World Famous Comics: The Man Without Qualities Vol. 2: Into the Millennium, from the Posthumous Papers
The Man Without Qualities Vol. 2: Into the Millennium, from the Posthumous Papers
By: Robert Musil Publisher: Vintage Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 1072 Publication Date: December 09, 1996 Release Date: December 09, 1996 Studio: Vintage
Product Description: "Musil belongs in the company of Joyce, Proust, Kafka, and Svevo. . . . (This translation) is a literay and intellectual event of singular importance."--New Republic.
The story peters out as the writer dies, and as Germany dies. ^ Musil began this book while the Austrian empire was collapsing. The story is widely understood as a study of individuals whose behavior reflects what is happening on the larger scale. The action takes place as Austria is headed over a cliff.
Musil continued the project until he died, shortly before Germany came to an end. (He died in 1942) His life, his book, his culture all end at the same time. This is powerful. He was writing about extraordinary events at an extraordinary period of time--a singularity, a zero in the denominator. He talks about infinity quite a bit. I understand this as a way to express the implausibility of the position that his culture had come to try to hold, a stance like one of Yeat's theoretical phases--impossible, but conceivable.
I found the sections leading up to Ulrich's sex with Diotima, and that sex scene very powerful. The book really moved up to that point. Then the impetus shifts to his sister. Somewhere, I sense the motivation for the last unfinished part of the book was a more taboo incestual relationship with his sister. It would have been hard to pull off, and so it's not surprising that he got stuck. But getting stuck is certainly part of the pathos in this case--Like Schoenberg getting stuck with Moses und Aron.
Disappointingly Incomplete ^ While "Into The Millenium" was largely complete, and the "Posthumous Papers" obviously not, even the completed section lacked the structure of Vol. 1 - the external characters and environment gave way almost completely to Ulric's evolving thoughts on emotion and love, intermingled, at times, with those of Agathe on similar subjects. While it gave an interesting insight into Musil's thought and creative processes, it was not overly satisfying, and a little disappointing. However, Vol. 1 was so satisfying that Vol. 2 can be forgiven.
A Great Novel of ideas ^ The Man Without Qualities is the epitome of the "novel of ideas." Though it is not without plot, and has an engaging cast of characters, the substance of this 1100+ page unfinished novel lies in the extended discussions on philosophy, sociology, and psychology.
The setting is Vienna from 1913 to mid-1914. The principal character is Ulrich (no surname given) who is the man without "qualities," a term that doesn't translate fully, but essentially means a man devoid of moral committment or a sense of calling. He is a man much like Pierre Bezuhov in War and Peace, highly educated and full of ideas but without a sense of purpose.
In Volume 1, Ulrich is called upon to participate in the "Parallel Campaign," an interdisciplinary committee effort to come up with the proper idea with which to celebrate the forthcoming 70th anniversary of the accession of the Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz Josef, in 1918. (Of course, by 1918 Franz Josef will have died and his empire along with him, a fact Musil assumes his readers will know.) It is in the workings of the Parallel Campaign that Musil, in Volume 1 at least, sets forth many of the issues which will dominate the novel. These include nothing less than the reason for a nation's existence, the duty of a man to his country, an individual's responsibility for his actions, the importance of ideas versus action, etc.
In the second volume Ulrich meets his sister Agathe, from whom he has been separated since early childhood. The two develop an immediate rapport so intense as to create a sexual tension between the two. They realize, quite simply, that they have fallen in love with one another, and this leads to lengthy discussions on the nature of emotions, most especially of love.
In the real world does one respond to "I love you" with a 20-page essay on the definition and cultural context of romantic love? Of course not. Musil's novel is not the least realistic in that sense, even though the characters and events are at least believable. His purpose it not to tell a story, but to present a series of dialogs between a fascinating cast of archetypical characters. And while Ulrich is the hub of the action and the principal idea-holder, the author also gives us the interaction of the different types to let us see each point of view from a series of different perspectives: the socialite and the general, the national socialist and the financier, the servant and the aristocrat, etc.
As noted, The Man Without Qualities was unfinished at Musil's death. The Vintage International edition, translated by Burton Pike, includes over 600 pages of additional "posthumous papers." These include completed chapters that Musil, at the last moment, withdrew from publication, as well as various drafts, sketches and notes. I strongly recommend reading these in full. They contain some rather shocking events that Musil would probably have toned down for publication, as well as notes that substantially illuminate some of the ideas that one may not have fully grasped on first reading.
The Man Without Qualities is often mentioned alongside Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I don't think there is any doubt that it is at least as great as those two works. Fortunately it is probably the easist to read of the three, being much less pretentious than Ulysses and less than half as long as In Search of Lost Time. The prose (in translation, at least) is quite easy to read, but that doesn't mean that the author's ideas are always easy to grasp.
I can't claim to have understood even the majority Musil's thoughts, nor have I done more than scratch the surface of the scope of this magnificent novel. It demands re-reading. In the meantime, in Musil's own words: "...anyone who wants to know what this book is would do best to read it himself / not rely on my judgment or that of others, but read it himself."
Deeply Complex ^ Musil's continuation of 'The Man Without Qualities' takes us even deeper into the turn of the century continental psyche. Ulrich and Agathe deliberate both the will and legacy of their late father as well as the nature of morality, human sexuality, and perhaps the unconscious. There are extraordinary additions to Musil's elaborate cathedral of ideas and characters, such as the brief visit to the asylum to meet Moosbrugger, the intriguing murderer and psychopath that haunts the imaginations of the elite within the Parallel Campaign. Although the Man Without Qualities is an incomplete work, it remains as rich as any major novel of the 20th century; if only Musil had been able to endow it with the structural strength and form to bring it to a close as his primary literary rivals (Joyce, Proust) had done so brilliantly.
Just reemerged novel on the knife edge of the 19th and 20th centuries ^ This extraordinary novel, told in non-linear time and with many eddies and currents, captures the last of the "golden years" of the 19th century--technically the early 20th--when people in Vienna still clung to their traditions, their emperor, their rigid social order. A microscopic look at the middle European world before the abyss told through the viewpoint of a highly attractive and intellectual man, too individual for his time, a man, perhaps, of the future.
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