The Man Without Qualities

This is a book of ideas, underpinned with the lives and social conditions of a corrupt and decaying empire – Austria-Hungary in 1915. It’s a wonderful satire, quite comical in many places, although it does tend to get bogged down in all the ideas that Musil wants to feature.
Ulrich is the man who has studied everything, criticizes everything and believes in nothing. He would be a cynical anti-hero if he were not so charming and entertaining. The other characters are foils of various kinds – Walter is a creative genius, but cannot commit to anything so he ends up taking a boring bureaucratic job that frustrates his wife, Clarisse. She is a woman of deep feeling, who despises narrow thinking, but still loves the Ulrich in spite of show more his lack of genuine feeling. Ulrich’s cousin Diotima is another woman of inspiring spiritual feeling, who looks to Ulrich to understand how to connect to the modern world. Arnheim is the Prussian man of practical knowledge who gets rich by getting things done while those around him talk. Diotima and Arnheim are naturally drawn to each other in spite of their opposite beliefs. Meanwhile, Moosbrugger is a violent, delusional criminal who lives in his own reality that makes perfect sense to him, although it lands him in an asylum and probably in an execution.
These, and many more, characters are drawn to the wonderful project of memorializing the reign of the king and emperor of Austria-Hungary in a “Parallel Campaign” and a Year of Austria (a land known to Ulrich as Kakania, the place of the Konig und Kaiser). Ulrich of course wants to have nothing to do with the Parallel Campaign. However, after an embarrassing police incident he uses a connection to the campaign to get out of jail and then has to follow up by acting as an assistant to the royal count who is tasked with leading it. The campaign expands and considers all manner of important ideas, finally adopting the theme of “Action!” although what action is never determined. Ulrich’s job is to help bring everything together, but he can’t stop himself from undermining every approach by raising countervailing ideas (even contradictory but nevertheless valid thoughts).
I love the picture of General Stumm von Bordwehr (a cavalry officer who doesn’t like horses and so is given the army’s social responsibilities), who joins the Parallel Campaign because the military cannot be left out. As a man of action, he says, he does not relate to the big ideas, and orders his assistant to summarize all the world’s great ideas so that he will understand what is going on. He complains that the world of ideas is full of conflict, while Ulrich points out that the military world is forced to be systematic and consistent, while the civilian world is a war of feelings and experiences.
In this curious and multi-layered setting, Musil raises many of the most profound questions of modern philosophical life – the nature of good and evil; of belief and questioning; of reality, intuition and faith; of creative life and limited vision; of working or of drifting toward a new vision of the future; of sex, desire, companionship and love. Musil does not resolve any of them – they are irresolvable but they are at the centre of modern life. As Musil describes it, “… it may be said that our world, regardless of all its intellectual riches, is in a mental condition akin to idiocy; indeed, there is no avoiding this conclusion if one tries to grasp the totality of what is going on in the world.”
I think that this is why the book ends as it does, with people at a party arguing whether the “War” faction or the “Love” faction has things right. How can the book come to a conclusion when Musil’s 1100 pages have shown that no single line of thought can be conclusive? In the end, Ulrich’s sister Agathe leaves the party early, feeling drawn to a man she had met earlier whom she felt was simply a good man, while Ulrich continues talking.
This is a book that should not be rushed – the pleasure comes from the complexity of every idea as it is developed, the foolishness of its proponents and seriousness with which they must be taken. show less

Critics praise Robert Musil’s uncompleted magnum opus, “The Man without Qualities.” The book deserves praise for the content and style of Robert’s prose. The narrative moves at a leisurely pace, which will leave many unsuspecting readers waiting for the climax, some dramatic moments, wild action or something that keeps you waiting with suspense.
Nothing happens. The narrative drifts from one scene to the next, from one setting to another, from one conversation to the next, from thoughts to thoughts, and from one life event to another.
You search for one distinguishing characteristic of Ulrich, the main protagonist in the story, but after going through almost 1,400 pages, you realize nothing sets him apart from anyone else. You, show more the reader, will wake up to the shocked realization that this insight applies to every character in the book.
Now, when you gaze around you, or introspect, you may understand with dismay that this great insight applies to you and to people around you. Most of us disappear into the great mass we call humanity, and the events of our lives disappear into the great void we call history.
Everyone understands books differently from another and, for me, this book represents human life and we could be the characters in the book. Conversations, thoughts, normal conversations and disputes fill the pages of the book, something that you may expect if you write the book of your life. I consider the conversations between Ulrich and his sister, Agathe, to be the most fascinating, but they appear late in the narrative.
I confess it is difficult to read 1,400 pages of a meandering narrative and, towards the middle, I began huffing and puffing. By the end, fatigue coursed through me, making me wonder if I’d make it to the end alive!
If Robert Musil had introduced Agathe in the middle or, before the middle, the book may have taken a few interesting turns. I sensed a deep, almost illicit bond between the siblings, but it’s possible I read too much into the conversation.
If the writing fascinates you, then I suggest you reread the book after a few years. I doubt most modern readers will get past the first one hundred pages: we live in an impatient world. show less

