Help me test
I am working on making this site a sort of a wiki where all users that register can edit and add content. It is now a PHP/MySQL driven site. It is much more fun making it, and the contents of the site will no longer depend on my laziness or on how much I have read on Musil lately. It is up to you.Although it is still in development, it functions quite good. But I have no idea what others think of it. On my own computer I have installed a webserver (Apache) to make it all work. I have not yet decided if, when and where to host it. Because it is still on my own PC, it means that you can only visit when I have turned it on, which is most of the time, but occasionally it may be turned off.
Would you, dear visitor, like to help me test the site and suggest improvements and report errors? I'd be very grateful. If you choose to do so you'll have to choose a language again. Please leave a message in the guestbook or drop me a mail (links for those are provided on the site).
The site has been optimized to work well and look good for Internet Explorer 7 and Mozilla Firefox. Opera and Safari should not have too many problems either. Internet Explorer 6 is a really old-fashioned browser (to say the least) and has some display errors which I will find a workaround for as soon as I can.
Click here if you want to help. Or read on if you want to remain on this, the regular site.
If there is no connection possible, because my computer is turned off, or for some other obscure reason, you'll stay on this page and can still visit the "old" site. At times connections may be a bit slow, but generally things should be quite speedy.
I. Introduction
"Robert Musil's works fascinate me until this day ... and what I learned from him was the hardest thing: that one can undertake a work that will take decades, without knowing if one can ever finish it, an undertaking that consists mainly of patience, that assumes an almost unhuman stubbornness ..." (Elias Canetti)
Despite the fact that Robert Musil (1880 - 1942) is one of the most important writers of the last century, The Man Without Qualities has been voted most important book of the 20 th century in the German language, there are still more people that have his this book on their book-shelves than that have actually read it.September 2003 a new biography of Robert Musil, written by Karl Corino, is published by Rowohlt publishers. It is a beautiful book, including notes, timetable and index more than 2000 pages. Read a review in in the Sächsische Zeitung, in the Swiss Weltwoche or in the Neue Zuricher Zeitung. All are in German. Karl Corino himself wrote an article on the hard years of Musils exile in Switzerland
Corino spent a good part of his life researching the life and works of Musil. From the introduction it appears that, like The Man Without Qualities, a biography on Musil can never be complete. Notes, letters, diaries were lost during his lifetime, childhood friends refused to talk about Musil out of bitterness, or a psycho-analytic refused to disclose information out of professional discretion, Martha Musil would not release information that could be essential to the biography. There were some good finds too: manuscripts that Martha had sown onto her jacket and were found after her death, or letters that were discovered in a dark, nearly forgotten cellar. It is only fitting that a biography as exhaustive as this one is incomplete.
This site tries to give some background information on the life and works of Robert Musil. This can, among others, be found in a concise biography, essays on his literary works and selections from his diaries. It is neither finished nor complete.
Characteristic for the works of Musil is his irony, the exactness of a mathematician (which he was) the ever changing points of view, the influx of the modern age and technique upon the modern day man. A conscientious use of language to express his thoughts (in his diaries he called himself monsieur le Vivisecteur) are coupled with a encyclopedic knowledge of culture and criticism thereof and a psychological mystique.
In The Man Without Qualities he tries to portray a modern man who has to live in and cope with a changing world. In contrast to former generations, the modern-day-man cannot afford himself, or be described in terms of 'qualities', as Musil calls it, for all the known certainties have been replaced by a greater diversity; there is no longer a single point one can focus on. The German word 'Eigenschaften' is less ambiguous: it literally means 'characteristics'.
In Young Törleß a story of passion and cruelty of youth situated in a military academy is told. A story in which, as critics later stated, the rise of fascism was already present.
Posthumous papers of a Living Author is a collection of contemplations, short stories and drafts he wrote between 1922 and 1935, when he was not working on his largest work of fiction.
On this site you can find a concise biography in four chapters, a timetable, pictures, essays on the work of Musil, a bibliography, and of course some excerpts from his major literary works.
Also, excerpts from his diaries can be found on these pages. His diaries form a sort of intellectual playground, in which Musil kept track of all his thoughts, feelings, and literary ideas. The excerpts taken from his diaries reflect his development as a person and as a writer.
Enjoy.
^ topII. About This Site
This Musil site has been online for a few years now. I have been getting a lot of positive response from a lot of people. Sometimes I get engaged in some intellectual discussion with people who somehow think I am an authority on the works of Musil. Some of this feedback goes back into the site. I must apologize to those of you who have pointed out some very valuable errors, omissions, viewpoints, essays, critics, etc. I did not include you in the copyrights, or give thanks in some other way. From now on I will, on this spot, name the people that help me improve the site, point out errors to me, sent me pictures of covers, etc. This is my thank you.
- Karen Dawson, USA
- Luca Mana, Italy
- Ress Leos, Czech Republic
- Rodrigo Contrera, Brazil
- Dave ???
