Taking Stock (Musil and Other Books)

This won't be a proper review.  I think Musil's The Man Without Qualities pretty much defies attempts to summarize it.  It is mostly a novel of ideas (in a high modernist vein) where different characters represent different shades of idealism vs. utilitarian thinking.  I'm not really sure what Musil was really driving at, other than showing all unified internal philosophies (what people live by) have their shortcomings and blind spots.  Ostensibly the novel is about Ulrich (a 30-something failed intellectual), who gets attached to a patriotic campaign to promote Austria, and specifically the monarch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and to try to steal the thunder of a similar patriotic campaign about to kick off in Germany.  The novel was mostly written in the 1930s and early 40s, and the shadow of WWI hangs over the novel, though it is set just one year prior to WWI.  (In contrast, WWII and its aftermath is inescapable in von Rezzori's The Death of My Brother Abel.)  Here we mostly see ethnic tensions on the rise and a powerful strain of anti-Semitism that, for now, limits itself to verbal abuse and social shunning of Jews.  (Although there is considerably irony in the general who continually maintains that the surest way to maintain peace with one's neighbors is by building up a strong army.)  In addition to members of the campaign, Ulrich also interacts with a number of other characters: Walter, a school chum; Walter's wife Clarisse; Bonadea, Ulrich's sometime mistress; and Gertha, a friend of the family who starts hanging with an unruly crowd of radical thinkers.  It isn't until the second volume (700 pages in) that Agathe, Ulrich's sister, is introduced and becomes a major character.  I've just managed to get through the first volume.  I'm taking a day or two off before launching into the second volume.  As it happens, there are about 500 pages to come of published material and 200 pages of essentially finished chapters, which Musil withdrew from the publisher to rework.  Then 300-400 pages of notes and character sketches.  It is a bit hard to say how or if Musil could ever have ended the novel, though I suppose the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand would have been an appropriate stopping point if he could have come up with a plausible reason for Ulrich to be in Sarajevo.  It is a little difficult to really gear up for the final push on an unfinished novel, but this is one of the last of the major novels that I really feel I ought to read (along with War and Peace and David Copperfield).  As I said before, it is (for me) considerably better than Proust but not as fun or engaging as Ulysses.  Still I certainly can't imagine reading it a second time.

At any rate, I will take a very short break before launching into the second volume.  I'll probably mostly focus on trying to get through Mohammed Hanif's Red Birds, since I have to read this on my phone, and I have only 5-6 more days before the file evaporates on me.  I don't really like it (and a few Goodreads reviewers feel the ending is a total cheat*).  I probably would drop this, except than it was such a hassle to get it in the first place that I am feeling bloody minded enough to press on.  In addition to the unhappiness over the phone business, I simply don't like the writing style.  Hanif has the reader rotate inside the heads of three characters, including a dog(!), but they all have the same narrative voice.  They have different perspectives and concerns to be sure, but basically identical vocabularies and pretty similar phrasing.  If you're going to do this, do it right...  I think in general, he probably should have played up the connections to The Little Prince (an aviator crashing in the desert), but maybe that would have made me feel the book's shortcomings even more.

I'm closing in on Dancing Bear by James Crumley.  I don't like this at all.  I would not bother finishing except it is short and it is in the Vintage Book series.  The Wrong Case was an ok, not great, homage to Dashiell Hammet, put through the blender of a 1970s acid trip.  But Dancing Bear is completely implausible with this alcoholic (and coke fiend) ex-cop managing to take down a whole team of "baddies" a la Jack Reacher.  I do get a bit obsessive about completing lists, but I really can't imagine reading the other two Crumley's in the Vintage Book series, given how much I dislike this one.

On the positive side, the library had my copy of Immigrant City by David Bezmozgis.  I thought this was going to be a long novel (that I would have to somehow slot in), but it is a fairly short collection of short stories.  I thought the title story was pretty good, so I'll be reading this soon, probably mostly at the gym, particularly as I am winding down my march through Montaigne's Essays.

On the horizon, I picked up a copy of Bellow's Ravelstein for $1 at the library book sale.  This is the only novel by Bellow that I haven't read.  Also, my manager passed along his copy of Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.  It's a book that I have certainly heard about, though I wouldn't say I had a burning desire to read it.  However, I wasn't going to pass up a free copy, so now at some point, I will have to tell him what I thought of the book...

* I just finished and returned this (all through my phone, which is a first for me).  What a pointless book.  Learn from my mistakes; I strongly urge you not to waste your time with this.