Sans Qualities

The fellow above is one Robert Musil, born this day 1880, in Klagenfurt, Austria. The son of an engineer, Musil, after a couple of false starts, studied engineering at school in order to join his father's firm. He studied engineering at day, but at night he devoted his time to the study and pursuit of literature. Even as he was finishing his engineering studies, he became bored with the limit world that an engineering degree offered him, and moved to Berlin to begin doctorate studies in philosophy and psychology. It was during this time that he met the woman that was to become his wife, and he put the finishing touches on his first book "The Confusions of Young Torless." After completing his doctorate, and turning down a professorship in psychology so that he could concentrate on literature, Musil got married, and settled down to work as a librarian. Musil enlisted in the army upon the outbreak of World War I, but did not see any serious action, and after the war moved to Vienna to continue his literary career. It was in Vienna that Musil was to begin to compose his masterpiece "The Man without Qualities" for which he is today's hero. He started writing it in 1921, and it was incomplete at his death in 1942. He wrote two of the three volumes that were published in 1930, but left the third volume unfinished at his death. He worked on the novel daily, and that work was partly the reason that he and his family lived in dire poverty. This poverty made him, according to others, very bad company, not a pleasant fellow to be around because he felt that he was not getting the recognition he deserved, and that recognition was being heaped upon other writers that he did not respect. I can feel his pain at the poverty part. Before I became the filthy rich bastard I am today, I experienced a few years of grinding poverty (mostly as a student), they were not a lot of fun, and I did not have a family to support. I can only imagine how the day to day struggle to put bread on the family table must have influenced Musil. He was forced to live off the charity of others, and his masterpiece did not bring him either commercial or financial success. He died, a lonely, and bitter man in Geneva, Switzerland, and only eight people attended his funeral. His quote "That you are not famous is only natural; that you do not have enough readers to live is a shame!" pretty much sums up his view on his life. But, for that life that included writing, what is today, see as a masterpiece of modern literature, Robert Musil (November 6th, 1880-April 15th, 1942, at the age of 61), you are my hero of the day.