Musil is my all-time favourite writer - I always imagine him in a dicky bow, with a mechanical pencil in his pocket. So deeply inspired by his TMWQ, I bought brass pens (extra-fine nibs) and mechanical pencils that resemble precision instruments.
There is at least one picture of him with a bowtie… Since he is usually pictured with a suit jacket, we can’t see if he has anything in his pocket…
Did he carry around a notebook to jot in? I actually don’t know. He had so many, but as far as I know they were kept at home among piles of papers, books, cut-out excerpts, in a complicated cross-referenced filing system.
Yes thanks for your post about Musil’s sense of what he imagined of his reading audience. I had in mind, the psychological aspect of the question. I think you draw my attention to his moral aspiration to arrive with other at the other condition. Or at least lay a pathway to it. “Change your life” is such a grand call. Wonderful inspiring but I feel like the extravaganza of the parallel campaign, could find itself empty instead of full.
I am still trying to understand why Musil is called to write as he does. What personal matters, for lack of a better language, drive him to seek our reading. In short, perhaps, this is to ask whose love he is seeking, maybe whose forgiveness, or whose punishment?
I have in mind something like Hillman’s idea of “the souls code”. That quality we are dealt, like a hand of cards, or corner of dna, that requires a particular kind of life, an imminent purpose.
But I am still struggling to understand Musil’s business of “specificity” as the domain of art and generality as the domain of science. It’s as if he wants to find the universe in a grain of sand.
My partner finds him to be contemptuous of his characters. Finds Ulrich arrogant and demeaning of the women he is involved with. As if Musils fictional alter ego is an egotist. But I find, I am almost more warmly disposed to the ridiculous General Stum, than I am to Ulrich.
So that as usual, and what I love about reading TMWQ is how he makes me think further, grasp at the ineffable, a little more firmly.
Apologies for the length of this comm. It clearly belongs in Stum’s ledger of ideas😊.
Musil is my all-time favourite writer - I always imagine him in a dicky bow, with a mechanical pencil in his pocket. So deeply inspired by his TMWQ, I bought brass pens (extra-fine nibs) and mechanical pencils that resemble precision instruments.
There is at least one picture of him with a bowtie… Since he is usually pictured with a suit jacket, we can’t see if he has anything in his pocket…
Did he carry around a notebook to jot in? I actually don’t know. He had so many, but as far as I know they were kept at home among piles of papers, books, cut-out excerpts, in a complicated cross-referenced filing system.
Yes thanks for your post about Musil’s sense of what he imagined of his reading audience. I had in mind, the psychological aspect of the question. I think you draw my attention to his moral aspiration to arrive with other at the other condition. Or at least lay a pathway to it. “Change your life” is such a grand call. Wonderful inspiring but I feel like the extravaganza of the parallel campaign, could find itself empty instead of full.
I am still trying to understand why Musil is called to write as he does. What personal matters, for lack of a better language, drive him to seek our reading. In short, perhaps, this is to ask whose love he is seeking, maybe whose forgiveness, or whose punishment?
I have in mind something like Hillman’s idea of “the souls code”. That quality we are dealt, like a hand of cards, or corner of dna, that requires a particular kind of life, an imminent purpose.
But I am still struggling to understand Musil’s business of “specificity” as the domain of art and generality as the domain of science. It’s as if he wants to find the universe in a grain of sand.
My partner finds him to be contemptuous of his characters. Finds Ulrich arrogant and demeaning of the women he is involved with. As if Musils fictional alter ego is an egotist. But I find, I am almost more warmly disposed to the ridiculous General Stum, than I am to Ulrich.
So that as usual, and what I love about reading TMWQ is how he makes me think further, grasp at the ineffable, a little more firmly.
Apologies for the length of this comm. It clearly belongs in Stum’s ledger of ideas😊.
Love this, and please don’t apologize. Too exhausted to respond at the moment, but hope to soon!
So inspiring!
You are inspiring me … just reading your etude on aporia and really feeling its (Musilian) wisdom!