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The Man Without Qualities Vol. 1: A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780679767879
ISBN: 0679767878
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 752
Publication Date: December 09, 1996
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: December 09, 1996
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
This intriguing landmark of modernism from Austrian writer Robert Musil has been newly translated from the German by Sophie Wilkins and re-edited in a textual overhaul. This new edition includes portions of the author's original manuscripts that have never been published before. Though an imposing edifice of writing, devotees of literary modernism and anyone interested in the decline of the Austrian empire must read this sweeping, comic take on life in pre-Great War Vienna. The story of Ulrich, the man without qualities himself, is continued in a second volume, The Man Without Qualities: Into the Millenium,From the Posthumous Papers.
Set in Vienna on the eve of World War I, this great novel of ideas tells the story of Ulrich, ex-soldier and scientist, seducer and skeptic, who finds himself drafted into the grandiose plans for the 70th jubilee of the Emperor Franz Josef. This new translation--published in two elegant volumes--is the first to present Musil's complete text, including material that remained unpublished during his lifetime.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Book with qualities
This is an unfinished romance which is a kind of no romance. Robert Musil draws our attention through the riche thoughts of his personages. Personages who live in the Austro-Hungarian Empire before de world war I. This is: right before the collapse of the empire.
It is a collapse which the personages seem to fell. A felling which should not be misunderstand as a prevision.
The personages seem to be attached to the contradictions of an European supra-national empire in a Europe where ... Read More
Rating:  - Empricist Musil
I have read a much abridged version of "The Man Without Qualities" and intend to obtain the new "unabridged" editions. I found the writing fluid, but the philosphy very subtle and relentless. This is not a book for a fast read. I believe that reading Judith Ryan's excellent "The Vanishing Subject: Early Psychology and Literary Modernism", University of Chicago Press, 1991 to be very helpful in revealing Musil's thought within a philisophical/scientific "empiricist" context. He was a philosopher ... Read More
Rating: - Expansive Literature
The first volume of Robert Musil's magnificent opus `The Man Without Qualities,' is brilliant and intricate Prussian `a la recherche du temps perdu,' though without Proust's keen appreciation of the arts. This is an epic from the mind of a mathematician and a strict analytic philosopher who becomes ensconced in the aristocracy of Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years of its final disintegration leading up to the first World War. Ulrich is the man without qualities, the sharp minded observer and provocateur ... Read More
Rating:  - A clever work, but very long and boring
I agree with Linda's comments... very clever book, but very very boring... if you wanna a book that we'll influence your way of thinking, try "The Picture of Dorian Gray"... and you'll get "more influence/page"
Rating: - spectacular and profound
Musil's book is one of the twentieth century's two masterworks-- the other being Proust's "A La Recherche." Musil and Proust are the Modernist embodiment of Adorno's dictum that the conceptually challenging artwork must also necessarily be aesthetically radical.
Musil's novel, written from at once the center (Europe) and the margins (post-World War One Austria) of the early Twentieth century, is the story of Ulrich, a brilliant young mathematician who observes Austrian high society on the eve ... Read More
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