He is set for life, yet life eludes his grasp as he listlessly pursues one vocation after another. Ulrich is a 30-something who, thanks to his father’s worldly success, has no material or financial concerns.

Who is this man who seems so ardently to exist as such and yet fails to exist in any particular, meaningful way? He is another man without qualities, and Musil’s anti-hero serves as a perfect guide.įor Jared is like Ulrich in more ways than one. And yet, there he is, always in the public eye, always in our thoughts - the puzzling presence of a man whose greatest quality is his moral absence. Yet we have no idea what he is: His voice is unheard, his principles are unknown and, as far as observers can tell, his influence is unfelt. Like a waxen Waldo, his face hovers over his father-in-law’s shoulder in countless photos. In general, we know where Kushner is: ensconced in the West Wing of the White House. Since last year’s presidential election, Kushner has achieved a remarkable feat: He is both everywhere and nowhere, omnipresent and wholly absent. And like the United States today, Kakania is a world, Musil writes, where “persons who would before never have been taken seriously became famous.” A place where once-sharp boundaries have blurred, and where once-meaningful values have vanished, Kakania steeps in narcissism and greed. Like the United States today, Kakania is being pulled in opposing directions by the forces of authoritarianism and liberalism. It is set in the fictional country of Kakania - a scarcely fictionalized Austro-Hungarian Empire. But recent events in the United States have made this timeless classic once again timely. The Austrian writer had taken refuge there in 1938 with his Jewish wife Martha, and as the war progressed, he spent his time trying to make ends meet and to complete his novel, “The Man Without Qualities.” Neither effort was successful: Musil’s life ended in poverty when a stroke felled him in 1942, while his novel, clocking in at 1,000 pages, was still unfinished.ĭespite, or perhaps partly because of its lack of ending, “The Man Without Qualities” has become a modernist classic.

Seventy-five years ago, Robert Musil died in Switzerland.

The man without qualities