Rating: 
Summary: Not as difficult as some think, and with a better plot ....
Review: ..than the usual suspects it's often compared to, aka Joyce, Proust. If you prefer intentional obscufucation, then Mr. Joyce will help. Endless descriptions of interiors, and mother anxiety seem to permeate the latter. The first few paragraphs of MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES must be among the best descriptions of time and place ever written. And the plot is interesting, as the lagging Austrian-Hungarian before WWI tries to put on a better emperor's celebration than it's huge German cousin/neighbor to the north, a gesture we can tell will be futile from the git-go. Ulrich, the main character is a well-bred 30ish man about town who is dragged into this affair,perhaps against his better judgement.In a novel this vast, there are characters to match,including a seemingly normal working man who is also a mass murderer, and the object of gossip and news...The author draws you into this vast Vienna metropolis with a steady hand, though his near-constant philosophical digressions may tend to put you to sleep at times.Still, go for it. It's one of those novels you can always return to. In fact, that's just what I've done now for 25 years, after my first reading.
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Summary: Masterful examination of 20th century modernity.
Review: A book that took nearly a decade to write, of which this is but the first, smaller part: meticulous, controlled, and crafted like a Swiss watch by a highly disciplined mind formally trained in the fields of engineering, mathematics, experimental psychology, and philosophy. It is an abstract work that attacks the basic issues of modern human existence and requires that the reader furnish an intelligence and diligence to match that of the author, no small demand. Needless to say, it amply rewards that effort.Modulated with irony and unfailing humor, circumspect and whole in its vision. Like all works of its kind, it is more valuable for the questions raised than answers found. Like most works of this stature, it is exasperating in parts, perhaps because it goes to the limit. Absolutely essential for anyone interested in this century's literature, as is Broch's The Sleepwalkers, which it complements both in form and content. I plan to read the remaining parts, no small task.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: A fantastic book, I am presently struggling through it in French, but even with my poor knowledge of the language it is clear that The Man Without Qualities is a book of rare quality. I am purchasing it in English so that I can better taste the language, digest the concepts, and enjoy the book to my fullest capacity, thus rendering to its author the justice his book deserves. Students who labour through a work of this nature merely to satisfy a course curriculum should refrain from offering their views. I would give the poor sap a "C-" (for having read the book), and suggest he/she refrain from exhibiting their arrogance in the future. I know I am hard, but it's a hard, hard world - and there is all too much ignorance in it.
Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting thoughts, maybe a little too rich in detail
Review: A summary of this book is not at all representative for its contains. The background story is at most uninteresting. What made me read this novel was the delicate description of the inside of Ulrich's head. His thoughts are deeply influenced by the troubled times of his pre-war Vienna, as are the reflections of the other main characters. In my opinion, Musil was way ahead of his times, judging by the scientific description of the passions and thoughts of the persons described. The flaw of the book, as I see it, is that he sometimes allows himself to wander too far off with his mind-spins. The result is slightly incomprehensible at times, if not contradictory. You need time to profit from reading this book, but do it.
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Summary: An intellectual epic work, but much too long and boring
Review: Considered by some to be one of the greatest modernists of the 20th century, Austrian writer Robert Musil spent most of his lifetime (1880-1942) writing this epic work. Volume 1 is 725 pages long and a challenge to read. It's set in Austria in 1913 and centers on a central character, Ulrich, a young man who views the crumbling empire with excruciating detail and long philosophical discourses. He's the voice of the author, of course, and the title suggests that it is his voice alone that hasn't been corrupted by the world around him. With the exception of Ulrich, who I found to be a pompous know-it-all, I loved the many other characters that populate this tome. There's a female cousin who opens her home as a meeting place for the aristocracy to discuss politics, her young Jewish maid who is wooed by the black servant of an wealthy German industrialist, a couple whose marriage is in trouble, several mistresses and a laborer who is convicted of murder. The author has the ability to get under the skin of these people, describe them both physically and psychologically and make them real. They exist and interact and the reader gets to know them but, alas, there never is any resolution and the reader is left hanging. Clearly, the author exhibits a high intellect and understanding of human nature. I could open the book at any point and find a philosophical nugget ripe with meaning. And I was constantly amazed at how so many of the concepts introduced could be applied today. Specifically, I could relate to his view of technology, even though the technology in 1913 was only a beginning glimmer of what we take for granted today. However, it took him thousands of words to say what could have been summed up in a few sentences. There were huge sections that went on for pages and pages as two of the characters debated some obscurity. I'd rather learn about human nature by the characters' actions rather than long discourses and so I was impatient and bored. As I was reading this book for a book discussion group, I pushed myself to finish it, hoping to feel the familiar satisfaction that I can get from a good book. It didn't happen. I have no intention of reading the next two volumes. It might be interesting to see the nuances of philosophy for a few minutes, but life is too short to want to read more than a few pages of this. I recommend this book for students of philosophy and modernism only. All others stay away.
