725 pages. And the second volume is even bigger. So it is more than possible...scraping the bottom of probable...that this is more than I can handle. And I thought about just returning it to the library and forgetting about it. But I actually started this daily reading regimen in order to take on books that I thought were too much for me. I have had a few fails along the way, but they were for reasons other than length and / or complexity. So...I'm not giving away my shot. Here we go.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,782), June 13, 2025
Read to page 30.
"They clearly belonged to a privileged social class, with their distinguished bearing, style of dress, and conversation, the initials of their names embroidered on their underwear, and just as discreetly, which is to say not for outward show but in the fine underwear of their minds, they knew who they were and that they belonged in a European capital city and imperial residence." (4)
Day 2 (DDRD 2,783), June 14, 2025
Read to page 60.
This is a strange and interesting book. There's very little plot, and only a few characters. The pull is in the omniscient narrator's voice, which is a bit sardonic, quite witty, and var-uh stronge. I'm starting to think I might be able to chew what I've bitten off.
"...mathematics, the mother of natural science and grandmother of technology, was also the primordial mother of the spirit that eventually gave rise to poison gas and warplanes." (37)
Day 3 (DDRD 2,784), June 15, 2025
Read to page 90.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,785), June 16, 2025
Read to page 120.
"...like every person of bourgeois outlook, she admired wealth in those depths of the heart that are quite immune to convictions...." (98) Which might explain people's attachment to Trump.
I just read all of the ☆ reviews of this book on GoodReads (21 of them). I think they can all be distilled to this one by Connor Marshall:
"May 8, 2019
Worst book I’ve ever read. I made the mistake of following the crowd and had read that this book was a ‘must read’ I understand why this book is such a masterpiece for some but for me I just did not enjoy it, but found myself avoiding reading at all just so I did not have to go through the painful process of reading page after page but not taking anything in."
Hmmm. 90 pages in, and I'm not sure if I agree with Connor or not. I've found Musil's snide narrative voice to be interesting and even amusing at times, but there really is very little plot to this novel, and the main character seems like a bit of an asshole. I'm not ready to quit, but I can see how that might happen at some point in the future.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,786), June 17, 2025
Read to page 155.
"The judge's eyes dart up from the file; like two birds taking off from a branch, they abandon the sentence they had just been perching on." (123)
Now THAT'S a sentence, by golly.
And this is a most beautiful page:
Funny...I was starting to think, "Maybe I will abandon this book and move on to something else." I even returned Volume II to the library today. But now I'm thinking maybe I should give it another couple of days or so.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,787), June 18, 2025
Read to page 181.
"The spirit of loyalty, the spirit of love, a masculine mind, a cultivated, mind, the greatest living mind, keeping up the spirit of one cause or another, acting in the spirit of this or that movement: how solid and unexceptionable it sounds, right down to its lowest levels. Beside it everything else, be it humdrum crime or the hot pursuit of profits, seems inadmissible, the dirt God removes from his toenails." (161)
I'm thinking that no other writer would have written those sentences.
Or this one: "...as one got older and on longer acquaintance with the smokehouse of the mind, in which the world cures the bacon of its daily affairs, one learned to adapt oneself to reality...." (163)
Day 7 (DDRD 2,788), June 19, 2025
Read to page 212.
On The Soul :
"In youth it manifests itself as a distinct feeling of insecurity about whether everything one does is really the right thing, after all; in old age as a sense of wonder at how little one has done of all one had really meant to do. In between, one takes comfort in the thought that one is a hell of a good, capable fellow, even if every little thing can't be justified; or that the world is not the way it ought to be either, so that one's failures come to represent a fair enough compromise. Then there are always some people who think beyond all this of a God who has their missing piece in His pocket." (196 - 197)
Ouch. This motherfucker is FIERCE.
Speaking of fierce:
"In youth it manifests itself as a distinct feeling of insecurity about whether everything one does is really the right thing, after all; in old age as a sense of wonder at how little one has done of all one had really meant to do. In between, one takes comfort in the thought that one is a hell of a good, capable fellow, even if every little thing can't be justified; or that the world is not the way it ought to be either, so that one's failures come to represent a fair enough compromise. Then there are always some people who think beyond all this of a God who has their missing piece in His pocket." (196 - 197)
Day 8 (DDRD 2,789), June 20, 2025
Read to page 242.
Yesterday I read the first 30 pages of The Resurrection of Mary Magdeline and still managed to do my 30 pages of The Man Without Qualities. Today it's going to be a challenge. I read my 30 in TRoMM, but it's 7:32 pm and I'm only...oh, I've got 26 pages in. Never mind.
Day 9 (DDRD 2,790), June 21, 2025
Read to page 262. It was a busy day. (Though I did read 30 pages in TRoMM.)
Day 10 (DDRD 2,791), June 22, 2025
Read to page 300.
"...a murder can appear to us as a crime or a heroic act, and making love as a feather that has fallen from the wing of an angel or that of a goose." (271)
Day 11 (DDRD 2,792), June 23, 2025
Very busy day, but still read to page 330.
Day 12 (DDRD 2,793), June 24, 2025
Read to page 360.
