Robert Musil was born in Klagenfurt, capital of Carinthia. After
completing his studies and working for sometime in Berlin he
settled in Vienna and became a journalist and writer.
During World War I he was busy as a war correspondent at the
beginning of World War II he managed to emigrate to Switzerland
as he feared for his Jewish wife.
His first novel 'Die Verwirrungen des Zögling Törleß'
(Confusions of Young Torless) was published in 1906 and hauntingly
describes the experiences of a sensitive boy in an exclusive
military school with all its repression and brutallity. It was
immensely popular. His later publications did not rise to the
same popularity.
His major work 'Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften' (Man without
qualities), an impressive piece of prose which was published
in three installments, the third as posthumous fragment. 'Der
Mann ohne Eigenschaften' is concerned with the downfall of an
imagined empire called 'Kakanien' which rather resembles the
Habsburg monarchy and symbolizes world oder itself. The prose
is dark and haunting, ironic and utopian at the same time.
'Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften' equals Döblin's 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'
or Thomas Mann's 'Der Zauberberg' in innovation and ambition
and spinns the story over 2000 pages.
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