Musil and the Sir Douglass Quintet
After months of reading it little-by-little each evening, I'm finally finishing the second volume of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities. In a sentence: it's a book that has a surprising lot to say to our moment. And here, on St. Valentine's Day of all days, a breathless screed on love in its closing pages:
Now, everyone knows what a great relief it is when one is upset to work off one's anger on someone, even if it has nothing to do with him; but it is less well known that this also applies to love. For love, too, must often be worked off in the same way on someone not really involved, for lack of a more suitable outlet.
And then, this song came on the radio, and the sentiments combined into something complicated.
A bit unrelated to his narrator's voicing of a character's thoughts on love, but here's a smart essay on Musil at the New Criterion that I recently read as well.