Will I love The Man Without Qualities?

Musil’s novel, like Proust’s, is at top off the world’s greatest modern novels, as well as being an extended meditation on the final days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Like War and Peace, it takes us a while to get into it, and by the same token, Musil, like Tolstoy was deeply interested in how history happens., and if anything, his insights are more profound. Like Goethe, Musil was a master of the complexities of the German language. So both pose the translator with immense difficulties. But it’s a pleasure to recommend this translation, which is not only remarkably good at… show more.

I'm interested in the psychology of mass movements, given what is ongoing in the world right now, and this was a good 'precursor' to other books I then read.

This is somehow the antidote to Roth’s novel. It is a daunting read, often thought of as a Viennese answer to Proust. What was fascinating was its very unsentimental and often quite funny representation of wealthy Viennese society. Musil is a seductive writer and it is easy to keep reading even while wondering when something might actually happen.

Like Roth, the effect of the novel is cumulative–only after reading it suddenly comes together. It also balances the presentation of Vienna as a city of musicians and poets and gives us the politicians, the mathematicians, the scientists, and the economists. The… show more.

Musil is a person who you know you’ll never quite keep up with; he has irony within irony within irony. The book is fiction, but few things are better for learning skepticism about "essences" and big ideas, and yes, humility about oneself.

Ulrich, Diotima, General Stumm, sister Agatha, and Moosebrugger are the unforgettable characters, and post-World War I, Vienna is the stage.