Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1957.
4 volumes in octavo, preserved in original wraps.
Dimensions: 196 x 136 mm.
First French edition, in an impeccable translation by Philippe Jaccottet.
One of 55 numbered copies on snow-white vellum, the only deluxe printing.
*”A poetic endeavor whose decisive importance for the evolution, elevation, and spiritual enrichment of the German novel is beyond doubt. This brilliant book, which maintains the most exquisite balance between essay and epic comedy, is no longer—thank God—a ‘novel’ in the conventional sense. It has transcended that category, for, as Goethe said, ‘everything that is perfect in its genre surpasses it, becoming something else—something incomparable.’
Its irony, intellect, and spirituality belong to the most sacred and childlike realm—that of poetry. These are the weapons of purity, authenticity, and naturalness against the foreign, the murky, the falsified—against all that Musil contemptuously termed ‘qualities.’ The Man Without Qualities is, in the strongest sense, a novel for today.”* (Thomas Mann, Das Tagebuch)
Symbolizing the impossibility of traditional narrative in the 20th century, this text subtly carries Pascal’s quote: “One does not love people, but qualities.”
Robert Musil’s intention was to criticize the glaring ideological errors of European thought, errors that, in his view, had never been properly remedied. “Ideas determine the course of history, yes, but the problem is that people fail to conceive new ones.”
Within a dreamlike and fantastical framework, Musil presents a cast of men and women “without qualities”, defined solely by their occupations, statuses, identities, and certainties—a group he calls “people of reality.” In contrast, Ulrich, a man fascinated by the supremacy of thought, defines himself as “a man of possibility”—an experimental individual who “has the ability to imagine all that could be […] and grants no more importance to what is not than to what is.”
*”Robert Musil’s vast novel is one of the twentieth century’s most esteemed works of fiction. From its opening paragraph, Musil’s distinctive style alerts us to the playful and peculiar attributes of his intelligence.
The Man Without Qualities has often been hailed as the equal of Joyce’s Ulysses and Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. An intellectual engine that never comes to rest, Musil’s masterpiece is alive with a play of erudition, insight, and acuity that, paragraph by paragraph, is its own unparalleled reward.”*
A beautiful copy, preserved uncut in its original wraps, as issued.
