Musil, Robert Elder von
Musil, Robert Elder von ( 1880 – 1942 ),born in Klagenfurt of Austrian and partly Czech descent, best known for his massive (and unfinished) novel, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften ( 1930 – 2 ), which appeared in an English translation by E. Wilkins and E. Kaiser as The Man without Qualities ( 1953 – 60 ). He trained as an engineer and then had a brief career in the army before turning to writing. His first novel Young Törless ( 1906 ) was followed by various short works of fiction and two plays, but Musil then devoted the rest of his life to his great work. Despite its daunting scale, The Man without Qualities is witty and approachable: its main narrative strands concern Ulrich, the indecisive hero, and his bestial counterpart, the murderer Moosbrugger. A new translation by Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike , published in 1995 , included a vast amount of previously unseen, incomplete,...
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