The Man Without Qualities

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The Man without Qualities (German original title: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften) is a novel in three books by the Austrian novelist and essayist Robert Musil.

The main issue of this "story of ideas", which takes place in the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's last days, is the need to preserve order in a shaken world (never considering the fact that World War I was to begin in a couple of months).

The German-language title is a pun on the phrase Mann mit Eigenschaften—literally "man with qualities"—equivalent to the English-language phrase "self-made man"[citation needed].

Contents

[edit] The history of the novel

Musil worked on his masterpiece for more than twenty years. He started in 1921 and spent the rest of his life writing it. When he died in 1942, the novel was not completed. The first two books were published in 1930, the last and unfinished one posthumously by his wife Martha in 1942. He worked on his novel almost every day, leaving his family in dire financial straits. The novel brought neither fame nor fortune to Musil or his family. This was one of the reasons why he felt bitter and unrecognized during the last two decades of his lifetime. The combination of material poverty and a multitude of ideas is one of the most striking characteristics of Musil's biography.

There are strong autobiographical features to be found in the text, as the main character's ideas and attitudes are believed to be those of Musil. Most of the aspects of the Viennese life in the novel are based on historical fact and Musil's own life experience. However, the plot and the characters (with the exception of a short appearance of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I) are pure invention (although some of them had their living inspirations in eminent Austrian and German men and women). Elsa (Berta) von Czuber, whom Musil met while he studied in Brno between 1889 and 1901, inspired him with the image of Ulrich's sister Agathe. Donath and Alice Charlemont, Musil's friends, were models of Walter and Clarisse, and Viennese socialite Eugenie Schwarzwald gave birth to the character of Diotima, and Arnheim may have been based on Walther Rathenau and Thomas Mann.


His detailed portrait of the decaying fin-de-siècle world is similar to those of Hermann Broch's The Sleepwalkers, Karl Kraus's The Last Days of Mankind or Stefan Zweig's World of Yesterday.

Some of Musil's working titles were The Gutters, Achilles (the original name of the main character Ulrich) or The Spy.


[edit] Legacy

Musil's monumental novel contains more than 1700 pages (depending on edition) across three volumes, the last of which was published by Musil's wife after his death. The novel is famous for the irony with which Musil displays the Austrian society shortly before World War I. The story takes place in 1913 in Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary, which Musil refers to by the playful name Kakanien ('Kaka' is a child's word for feces in German, just as in American English) . The name of Kakanien is derived from the German abbreviation K und K (kaiserlich und königlich or "Imperial and Royal"), used to indicate the status of Austria-Hungary as a Dual Monarchy, demonstrating the lack of political, administrative, and sentimental unity in Austria-Hungary of those times. Musil elaborates on the paradoxes of the Kakanian way of life: "By its constitution it was liberal, but the system of government was clerical. The system of government was clerical, but the general attitude to life was liberal. Before the law all citizens were equal, but not everyone, of course, was a citizen." (Musil: The Man without Qualities, Vol. 1: A Sort of Introduction, Chapter 8 - Kakanien).

The story contains approximately twenty characters of bizarre Viennese life, from the beau monde to the demi-monde, including an aristocrat, an army officer, a banker, three bourgeois wives, an intriguing chamber maid, a black pageboy and, last but not least, a sexual deviant who murders a prostitute.

Musil's aim (and that of his main character, Ulrich's) was to arrive at a synthesis between strict scientific fact and the mystical, which he refers to as "the hovering life."

Musil originally did not want the first sections of his monumental work to be published until the whole work was finished. Later, when it was too late to make changes in the portions already released, he regretted he had submitted to his publisher's insistence. Critics speculate on the viability of Musil's original conception. Some estimate the intended length of the work to be twice as long as the text Musil left behind; some even assert (with no particular evidence) that the novel could never have been finished.


[edit] Plot summary

The first book, entitled "A Sort of Introduction", is an introduction of the main character of the story, a 32-year old mathematician named Ulrich who is in search of a sense of life and reality but fails to find it. His ambivalence towards morals and indifference to life has brought him to the state of being "a man without qualities," depending on the outer world to form his character. A kind of keenly analytical passivity is his most typical attitude.

Musil said that it was not particularly difficult to describe Ulrich in his main features. Ulrich himself only knows he is strangely indifferent to all his qualities. Lack of any profound essence and ambiguity as a general attitude to life are his principal characterizations.

Meanwhile, we meet maniacal murderer and rapist Moosbrugger who is condemned for his murder of a prostitute. Other protagonists are Ulrich's nymphomaniac mistress Bonadea and his friend Walter's neurotic wife Clarisse, whose refusal to go along with a commonplace day-to-day existence leads to Walter's insanity.

In the second book, entitled "Pseudoreality Prevails", Ulrich joins the so-called "Collateral Campaign" or "Parallel Campaign", frantic preparations for a celebration in honor of 70 years of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph's reign. That same year, 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II would be ruler of his country for 30 years. This collateral coincidence lashes all the Austrian patriots into a fury of action to demonstrate Austria's political, cultural and philosophical supremacy via a feast which will capture the minds of the Austrian Emperor's subjects and people of the whole world for ever. On that account, many bright ideas and visions are discussed (e.g., The Austrian Year 1918, The World Year 1918, The Austrian Peace Year 1918 or The Austrian World Peace Year 1918).

A couple of people take part in the organization team or just catch the eye of Ulrich. Ermelinda Tuzzi, called Diotima[1], is Ulrich's cousin as well as the wife of a civil servant; she tries to become a Viennese muse of philosophy, inspiring and encouraging whoever crosses her path; she miraculously attracts both Ulrich and Arnheim. The nobleman in charge of the Campaign, the old conservative Count Leinsdorf, is incapable of deciding or even of not-deciding. General Stumm von Bordwehr, of the Imperial and Royal Army, is unpopular for his attempts in this generally mystical atmosphere, to make things systematic, and German Count Paul Arnheim (modeled after German politician Walter Rathenau) is an admirer of Diotima's accessible combination of physical beauty and spirit, without feeling the necessity to marry her.

While most of the participants (Diotima most feverishly) try to associate the reign of Franz Joseph I with vague ideas of humanity, progress, tradition and happiness, the followers of Realpolitik see a chance to exploit the situation: Stumm von Bordwehr wishes to get the Austrian army income raised, and Arnheim plans to buy oil fields in an eastern province of Austria.

The focus of the last volume, entitled "Into the Millennium (The Criminals)", is Ulrich's sister Agathe (who enters the novel at the end of the second book). They experience a mystically incestuous stirring upon meeting after their father's death. They see themselves as soul mates or, as the book says, "siamese-twins".

As published, the novel ends in a large section of drafts, notes, false-starts and forays written by Musil as he tried to work out the proper ending for his book. In the German edition, there is even a CD-ROM available that holds thousands of pages of alternate versions and drafts.

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ The pseudonym is a literary loan from Diotima, a priestess and wise female tutor of Socrates.