939 assassinata dai nazisti che avevano iniziato a fare piazza pulita degli elementi (persone si sarebbe detto in un'epoca più umana) che loro ritenevano handicappati, quali ebrei, zingari, internati in centri d’igiene mentale. Musil, credo (e spero) abbia sofferto per il destino di Alice, che è diventata Clarisse, il suo personaggio immortale, ma in vita ha patito l’inferno. Anche Musil negli ultimi anni di vita patì l’indigenza, era diventato povero per investimenti sbagliati e un gruppo di scrittori lo finanziava primariamente perché sapevano del suo genio e della sua intenzione di terminare l’USQ. Che non terminò. Non lo facevano perché fosse simpatico. Era un tipo piuttosto taciturno, altezzoso, scostante. Non accettava paragoni con nessuno scrittore del suo tempo, né con Joyce, né con Proust.
Morì il 15 aprile del 1942. Nella dimenticanza generale. Ingeborg Bachmann scrive che al suo funerale nei pressi di Ginevra, c’erano solo otto persone.

[Paul H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5 stars.) An infinite treadmill of gently comedic and witty insight, shifting from aphorism to aphorism like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower, 161 brief sections totaling 1,130 pages, almost arbitrary in their order; fully two-thirds of the sections could be shuffled to different locations and it would have zero effect on the novel as a whole. While MWQ is not, technically, plotless . . . it's pretty close, especially in Book 2.



[N.B. -- my references are as follows, from the most well-known English translation:

Book 1 = "A Sort of Introduction," pages 1-82
Book 2 = "Pseudoreality Prevails," pages 83-728
Book 3 = "Into the Millennium," pages 729-1130 (published as a separate novel, Agathe, by NYRB)
Book 4 = mostly-irrelevant desk-drawer cleaning exercises, random notes, published as pages 1131 to 1808]



The thematic structure of MWQ is very straightforward, almost too straightforward -- the dialectical relationship of self and society in the context of the very peculiar fin de siècle environment we have in Europe before WW1, the shuffling of deck chairs on the Titanic, where with MWQ there's this clearly ominous doom of 1914 about to occur, which will plunge all of the antics of the Parallel Campaign into disarray, and this foreshadowing begins as early as page 7: "Time was on the move. People not yet born in those days will find it hard to believe, but even then time was racing along like a cavalry camel, just like today. But nobody knew where time was headed."

The characters are, alas, one-dimensional caricatures; MWQ is clever and well-written, but it's a philosophical 'novel,' not a novel. Certainly the most salient character is Moosbrugger, a "sex murderer" -- I am, unfortunately, quoting Musil, who uses this phrase a thousand times -- who is presented as the inverted version of the protagonist, the titular MWQ (page 711: "Ulrich had apparently been living so long without some central purpose that he was actually envying a psychopath his obsessions and his faith in the part he was applying"). Moosbrugger and Ulrich are dialectical antipodes -- Moosbrugger as pure obsession and 'authenticity', Ulrich as purposeless inauthenticity (following the rules of pre-WW1 society too perfectly and therefore incarnating their shallowness) -- both are placed outside a society that could not comprehend or encompass the darker forces that later overcame the continent (page 77: "it occurred to Ulrich that if mankind could dream as a whole, that dream would be Moosbrugger"). Ulrich's flirtation with incest in Book 3 is an attempt to escape the strictures of culture, striving to somehow transcend quality-less-ness (as Moosbrugger did, in his own way).


* * *


I have a habit of trying to understand a novel by relating it to other authors and novels, for better or worse; with MWQ, a few vague connections came to mind . . . Book 2 = Don Quixote's mildly ironic episodes, a wittier version of Zweig's World of Yesterday, Kafka's Trial but funnier?; Book 3 = Bernhard's Extinction, but vaguely incestuous?, yet apart from Nietzsche, the clearest comparison by far was Proust, just so many similarities.

