| Austrian writer Date of Birth: 06.11.1880 Country: Austria |
Robert Musil was an Austrian writer, born on November 6, 1880 in Klagenfurt. Despite his father's wishes for him to pursue a military career, Musil developed a passion for mathematics and the exact sciences, followed by an interest in philosophy and psychology. After completing his studies at the Technical University in Brno and continuing his education in psychology, Musil published his first novel, "The Confusions of Young Torless" (Die Verwirrungen des Zuglings Turless) in 1908, which garnered attention from readers and critics and led him to fully dedicate himself to literature.
Following the First World War, Musil began working on his monumental and unfinished novel, "The Man Without Qualities" (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften). To support his family, he gave lectures at the technical school, worked as a librarian, and also pursued journalism. When German troops entered Austria in 1938, Musil emigrated to Switzerland.
Robert Musil passed away in Geneva on April 15, 1942. His novel, "The Confusions of Young Torless," tells the story of a teenager attending a semi-military educational institution. These "school novels," which exposed the arbitrary and tyrannical behavior of teachers, were popular at the beginning of the century, but Torless stands out among them. Musil also wrote five novellas about love, which were collected in the books "Unions" (Vereinigungen, 1911) and "Three Women" (Drei Frauen, 1924).
Musil's main work, "The Man Without Qualities," aims to portray a portrait of a man, a metropolis, and a historical era. The style and breadth of this novel can be compared to the famous works of Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Hermann Broch. The intellectual protagonist is not actually devoid of qualities, but by distancing himself from active life, he is able to contemplate possibilities - both his own and society's - in the hope of finding a synthesis between "precision and soul," the "rational" and the "irrational," as defined by the author in the essay "Sketch of Poetic Knowledge" (1918). Musil's "essayistic" style, which includes witty digressions on various topics, greatly contributed to the popularity of the book.