Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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61 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterpiece, 25 Oct 2002
By A Customer
Quite simply the greatest book i have ever and ever likely to read. It is no surprise or coincidence that the book represents nearly a lifetime's work for the author. The prose is superbly constructed and not a single word appears wasted or to be out of place, which makes it possible just to dip into any page at random and be rewarded. Huge praise must go to the translator.The novel itself deals with abstract concepts such as nationalism, symbolism, humanity and politics juxtapositioned with the individual traits such as egotism, greed, love and jealousy using as its background prepartions for a celebration marking the Emporer's 70th anniversary in pre-World War 1 Vienna. We see this unfold through the eyes Ulrich (the Man of Qualities) who becomes drawn into events but remains throughout the detached, disinterested, highly eloquent observer. The issues raised seem just as relevent today as when the book was first written. For example, it felt uncanny how closely events in the book appeared to parallel those that took place in preparation for the celebration of the new millenium. Another testament to the quality of the book is that I found it very hard to believe the author himself was not personally involved in the story and the characters were not themselves real people known intimately to the author. Never has the end of a book come seemed to come so soon - a 3-volume, 1000+ page one at that !
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of great novels of the twentieth century., 27 Nov 2001
By A Customer
Some novels contain all of life within them - this is one of them. Musil's masterwork, over twenty years in the writing, is a brilliant, moving, vicious and desolate portrait of humankind as the age of reason crumbles into the uncertainties of our age of relativism.Ulrich's disquisitons, and those of his friends Walter are touched with genius. This is one of those few novels which, although written two generations ago and dealing with the Austro-Hungarian Empire of even further back, feels as if it could have been written yesterday - the characters and their concerns are amazingly contemporary, something which makes you realise (as only the greatest novels can) how universal human concerns have been through history. A brilliant book - it may be long, but it is hard to put down and worth ten other contemporary novels.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant - if you have the stamina for it, 15 Dec 2007
The central character in this book, Ulrich, a modern man, wonders what to do with his life (fortunately a private income gives him various choices!). He gets drawn into elaborate and seemingly endless preparations for an event suitable to mark the 70th anniversary of the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Before long he finds himself drawn into a world of committees and their members, and this provides Musil with the opportunity to reflect (at great length) on meaning in a meaningless world.
Musil's characters are human in every sense. In addition to their commitment to their "work" (celebrating the great anniversary), they have relationships of varying depth and quality, and as they are drawn into their work, they are attracted or repelled by one another, with inevitable consequences. Musil delights in showing the hidden motives in human relationships and satirises the tendency of the most high-minded people to spiritualise basic human conflicts: extra-marital affairs have a tragic and heroic gloss put on them enabling the lovers to see themselves as participating in a high-minded tragedy rather than the usual philanderings of those who are less-exalted.
Musil digresses at length on philosophical matters and most readers will need to skim through some of the hundreds of pages where the main characters get lost in their train of thought. And of course, in the back of the readers mind is the thought that all the preparation will be brought to nought by the onset of the First World War. However, an underlying sense of humour pervades this book and there are a number of more comic characters who's antics bring light relief to what is on the whole an extremely dense narrative.
I am not sure I would recommend this book to anyone other than those who are used to reading extremely long and discursive texts. Those who enjoy reading James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust will find themselves at home here, but for others, the book will be an arduous slog through its nearly 1200 pages. Of course, it is a classic, of course it is a master-work, but if you are going to tackle this book, you will need a high level of commitment to literature.
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