I decided to read Amann’s chapter aloud just now because I wanted to review for myself his summary of Musil’s relationships to Post-WWI political movements as I am working on the years 1919-1926 in my biography. I hope it was not too difficult to follow and that you will forgive my occasional stutterings and stumblings. Sometimes I had to laugh, because the similarities to today’s discourse and political reality were glaring. Laugh so I did not cry.
The book from which this comes, Literature and Politics, translated by myself, edited by Philip Payne, and with a lengthy and essential introduction by Klaus Amann, collects Musil’s thinking on the role of the artist during the rise of totalitarianisms. You can find it here:
https://www.contramundumpress.com/literature-and-politics
The book is also about to come out in a new edition by Eris Books:
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/literature-and-politics/9781916809611
Here is an essay I wrote about the book (which was then adapted, in slightly altered fashion, for my introduction to the book):
https://www.ronslate.com/robert-musil-the-crisis-of-the-artist-in-times-of-ideological-polarization-the-1920s-2020s/
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