Diaries : Robert Musil 1899-1942 (Hardcover)

~ Mark Jay Mirsky (Author), EDITOR * (Editor) "This notebook spans Musil's time at university: he studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Brunn from January 1898 until July 1901, when he..." (more)
Key Phrases: entries including ones, entry entitled, short entries, South Pole, Catholic Church, Gustl Donath (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Born into an affluent Austrian family in 1880, Robert Musil died penniless 62 years later, a solitary, bitter man who felt his genius had gone unrecognized. Certainly Musil's name is not nearly as well known as those of his contemporaries Marcel Proust, James Joyce, or Thomas Mann; still, the old man's shade might take some comfort in the critical and popular response his unfinished masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities, has garnered in recent years. Its latest, 1995 translation revived interest in an author many consider one of the greatest--if least read--writers of the 20th century. Readers who want to know more about the man behind The Man are in luck: Robert Musil's Diaries are now available in English.

Musil was an inveterate diarist; while the German edition of his journals is comprehensive, its translator and English-language editor, Phillip Payne, has chosen to be more selective. Gone are entries that summarize or excerpt the work of other authors; those that are "unintelligible to all but Musil experts"; early drafts of works that are not of particular interest; or entries that add little of significance to our understanding of Musil's life or work. What's left, however, is more than adequate, and provides a fascinating window into the life, times, and creative process of a literary master. There are Musil's working notes to himself ("Set up at least 100 figures, the main human types in existence today: the Expressionist, the Courths-Mahler, the profiteer, the psycho-pedagogue, the disciple of Steiner, etc. Then have these figures crossing each other's paths"); comments about his world ("My generation was anti-moral or amoral because our fathers talked of morality and acted in a philistine and immoral fashion ... children today are moral, but want people to take morality seriously"); and meditations on the most private aspects of his personal life (discussing his wife, Martha, he writes, "She isn't anything that I have gained or achieved; she is something that I have become and that has become "I"). Robert Musil's Diaries are a remarkable portrait of the artist throughout his life and a standing testimony to his genius. --Alix Wilber

From Publishers Weekly

In the "Posthumous Papers" section of Burton Pike's impressive two-volume edition of Musil's Man Without Qualities (1995) is a chapter titled "Agathe Finds Ulrich's Diary." One passage reads: "The notes that she took up in her hands, with many things crossed out, loosely connected and not always easily decipherable, immediately imposed a slower tempo on her passionate curiosity." This is likely to be the reaction of fans of this great Viennese modernist to his diaries. Although Musil briefly considered working these into publishable form, basically they were aide-memoires to books, a passing scene, a name, an archetype or the outlines of unrealized projects. Musil was immensely attuned to intellectual and artistic (and, to a lesser extent, political) currents, but he adapted everything to his own aesthetic, ethical system. While there are descriptions of sensory experiences (the smell of his mother's chinchilla is "a smell like snow in the air mingled with a little camphor"), there is relatively little indication of his everyday life?his days in the cafe, for example, or his chronic financial troubles. The notebooks from his early 20s are those of a young Viennese intellectual infatuated with Nietzsche and eroticism, but over time Musil matured. In 1920, he bemoans the "maliciousness of Fate that it gave Nietzsche and socialism to one and the same age," and eventually his sexual preoccupations are overshadowed by a lyrical wistfulness for "the golden 'fruit of the fig' on the white sheet.... The greenish-blue blanket beneath it. The gaslight.... The black hair on the white pillow." In this evolution, and in his relentless self-appraisal, Musil's admirers can see the evolution of a truly "ratioid" man.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 624 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (November 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465016502
• ISBN-13: 978-0465016501
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.8 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,954,842 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The penetrating mind of R. Musil, November 26, 2000

By	Jeff Bursey - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diaries : 1899-1941 (Paperback)

As other commentators have said, Musil's diaries reveal this fascinating writer's process of thought, and are not filled with the usual "then he said something and we laughed and ordered another round" entries. In the regrettable absence of an autobiography or good biography, the _Diaries_ are a good substitute.

Musil's eye is at once poetic and objective. I could only be astounded by the maturity of the young artist. His description of a horse laughing, of sunset on windows, of a waterfall looking like a silver comb, of his emotions when he and his wife Martha argue, show a sensitivity sharpened by training. Musil captures things as they appear to him with a minimum of fussiness. Also, there is often a sharp humour which comes flashing out.

Some people don't like _The Man Without Qualities_ and prefer some of Musil's other writings. Whichever works one prefers, these diaries illuminate Musil and his writings from within.

I'll add two minor complaints about the layout of the book to those already voiced. I object to endnotes, believing footnotes easier to read. Why flip forward and back so often? Some of the endnotes are repetitive, and greater care should have been taken over them. But those are small things, and have more to do with editorial decisions than with Musil, who here steps forth from a kind of shadow (for english readers).

This book can't be recommended highly enough.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, yet inadequate, July 20, 2000

By	Walter O. Koenig "Amoxtli" (San Diego, California, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Diaries : 1899-1941 (Paperback)

Robert Musil is one of the most complex and little known authors of the 20th Century. I am sure that anyone who has read "The Man without Qualities" will want to know more about Musil after getting to know his writing. Sadly, there is no adequate Biography available, even in German, so one of the best ways to get to know the Author is through his fascinating Diary. These were actually more Notebooks than Diaries, and they contain an encylopedic array of information on Musil himself, his intests, his ideas, and most interestingly his plans for the "Man without Qualities". So it is must reading for those interested in Musil. The English Translation Compilation, has two major flaws. First, it lacks an Index and other Critical Apparatus, and secondly, we do not which criteria were used to re-edit the Notebooks, which were originally edited by Adolf Frise. The German Edition has one Volume of Diaries = 1,000 pages and one Volume of Notes and Indices = 1,500, pages, making it useful for scholarly research, to look up subjects, names and places, and most fascinating Musil's sources. Still the English edition is of great interest to those unaquainted with Musil.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A helpful look into Musil's mind, August 31, 2000

By	Heather Lowe "hslowe" (Corning NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The fascinating man becomes clearer through the pages of his notebooks, which are uneven in their quality but ultimately rewarding. A must for Musil fans seeking to understand the mind of the genius.