Rating: 
Summary: A Brick for Your Shelf
Review: This is one of the novels that I have most looked foreward to reading. I was so happy to discover the greatest Austrian, if not European, novelist of the 20th century. I loved the title, and I usually love modernist literature and the difficulties it presents.With that said, reading this novel has been one of the most tedious and painful experiences I ever subjected myself to. I don't really care about any of the characters (how can you care for someone without qualities??), there is no plot, the characterization seems cliched, the ideas seem trite. This novel probably does give a good indiciation of how the Austro-Hungarian Empire must have felt in relationship to Europe right before World War I--someone just needed to shoot this cumbersome beast and put it out of its misery; the novel is the same way--compared to Kafka, Joyce, Proust, Svevo,even Faulkner, this novel doesn't hold much interest. I do feel that students of literature should at least read the first section, "A Sort of Introduction" to get a feel for what Musil is doing. But once one gets the point of the novel of ideas, one doesn't need to finish the rest of the novel, unless one is really into it (hey, enough readers seem to like it, maybe you will be one of them.) Finally, this is the type of book that looks good on a shelf, and the type of book that people read during graduate school and then never read again. It is a very important book, but knowing what Musil accomplished may be more of a prize than reading the entire novel. If anything you can wow your literary friends by mentioning a great Austrian writer with a name that sounds like cereal--don't worry most won't ask you anything more about the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Five Stars for Ulrich's Mental Exercises
Review: Two essays will help give you an idea of the scope of this immense two tome empire of a book: V. S Pritchett's "A Viennese" and Sven Birkett's "Robert Musil" available in his essay collection Artificial Wilderness(which is a great book on 20th Cent. Europeans). I have never finished this book but reread underlined portions of it now and then to remind me of my first contact and impression of this book which was one of amazement that such a book exists. Once you have met Musil and listened to him speak through his magnificent minded creation Ulrich you will not forget him. Ulrich is like no other character in fiction. You get a cast of odd creations and rigorous Ulrich's Austrian analysis following them all around like some on the spot historian documenting the Austrian Empire in its days of decline and it is all quite entertaining. It does wear you out pretty quick though. His shorter fiction(especially "Blackbird") is good too as well as his one other novel Young Torless but nothing prepares you for this. A more challenging and intelligent entertainment I have not yet found. His diaries are also available, though I can't imagine someone finishing Man Without Qualites and then running out to pick them up.
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