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Not sad though, surely? I found it ironic, questing, manic, laid-back, satirical etc all at once or alternately, not really sad. I think what there is of the translation is not so bad, though the cool irony suffers, but of course masses of pages have been added on since that was done & the novel becomes a kind of do-it-yourself cut-up of drafts, plans etc. Since I bought my complete Musil in the 70s, having read an earlier German edition of MWQ, more has been added...Actually, perhaps the biggest problem of translation with books like that is in the linguistic area of origin - people have sometimes disconcerted by his German on the page (but a reading of the whole thing on MP3 available from Zweitausendeins has proved remarkably popular): in the late 60s extracts from different texts were sent to critics & publishers' readers by some journal, and the unidentified extract from MWQ was modified by one word, Büstenhalter (bra) instead of Brustbinde (I think), to avoid easy period identification & bracketing; one famous critic, a Musil admirer, tore into the piece (I think it was about Gerda) as being on the level of cheap romances. When the source was revealed, he defended himself, protesting that the change of that one word had subtly changed all, blah blah. Critics...but...style is a fragile thing. mj Anny Ballardini wrote: > You are right, there is doom but also the sensation of being enveloped > by decadence, exactly the way you are explaining it. One of the great > books I have read. > > On 4/27/07, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> A Man Without Qualities is undoubtedly a difficult book to get through >> as you know that all the plans, the hopes, fears and loves that the >> characters play out are inevitably doomed, but that the characters >> don't know they're doomed. Yet to read it is to be enveloped by >> decadence, to be engrossed by the machinations of a soicety that's >> doomed, but hasn't the self-knowledge to know it's doomed. >> >> I guess what struck me at the time was the character of Ulrich, and >> his inability to find something to do with his life that he actually >> wanted to do. >> >> I wish I could read the German version, but my German isn't good enough. >> >> Roger >> >> On 4/27/07, Joanna Boulter <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> > Tess of the Durbervilles? It's the dramatic irony that gets to me. >> I find >> > things like that crucial letter pushed under the door and hidden by >> the mat >> > totally unbearable. >> > >> > joanna >> > >> > ----- Original Message ----- >> > From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]> >> > To: <[log in to unmask]> >> > Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 9:30 AM >> > Subject: Re: Abrupt Snap - What is the saddest book ever written? >> > >> > >> > > It's hard to think of the saddest - there are lot of books that >> deal with >> > > sadness (I'm curious, why is Bridge over the River Drina loathsome, >> > > Jennifer? Is the book horrible, or does it deal with horror? >> should books >> > > not deal with horrible things?) >> > > >> > > But maybe the most devastating book I know of - the ending is one >> of the >> > > most profoundly sad I know - is The Last of the Just, Andre >> Schwartz-Bart. >> > > >> > > Cheers >> > > >> > > A >> > > -- >> > > Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au >> > > Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com >> > > Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com >> > > >> > >> >> >> -- >> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/ >> "Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious." Oscar Wilde >> > -- A man may write of love, and not be in love, as well as of husbandrie, and not goe to plough: or of witches, and be none: or of holinesse, and be flat prophane. - Giles Fletcher the Elder.