The Man Without Qualities

By Robert Musil (Author), Sophie Wilkins (Translator), 1930-43

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 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.