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PARTISAN REVIEW
project is a
Parallelaktion
in an additional sense; its ideological self–
evisceration is parallel to Ulrich's mathematical-scientific disaggre–
gation of the Cartesian self. In Meadian social psychology it is evi–
dent that an individual is more real to others than he is to
himself- at least, real in the sense of being perceived as a coherent,
comprehensible entity. Ironically, it is a foreigner, the Prussian
business tycoon and would-be great thinker Arnheim, who seems to
have a better grasp of "the Austrian idea" than the native intellec–
tuals .
The political problem of the modern world is that all systems of
order are put in question. The geometrically parallel problem of
modern personality is that all its systems of order become equally
questionable. There is one grand solution to these twin problems,
which is the solution of collectivism. In the novel it is represented
mainly by the figure of Hans Sepp, a sort of proto-Nazi (who, ironi–
cally, is the boyfriend of the Jewish girl Gerda, with whom Ulrich
also has a brief and unsatisfactory affair). Sepp and his group of
young German nationalists despise Austria-Hungary (later, they try
to disrupt the patriotic project which they view as a Slavic plot); they
are anti-Semitic because of the alleged intellectualism of the Jews;
and Sepp particularly dislikes Ulrich because of his skeptical ques–
tioning of every "wholesome" idea. Sepp and his friends find a seem–
ingly reliable collective identity in what they call "national feeling,"
which Musil contemptuously describes as "that merging of their per–
petually quarreling selves in a dreamed unity." But they are not the
only ones to find illusionary solace in a "dreamed unity"
(ertraeumte
Einigkeit)
of collective solidarity. In Musil's posthumous materials a
minor role is played by a militant socialist, Schmeisser (the German
word denotes a machine-pistol), whom Musil describes with equal
contempt. Ulrich and Agathe converse in pejorative terms about the
false collective identity bestowed by institutional religion as well.
And, most important of all, the entire novel moves toward that sub–
lime eruption of "dreamed unity," the ultimate collective madness,
which greets the outbreak of war.
The disaggregated modern self is a plural self. The qualities of
the person detach themselves from him and become mere append–
ages of his variable social roles. Early in the novel it is stated that
today every individual, not just Ulrich, has at least nine characters–
linked consecutively to his vocation, nation, state, class, geo–
graphical context, sexuality, consciousness, unconscious mind, and,
perhaps, his private life (whatever that means as an additional
category)- and, somehow, he must juggle all these characters from