I have yet to dig into the biographies and critical material (re: Musil) but I would be amazed if he had not read Proust before starting MWQ; Temps perdu is similarly overly philosophical, contains world-class aphorisms, has a protagonist who is clearly the author, emphasizes a simple theme at the expense of all other themes (self/memory in Proust; self/society in Musil), gently mocks pre-WW1 high society, introduces a female 'twin' for the protagonist who is associated with an unhealthy sexual relationship (Albertine / Agathe), creates a sense of drowning in endless run-on sentences / dialogue / aphorisms, etc. etc.

But the main similarity is quite unintentional on Musil's part; Temps perdu and MWQ are both posthumously published, poorly edited, and roughly 25% too long. My ambivalence about both novels is precisely the same; most scholars (let alone casual readers) agree that a 'condensed Proust' would be a serious improvement -- and similarly, if we had an 800-page version of MWQ that was tightly edited, this would be unquestionably one of the very best novels of the twentieth century. But just as I can't ignore the addition of Albertine to Proust, I can't ignore the imperfections in the version of MWQ that we have.


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It took me three years to finish MWQ because I kept getting stuck in pages 350-700, writing things like "this is truly tedious" in the margins before taking yet another break; it literally took finishing every other book in my to-read list for literature (which I started back in 1998) for me to finally return to Musil to finish in March 2022. I hasten to emphasize that the novel is very good overall, but it was quite a slog there for the middle third, imo.

Book 2 likely would have been more appealing to me if I didn't have an academic philosophy background; Musil offers a witty and elegant take on Nietzsche (along with Hegel, at times), but let me just say that if you're a huge fan of the aphorisms in MWQ, I have good news for you -- you can go straight to the source! Nietzsche is literally the greatest prose stylist in the German language and like top 3 in terms of philosophers, and this is one of the only cases where Musil could come off badly in comparison: Book 2 kept making me wonder why I was even bothering, when I could read actual philosophy instead. I'm also apparently in the minority insofar as I loved Book 3, so who knows; de gustibus, etc.

Easily the most startling thing about MWQ is how current/contemporary it feels. Ulrich could be in Gen X or Gen Z -- the characters discuss gender as a performance, one of the female characters is in love with a celebrity serial killer (our friend Moosbrugger), etc. -- and the prose feels similarly fresh/modern, actually quite similar to Ulysses in that sense, where the quality is so high that somehow it transcends its time (versus, say, Mann's prose, which feels very 1900-ish).

In short, I recommend it, but just watch out for Book 2 lol.


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"He now felt the memory of the feeling of being young, that hovering on rays of light, as an aching loss." (p. 55)

"There is always something ghostly about living constantly in a well-ordered state. You cannot step into the street or drink a glass of water or get on a streetcar without touching the balanced levers of a gigantic apparatus of laws and interrelations, setting them in motion or letting them maintain you . . ." (p. 165)

"Our higher faculties are so ambiguous in nature that they can lead us equally well to cannibalism as to the Critique of Pure Reason." (p. 449)

"All the wishes and vanities that had normally filled their lives now lay far beneath them, like toy houses and farmyards deep in the valley, with all the clucking, barking, and other excitements swallowed up in the stillness, leaving only the sense of silent deep space." (p. 550)

"None of our ideals is quite right, none of them makes us happy; they all point to something that's not there -- we've said enough about that today. Our civilization is a temple of what would be called unsecured mania, but it is also its asylum, and we don't know if we are suffering from an excess or a deficiency." (p. 834)

"The darkness outside the window seemed to her like a summer night. Where the light of the gas lamps fell, the night was lacquered a bright yellow. The bushes nearby were a surging mass of black. Where they hung into the light they became green or whitish -- there was no right word for it -- scalloped into leaves and floating in the lamplight like laundry spread out in a gently running stream. A narrow iron ribbon on dwarflike posts -- a mere reminder and admonition to think of order -- ran for a while along the edge of the lawn where the bushes stood, and then vanished into the darkness." (p. 853)