Robert Musil facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Robert Musil
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| Born | 6 November 1880 Klagenfurt, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 15 April 1942 (aged 61) Geneva, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, playwright |
| Nationality | Austrian |
| Alma mater | University of Berlin |
| Period | 1905–1942 |
| Literary movement | Modernism |
| Notable works | The Confusions of Young Törless The Man Without Qualities |
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Robert Musil (German: [ˈʁoːbɛʁt ˈmuːzɪl]; born November 6, 1880 – died April 15, 1942) was an Austrian writer who thought deeply about life and ideas. His most famous book, The Man Without Qualities (German: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), was never finished. Many people think it is one of the most important and influential modernist novels ever written.
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About Robert Musil
Robert Musil was born in Klagenfurt, Carinthia. His father, Alfred Musil, was an engineer. His mother was Hermine Bergauer. Robert's second cousin was Alois Musil, a famous expert in Eastern studies.
When Robert was young, his family moved around a lot. In 1891, his father became a professor at the German Technical University in Brno. Later, his father was given a special noble title in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This meant Robert's full name became Robert Mathias Edler von Musil for a short time. However, in 1919, noble titles were no longer allowed in Austria.
His Early Life and Studies
Robert Musil was not very tall, but he was strong and good at wrestling. When he was a teenager, his parents sent him to military boarding schools. He went to schools in Eisenstadt (1892–1894) and then Hranice (1894–1897). These experiences later inspired his first novel, The Confusions of Young Törless.
After military school, Musil studied engineering at the Technical University in Brno. This was his father's department. During the day, he learned about engineering. But at night, he loved to read books about literature and philosophy. He also went to the theater and art shows. He was very interested in thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Musil finished his engineering studies quickly. For a short time, he worked as an assistant to an engineering professor. During this time, he started writing Young Törless. He even invented a special device called the Musil color top. This machine could mix colors by spinning two different colored discs. It was better than older models because you could change the colors while it spun.
However, Musil soon felt that engineering was too limited. He wanted to explore bigger ideas. So, from 1903 to 1908, he went back to university. This time, he studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Berlin. In 1905, he met Martha Marcovaldi, who would become his wife. She was seven years older than him and had two children. His first novel, Young Törless, was published in 1906.
Becoming a Writer
In 1909, Musil finished his doctorate degree. He wrote his thesis on the philosopher Ernst Mach. He was offered a job as a professor, but he said no. He wanted to focus on writing instead.
Over the next two years, he wrote two short stories. These were published together in a book called Vereinigungen (Unions) in 1911. In the same year, he married Martha. To show their unity, they both changed their religion to Protestantism.
At first, Musil's family supported him financially. But then he found work as a librarian at the Technical University of Vienna. He also worked as an editor for a literary magazine in Berlin called Die neue Rundschau. He started writing a play called Die Schwärmer (The Enthusiasts), which came out in 1921.
When World War I started, Musil joined the army. He was stationed in Tirol and then at the army's main command in Bozen. In 1916, he visited Prague and met Franz Kafka, another famous writer. Musil greatly admired Kafka's work.
After the war, Musil went back to writing in Vienna. In 1924, he published a collection of short stories called Drei Frauen (Three Women). He also admired the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Musil said Rilke "perfected the German poem."
His Masterpiece: The Man Without Qualities
Musil's most important work, The Man Without Qualities (Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften), was published in two parts in 1930 and 1933. It was a very long novel, over 1,000 pages. The story is about the moral and intellectual decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It follows a character named Ulrich, who used to be a mathematician. Ulrich struggles to find his purpose in the world. The story takes place in Vienna just before World War I.
Even though critics liked The Man Without Qualities, it did not sell many copies. Musil was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he felt he did not get enough recognition. He sometimes felt annoyed that other writers, like Thomas Mann, were more successful. However, Mann actually admired Musil's work and tried to help him when he had money problems.
In the early 1920s, Musil lived mostly in Berlin. He often visited a famous social gathering in Vienna called Eugenie Schwarzwald's salon. This salon was the inspiration for a character in The Man Without Qualities. In 1932, a group called the Robert Musil Society was started in Berlin to help him.
His Ideas and Beliefs
Musil's writings often explored the problems with the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment in the early 1900s. He believed that society needed new values. He thought these values should accept science and reason to help people live better lives.
He did not like misleading ideas about culture and society, especially those from nationalist groups. Musil wrote a strong criticism of Oswald Spengler, who he felt misunderstood science.
Musil also disliked the social conditions in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He believed it would eventually disappear. He hoped that Europe could find ways to work together internationally, instead of focusing on "imperial nationalism." In 1927, he even supported the Austrian Social Democratic Party.
Musil strongly believed in the importance of each individual. He was against any kind of government that controlled people too much, whether from the right or the left. Throughout the 1930s, he often spoke about protecting individual freedom. He was against the authoritarian ideas that were popular in Germany, Italy, Austria, and Russia at the time. In 1935, he spoke at a meeting of writers who were against fascism. He argued for artistic freedom, saying that art should not be controlled by the state, social class, nation, or religion.
Later Life and Legacy
The last years of Musil's life were difficult because of Nazism and World War II. The Nazis banned his books. He saw early Nazism when he lived in Berlin from 1931 to 1933. In 1938, when Austria was taken over by Nazi Germany, Musil and his Jewish wife, Martha, had to leave their home. They moved to Switzerland, where he died in 1942 at age 61. Martha wrote that he had a stroke.
Only eight people attended his cremation. Martha scattered his ashes in the woods of Mont Salève. From 1933 until his death, Musil continued to work on the third part of The Man Without Qualities. In 1943, Martha published some of his unfinished writings. These included chapters that were removed from the second volume of his novel. She died in Rome in 1949.
After his death, Musil's work was almost forgotten for a while. But in the early 1950s, his writings started to become popular again. The first English translation of The Man Without Qualities came out in the 1950s. A newer, updated translation was published in 1995.
Since then, more people have paid attention to Musil's work, especially the philosophical ideas in his novels. The famous writer Milan Kundera said, "No novelist is dearer to me." Another writer, Thomas Bernhard, said he was "addicted" to Musil's books.
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