"They...had crossed the borderline that separates an intimate friend whom we allow to see us in all our inward disorder from those for whom we cultivate our appearance." (335)
"Even today there are still thousands of people who are like atomizers, spraying the power of love around like a perfume." (359)
Day 13 (DDRD 2,794), June 25, 2025
Read to page 390.
Day 14 (DDRD 2,795), June 26, 2025
Read to page 421.
"...ALL ROADS TO THE MIND START FROM THE SOUL, BUT NONE LEAD BACK AGAIN" (Part of the title for Chapter 86, hence the all caps and lack of end punctuation.)
"...the world was a distant noise beyond the garden wall, as though his soul had overflowed its banks and was truly present to him for the first time." (418)
Day 15 (DDRD 2,796), June 27, 2025
Read to page 450. Hmm. So 275 pages to go. Looks like I've crossed the Rubicon. In fact, in the past day or two I've found myself thinking, "Maybe I SHOULD have a go at Volume II."
About, my brain.
"...the mind shuts out and forgets whatever does not happen to fit into its scheme." (424)
"What do the affairs of the world amount to? Un peu de bruit autour de notre âme...." (426)
"À quoi se résument les affaires du monde? A little noise around our soul...."
"...he knew the heady feeling of his thoughts taking off with long strides, as if on stilts! They made him feel as if he had to drag himself through the world on leaden feet, hoping to find some place where things might be different again." (431)
"He spat and thought of the sky, which looks like a mousetrap, covered in blue." (431)
There's a reference to Louis Blériot's plane " soaring over the English channel at 35 miles an hour!" (436) that didn't seem likely, as you can hit 35 miles per hour on a bicycle on a flat stretch. So I had a look around. Here's what I found:
Specifications: Wingspan: 28'6", Length: 25'5", Top Speed: 45 mph, Engine: 30 hp Anzani,
Weight 661lbs.
https://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org/aircraft/bleriot-xi-2-artillerie/#:~:text=It%20was%20in%20British%2C%20French,a%20ceiling%20of%202000%20meters.
So there you have it. Robert Musil don't play.
Day 16 (DDRD 2,797), June 28, 2025
Read to page 460. Busy day.
Day 17 (DDRD 2,798), June 29, 2025
Read to page 490.
Day 18 (DDRD 2,799), June 30, 2025
Read to page 520.
Day 19 (DDRD 2,800), July 1, 2025
Read to page 575.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I suppose there's still a writer's heart living in my chest, because when I saw this chapter heading...
...my first thought was, The Terminology of Redemption would be a great story title. And in other news...I just put in a hold request for Volume II of this thang. Not confident that I can handle it, but I'm feeling like it's worth a try.
Day 20 (DDRD 2,801), July 2, 2025
Read to page 600.
"Once, in a half-waking dream, he had a sense of having worn this life's Moosbruger, like an ill-fitting coat on his back...." (579)
This life is worn like an ill-fitting coat. Yep, I get that.
"Money turns everything into an abstraction...." (592)
Which is what allows Republicans to vote YES on a bill which strips the poor of medical coverage while giving the rich large tax breaks. They don't see the suffering poor as a reality.
Day 21 (DDRD 2,802), July 3, 2025
Read to page 620.
"If Christ were to come again tomorrow, he would certainly fare worse than the first time. The better newspapers and book clubs would find him vulgar, and the great international press would hardly be likely to welcome him to its columns." (614)
So much for "If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 B.C. had no mass communication." (614)
"...he still had vivid memories of the richly draped carriages, the heavily caparisoned horses, the trumpeters, and the pride people took in their medieval costumes, which lifted them out of their humdrum daily lives." (615)
"...and miracles could happen in reality because they are an ever-present form of another reality, and nothing else!" (618)
I thought that was a cool way of "explaining " miracles: a moment where the other world breaks into ours.
"...the soul had started to shrivel and age ever since the Church began to crumble, around the beginning of the bourgeois era. Since then, it had lost God and all solid values and ideals until the present, when men had actually reached the point of living without morals, without principles, without real experiences, in fact." (620)
Aka "Without God, everything is permitted. "
I have to say that I'm really starting to like this book. Funny that I was considering giving up on it not that ling ago.
Da⬇y 22 (DDRD 2,803), 🇺🇸July 4, 2025🇺🇸
Read to page 651.
Since I seem to be falling for Mr. Musil, I thought I'd have a look to see what other holdings the Louisville Free Public Library had. It was very disappointing:
In addition to that, there are the two volumes of The Man Without Qualities that I currently have in my possession and one more copy--which seems to be a set of both volumes. That's all, folks.
By the way, check out this pattern (which has been running for some time now*:
⬇ ⬇ ⬇
Day 23 (DDRD 2,804), July 5, 2025
Read to page 690.
So...I might be able to finish this off tomorrow. And today I picked this up at the library:
* Actually, it's been running since Day 1 of this DDR. And maybe earlier than that, but I don't have the strength to go back and look right now. 😫
Day 24 (DDRD 2,805), July 6, 2025
Read to page 725, The End. A strange ending...kind of just a pulling of the plug. But hey, Volume II is just a day away.