My first shot at TMWQ was almost twenty years ago. Fifty pages into it I knew it was my kind of book. One hundred pages in and I was losing my way. I put it aside for later. Returning to it a couple of years later, the experience was identical. And the patern continued again and again with the passage of time; each times I abandoned it, but not definitively. I had the feeling it was a book that could please me a lot. Here’s a revealing line from it:

one thing … could safely be said about Ulrich: he loved mathematics because of the kind of people who could not endure it.

Some months ago, in compiling a list of books for different occasions, I selected TMWQ for the honour of one book you’ve been meaning to read. Then it made it to the show more status of new year resolution.

Sadly, the saga ends here. After 800 pages, I’ve abandoned again. I can’t see myself getting back to it; it’s too big an undertaking.

So how was it? Great, amusing, provocative, ironic and dull by turns. The English, presumably consistently with the original German, is beautiful but not exactly vernacular. I found myself reading passages from it to friends and family and recording them in my blog. But it was too long and frequently too dull or, perhaps, too learned for me and so it’s official: I’m moving on with my life. It has been compared with James Joyce’s Ulysses and it has received the same fate on my bookshelf. show less

Every page is full of ideas on many philosophical subjects and levels of abstraction. The core theme is the exploration of the conflict between thinking and feeling, between rational and irrational, between letting emotions guide us and having strict rational control over our lives. Also this book is very sexy, funny, heartwarming, exciting and relatable. I wish it didn't end so soon.

An AMAZING book. This is one of the finest novels, of its time, that I've ever come across. You go into depth into the minds of the characters, their philosophies, feelings, and situations. Musil brings Vienna to life, with all its tribulations, mysteries, and intrigues. Furthermore, he establishes the characters with such a strong base that they are vivid and lifelike. A truly magnificent novel that touches on so much and that I believe is still highly relevant today. This is not one to be missed.

4.5 stars- and FULLY deserved.

I finished 2021 annual read for Reading 1001. It took me 11 months though I did finish on December 1st. I found this book difficult to engage and I generally read it at the end of each month if I finished other books more to my liking. This is a lot of philosophy with a bit of a story to it. I would classify it maybe as satire of political systems. It is also unfinished which I really dislike reading unfinished novels, often finished by family members. Its also called a modernist novel. From wiki; the plot often veers into allegorical digressions on a wide range of existential themes concerning humanity and feelings. It has a particular concern with the values of truth and opinion and how society organizes ideas about life and society, show more though the book is well over a thousand pages long in its entirety, and so no one single theme dominates."
Here are my highlights;
1. We have gained in terms of reality and lost in terms of the dream
2. mathematics is the source of a wicked intellect that, while making man the lord of the earth, also makes him the slave of the machine.
3. he felt like some noxious little worm that was being attentively scrutinised by a large hen.
4. it could not ward off the realisation that in its main outlines life at such posts remains the life one has brought out from home with the rest of one’s luggage.
5. And as he advances through life, leaving behind him what he has lived through, a wall is formed by what is still to be lived and what has been lived, and in the end his path resembles that of a worm in the wood, which can twist any way it likes, even turning backwards, but always leaves an empty space behind it. And this dreadful feeling of a blind space, a space cut off behind all the fullness, this half that is always still lacking even although everything has become a whole, is what finally causes one to notice what one calls the soul.
6. In youth it is a distinct feeling of uncertainty, in everything one does, as to whether whatever it is is really the right thing. In old age it is amazement at how little one has done of all that one actually intended.
7. how science came to have its present-day aspect (which is in itself important, since after all it dominates us, not even an illiterate being safe from
8. primal Evil, as it might be called, is something they do not lose even in undergoing this trans formation. It is apparently indestructible and eternal, or at least as eternal as everything humanly sublime, since it consists in nothing less, nothing other, than the pleasure of tripping that sublimity up and watching it fall flat on its face.
9. awareness of the greater evil, a readiness to riot, a mistrust of everything one respects. There are people who complain about youth’s lack of ideals, but who, in the moment when they must act, automatically come to the same decision as anyone who, from a very healthy mistrust of ideas, reinforces their gentle power with a blackjack.

There you have it. Wiki sums it up well. This will never be a reread. Too much scrawl, failed to be succinct, failed to complete, some plot, some characters which both are a plus, poor kindle quality, Rating 2.6. show less

Got this book free online and it’s definitely worth getting. I’m interested in the character Leona. I like the writing style. I haven’t gotten that far into it to figure out the plot.