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“Why, then, aren’t we realists?” Ulrich asked himself.
Neither of them was, neither he nor she: their ideas and their
conduct had long left no doubt of that; but they were nihilists and
activists, sometimes one and sometimes the other, whichever happened to
come up.
—Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities
In the realm of the aesthetic … even imperfection and lack of
completion have their value.
The Austrian novelist Robert Musil (1880– 1942) occupies a peculiar position in the pantheon of great twentieth-century writers. He is admired by literati for a handful of astringent modernist fictions, especially for his first novel, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless (The Bewilderments of the Schoolbo ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 14 February 1996, on page 10 Copyright © 2008 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/robertmusil-rogerkimball-3658
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