This is a BIG one. 1,045 pages. [Addendum: plus 10 pages for the Secret Preface.] Assuming I can maintain a 30 pages a day pace, that means this one will take more than a month--35 days. Also, I need to pick up the pace on The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, as that comes due in August and is not renewable.
I may indeed have bitten off more than I can chew. 🦷🦷🦷 But as me dear sainted mah-thur used to say, "Faint heart ne'er won fair maiden."
Day 1 (DDRD 2,806), July 7, 2025
The page numbering on Volume II continues from Volume I, so the first text page here is 729. Today I read to page 760.
Hey...only 1,015 pages to go.
Day 2 (DDRD 2,807), July 8, 2025
Read to page 790. Funny...this is just a continuation of Volume I, not a new book, but I'm still having that Starting A New Book disorientation. And wondering if I have it in me to go another 985 pages here. Why? Why? Tell 'em that it's human nature.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,808), July 9, 2025
Read to page 820.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,809), July 10, 2025
Read to page 850.
A prelude to incest: "But whoever has not already picked up the clues to what was going on between this brother and sister should lay this account aside, for it depicts an adventure of which he will never be able to approve: a journey to the edge of the possible, which led past - and perhaps not always past - the dangers of the impossible and unnatural, even of the repugnant: a "borderline case," as Ulrich later called it, of limited and special validity, reminiscent of the freedom with which mathematics sometimes resorts to the absurd in order to arrive at the truth." (826)
Or so it seems. 24 pages later and still no incestuous action. Not that I'm anxious for it, jyst sayin', sir.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,810), July 11, 2025
Read to page 874.
"The truth swims like a fish in an invisible principle; the moment you lift it out, it's dead." (874)
Day 6 (DDRD 2,811), July 12, 2025
Read to page 910. Still no incest.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,812), July 13, 2025
Read to page 927.
Day 8 (DDRD 2,813), July 14, 2025
Read to page 950. Hmmm. Haven't been hitting it for the past few days. Feeling kind of over it, actually. Which is not good considering that I still have 825 pages to go. Or do I?
Day 9 (DDRD 2,814), July 15, 2025
Read to page 970.
That telltale line--
It wasn't there before I started reading. Which means--and keep in mind that the Received Stamp is for January 1, 2019--that I'm the first person to read this book. I don't think the LFPL got its $27.50 worth put of this purchase. And right now I'm feeling that way myself as I stumble through the pages. A good or great line surfaces every page or two, but the rest is all swirling miasma, shapes briefly and barely glimpsed, conversations that wander into echoes and then silence. What is this novel about? I think this guy wants to fuck his sister. Is that enough to hang 1,700 pages on? I think not. So...stop then? There are so many other books I want to read, and this will take at least another 26 days. Is it worth?
I'm thinking not.
I'm thinking ⎒🔌.
Day 10 (DDRD 2,815), July 16, 2025
Read to page 1,000. So that's a landmark of sorts. It's also the farthest I've ever gotten into any book and still been unsure whether I would finish it or not. 😕
Day 11 (DDRD 2,816), July 17, 2025
Read to page 1,020.
It's been a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, so despite the fact that I was awakened at 3:30 am (!), I was hard pressed to get any reading done. Made a late effort to get to 1,020, and I think that's it for the nonce.
Day 12 (DDRD 2,817), July 18, 2025
Read to page 1,060. Well lookee there: a full day's read and then some. Still no incest, though.
Day 13 (DDRD 2,818), July 19, 2025
Read to page 1,100.
And lo, a second crack has appeared:
And I don't treat books roughly. No doubt about it, this book has not been read before. 6 1/2 years of malingering on the shelf. 😔
Despite my lapses vis-a-vis the 30 pages a day goal, my 37 days devoted to The Man Without Qualities is still at an average of 29.73 pages perhaps. Woot.
On the other hand...1,100 pages in (and a mere 674 pages to go), and I'm STILL not sure that will finish this book. Sigh.
Day 14 (DDRD 2,819), July 20, 2025
Read to page 1,130. When, much to my surprise, the book ended.
Without incest, I feel compelled to note. And without any resolution.
Too bad they didn't have the decency to collect these 644 pages as Volume III.
Day 15 (DDRD 2,820), July 21, 2025
Read to page 1,154.
Woke up, fell out of bed, then started reading. As I made my way through the Preface (10 pages which are not numbered in accordance with the novel's page numbers) I kept thinking, this is where I should stop and move on to something else. Then this: "...these pages contain some of Musil's most powerful and evocative writing." (xv*) So...I suppose that I shall carry on like a wayward son...at least for a bit.
Do you remember Erica King's "zipless fuck" from way back when in Fear of Flying? Well, check this out: "...there had been awakened in the objects a liberation that was astir with miracles. 'The next moment it would have peeled us out of our clothes like a silver knife, without our having moved a finger!' she thought." Musil got there first.
* Yes, I know.
Day 16 (DDRD 2,821), July 22, 2025
Read to page 1,190. Well...there was a kiss on the neck and a crushing together of sibling bodies, but still no incest. For the record, that's 340 pages of novels incest since we were warned that incest was coming 'round the mountain. Not that i want to see it--I don't. But you put a gun on the coffee table and....
Day 17 (DDRD 2,822), July 23, 2025
Read to page 1,220.
"...love...enables one to see what isn't there." (1,206)
Well...THAT's the everlivingfuckingtruth, ennit?
Day 18 (DDRD 2,823), July 24, 2025
Read to page 1,250.
Yesterday I took The Man Without Qualities with me when I went to visit the cancer doctor. When the doctor came in, she took a look at the book and asked me if it was good. I said I wasn't sure...that I kept thinking that I was about to quit, but then kept going. She looked and saw that I was quite a ways into it and chuckled, then said she was the same way, it was hard for her not to finish a book.
But I'm still thinking. 475 pages to go, and that's still substantial. Almost 16 days' worth of 👁 👁 work. Is it worth it? Based on today's 30 pages, I'd say no. No. NO!
Day 19 (DDRD 2,824), July 25, 2025
Read to page 1,267...and had to stop. This novel has dissolved into a miasma of token philosophy. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing...but it's not what I'm looking for. So I stopped and read some Beond Apollo. And then I read a few pages of The Name of the Wind. Then Superman #28 (looks interesting). And now...he'll, I'm going back to the Malzberg. I'll try to read some more Musil later. Maybe.
Day 20 (DDRD 2,825), July 26, 2025
Nope.
Didnt make it back to Musil. Knocked out some Malzberg and comics, though.
And today? Read to page 1,271, wading through bad and trivial "philosophy" (proving that hungry men seek food, for example) before I stopped. I looked through upcoming pages and saw that the drone just went on and on: no characters, no plot, just the drone.
I hate to do it after all the energy I've invested, but this is bullshit.
I quit.
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