- Vadim Kireev, Russia
- Peter Cullen, Australia
This is the third incarnation of my Musil Site. It's all XHTML & CSS, no Dynamics. DHTML was fun for a while, but browser differences made it quite difficult to keep it in working condition. With the release of Netscape 6.x (or the Mozilla browsers) and IE 6.x standards support has increased. The site now looks more like a book, that is the text is embedded on something that looks like an A4 paper that lies quietly on a red background. I am gratefull to Open Source Web Design. This site was designed with HomeSite and with Mozilla Firefox in mind.
The idea for this site came because there wasn't any information available on Musil at all on the internet at the time. I decided to do something about this. In 1997 a first, rather clumsy site was published. It was the first site on Musil, and has remained so until early 1999, when a French site was launched.
For a year or so the layout remained basically the same, and not very dynamic. On other projects I have experimented with dhtml, css, etc. Until I recently came upon a great dhtml-site which gave me a few good ideas to create the previous pages, which are still online since the pages you are looking at right now are only accessible to IE 5.x, IE 6.x, Netscape 6.x, Netscape 7.x and the Mozilla browsers.
From now on I will keep you informed of what is new and/or changed. Below is a brief summary of the genesis of the site.
^ topIII. History: ”What's New“
July 2004 . Added a forum to the site. Powered by activeboard.com. It is a good service by activeboard.com: it is free, customizable and only one add per page. If you use a good, modern browser (Firefox, Konqueror, Opera) you won't even notice them. I hope people are going to use it.
July 2004 . Created a Musil TimeLine in Flash. It isn't very flashy yet, but it is a good start. I like it. It is to be found at the Biography page and most other pages on the left side menu under Timeline. Or click here to see it right now.
January 2004 . Changed the Covers and Images pages. These two are now Flash animations. They are quite heavy, but not as heavy as they were. Flashplayer 6 is needed.
December 2003 . Removed my email address from this site. I was receiving heaps of spam. Since I removed the address it has almost stopped. If you want to contact me, please use the guestbook. I check it daily and I do respond.
October 2003. Did some spell-checking. Should have done this much earlier. Changed the introduction. Added a HomeSite page, and removed the site that I had made a few years back.
September 2003. Updated the links pages (removed most links, that is). Brought online the new layout. Added the Russian covers. Added a search-this-site option at the bottom of the new pages. Powered by Atomz.
March 2003 . Added some covers
November 2002. Corrected some minor errors.
April 2000. Became a member of Barnes and Nobles affiliate program. Added a Buy this Book link to the available titles. This will take you to the appropriate page at Barnes and Nobles. This is no lunger the case as of january 2003.
February 2000. Added some new covers. Added Hovering Life essay. Enhanced the Homepage
May 1999. Added Keyboard Navigation. The underlined letters indicate the 'hotkeys.
April 1999. Added the three essays taken from the New York Book Review
April 1999. Removed/updated the last "dead links".
March 1999. Finished updating the pages to the new layout. They are placed in a directory called "NG": Next Generation :-)
March 1999. Publication of the new layout.
February 1999. Added the Fragen nach Musil essay by Adolf Frise.
January 1999. Started working on the new layout, which is only accessible to 4.x browsers.
October 1998. Enhanced the guestbook. You can now state your favourite book.
June 1998. Added the diary section. Translated the German text into English.
January 1998. Added some JavaScript, mainly for the mouseover-button effects.
October 1997. Added the WebTracker page-hit counters. 6324 visitors so far.
September 1997. Added the guestbook.
October 1997. English version up and running.
1 June 1997. First publication, in Dutch.
IV. About Me ...
I work as an application designer for a large educational organization. I work with PeopleSoft, sometimes MS Acces. But I prefer to travel. Drink a few beers with friends. Read a book. Listen to music. Spend time with my girl-friend. Or work on this site. I usually don't wear suites. I shave once a week. Right now I have a hole in the right back pocket of my armani jeans. I smoke and I don't do sports.
Here's a list of books, music, films I like a lot, and the travels I've done.
Music: let it bleed revolver strange days look sharp what's going on bring the family lifes rich pageant moonflower grace fashion nugget berlin fear of music blood on the tracks doolittle lust for life stage swordfishtrombones tonight's the night bongo fury
Films: casablanca water wind dust modern times magnolia once upon a time in the west the damned novecento twelve angry men Richard III mefisto urga the good the bad and the ugly the man who shot liberty valence
Travels: june-august 1991 europe july-august 1992 morocco november 1993-march 1994 indonesia and maleisia july-august 1995 portugal july-august 1997 senegal and mali may 1998 new york july-august 1998 burkina faso and italy december 1998 morocco november 1999-januari 2000 Benin, Togo, Ghana june-july 2002 Malawi, Zambia june-july 2003 Berlin, Sicily, Ireland november-december 2004 South Africa september-october 2005 USA 1986-present several cities for a shorter stay