Rating:
Summary: The Novel Without Peers
Review: Fantastic. The height of social sardonicity and superior humour. Once you've laboriously "cracked the code" of this novel, you'll see why it remains a neglected jewel. The prose is not easy at first, but it becomes a dream to read. If you don't laugh, your sense of humour is either extremely immature and unsophisticated, or you simply don't have one. Musil deserves to stand on the shelf along side of Jane Austen. Add Cervantes, Rabelais, Alessandro Manzoni(The Betrothed), Thomas Love Peacock, Italo Svevo (Zeno's Conscience), and you have much of the cream of literary humour, barring Henry Fielding, Aristophanes, or the more immediate, and possibly less rewarding joys overall, of PG Wodehouse. For Musil appears to be the height of humour that everybody from Wodehouse to Woody Allen, Molly Ivens and Frank Zappa have tried to reach, yet barely have. 'The Man Without Qualities' is the one novel I wish all my friends would read and appreciate. It challenges the mind to understand it in a slightly different way than reading the initially confusing, yet ultimately rewarding 'To the Lighthouse' by Virginia Wolff. Yet all one needs to do is crack a hundred pages of 'The Man Without Qualities' to regard it with pleasure, true joy, and appreciation, at the mere thought of it. As poignant social commentary and satire, it creates much the same inner joy and 'leaping laughter' as that created by a true understanding of Jane Austen. Not to be missed. Also, for a fuller understanding, add Musil's 'Five Women.' (PS: I might recommend, that anyone having initial difficulty with Musil's style, might test their reading skills on Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason.' Surely a few hours spent on Kant's jawbreaker, will make reading Musil seem alot easier!)
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Summary: flowers of evil
Review: I finally got around to reading this book a couple of years ago, and after a couple of hundred pages I put it down to think about it. Musil, it seemed to me, despised youth AND age. Youth was simple stupidity, and age was just stupidity grown senile. I felt no doubt about Musil's intelligence; I'm sure he could think circles around almost any other European intellectual. I felt no doubt of his writing ability; many of his sentences and phrases still reverberate for me. No, the doubts I felt were very simple: I felt that Robert Musil was a creep. I felt that he was a loathsome human being, and that it was foolish to spend my time in his company. I got the same sort of feeling with the Marquis de Sade. I threw the book away and continued my journey in the company of Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust. Evidently "Young Torless" (his early piece) is about a group of teenage boys who decide to torture a fellow student. That sounds about right to me. Your mileage may vary.
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Summary: A Book of Insufficient Quality
Review: If you are looking for a very dry social satire of Austria-Hungary ninety years ago, this is the book for you. Their world is shaken by the fast pace of elevators and trolleys. It is so droll that an Austrian is "An Austro-Hungarian who is not Hungarian." It is a hoot that they are pompously planning - by committee - some epochal tribute to Austria-Hungary's central role in civilization, and that they can't visualize what that tribute will be. How (perhaps) true that Wagner and the home piano and music itself were so all-involving, intoxicating, romantic, philosophical, and that devotion to art and culture could be life-destroying. The pleasures of this book are few. It is a tedious book, with stultified characters, insufficient plot and not really enough insight, despite long patches of reflections. I found the German industrialist who wrote books to be particularly implausible and oppressive. That's the point, I guess, that the German industrialist takes up so much space in Austria-Hungary. The main character, Ulrich, is a bore. He has nothing worth doing and ends up serving on a foolish committee at the heart of his country and time. Is this book still too close to the bone? Does it actually cut deep, very misanthropically, from a cultural center? I couldn't finish it, not nearly. Maybe that's its comment on literature too. What a drag it is, getting on...
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Summary: It is a mentally consuming novel.
Review: It is a novel of love, sex, violence, soul-searching, and many other things. Yet, it is the type of book you can only read at small intervals, due to the way it makes you stop and reconsider some of the aspects of your life. It makes you think about life and particularlly anout your life. It may turn out to be the most influential book you have ever read. I highly recommend that read at least you read chapter 90,98, 109-121.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: Like Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", this immense book aims at giving an overview of the ideas of its time. Musil is a more precise thinker and stylist than Mann, and "The Man Without Qualities" has a lot more to offer than Mann's book. There are two opposing tendencies in the novel: On the one hand, Musil offers a highly entertaining satirical portrait of Austria-Hungary right before the First World War. His detached hero Ulrich meets all kinds of bizarre people, who happen to be members of the ruling class of the country. Like a vivisecteur, Ulrich analyzes the philosophies and ideologies of his time. On the other hand, he dreams of a kind of new mysticism, an emotional purity that is opposed to the dross surrounding him; together with his sister he embarks on quest for "the other state of being". Musil never finished the novel, he died before he could achieve a conclusion; which may have been impossible anyway. This gigantic torso of a novel is arguably the greatest novel of the century. I have not yet come across anything that could rival it. Musil's prose is so precise that after reading a few pages you feel that your mind has been refreshed and cleared. This is not a novel to be read in a few days, but even if you never manage to finish it, you will always come back to it.
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