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Robert Musil
(November 6, 1880 - April 15, 1942) Austria

Robert Musil

Writer

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Robert Musil's first novel, Young Torless, was published in 1906, and from then until several years ago, he was underappreciated. Gradually, though, Musil's been getting his due. With the recent publication by Knopf of the most complete version to date of his massive, unfinished, panoramic novel about Vienna on the eve of World War I, The Man Without Qualities, Musil threatens to become the most frequently discussed of all underrated authors, one whom everyone wants to take credit for discovering.

Certainly, Musil should be considered among the great fiction writers of our century, an author of great power and formidable intellect. The son of an engineering professor, Musil delved into several fields before deciding to be an author. He went to military school as a teenager, then studied civil engineering and spent time in the army. Still uncertain about a career, he returned to school, getting a degree in philosophy in 1908.

Meanwhile, however, Young Torless, based on his experiences in the military academy, had been published and well received, and he decided to become a professional writer rather than an academic. He worked as an editor, critic and essayist but published few works of fiction. In addition to Young Torless and The Man Without Qualities, there is available, in English, Five Women, a superb and unfortunately overlooked volume of novellas, and a collection of short stories in the Eridanos anthology Posthumous Papers of a Living Author.

It's possible that Musil was influenced by another Austrian writer, Arthur Schnitzler, who wrote one of the first stream-of-consciousness novels, Lt. Gustl, in 1901. Schnitzler, a physician, was also profoundly concerned with psychological states. The impressionistic, intensely poetic quality of Musil's work, however, is not really characteristic of Schnitzler's writing. Whether he was aware of them or not, Musil's work shares a good deal in common with the French Symbolists.

Musil died in Switzerland. He collapsed in the middle of his gymnastic exercises and according to legend died with an expression of ironic amusement on his face. He was 61. There were only eight people present at his funeral.

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