The Man Without Qualities (German: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften; 1930–1943) is an unfinished modernist novel in three volumes and various drafts, by the Austrian writer Robert Musil.

The novel is a "story of ideas", which takes place in the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy's last days, and the plot often veers into allegorical digressions on a wide range of existential themes concerning humanity and feelings.

His ambivalence towards morals and indifference to life has brought him to the state of being "a man without qualities", depending on the outer world to form his character.

Other protagonists are Ulrich's mistress, Bonadea,[1] and Clarisse, his friend Walter's neurotic wife, whose refusal to go along with commonplace existence leads to her insanity.

This coincidence prompts Count Leinsdorf to suggest the creation of a committee to explore a suitable way to demonstrate Austria's political, cultural, and philosophical supremacy via a festival which will capture the minds of the Austrian Emperor's subjects and people of the world forever.

Ermelinda Tuzzi, called Diotima,[2] is Ulrich's cousin as well as the wife of a civil servant; she tries to become a Viennese muse of philosophy, inspiring whomever she invites to her salon; she brings both Ulrich and Arnheim, a Prussian business magnate and prosaic writer (whose character is based on the figure of Walther Rathenau) into her sphere.

General Stumm von Bordwehr of the Imperial and Royal Army is unpopular for his attempts in this generally mystical atmosphere to push the Campaign in a martial direction whereas German businessman Paul Arnheim, while an admirer of Diotima's combination of beauty and spirit, doesn't feel the need to marry her.

While most of the participants (Diotima most feverishly) try to associate the reign of Franz Joseph I with vague ideas of humanity, progress, tradition, and happiness, the followers of Realpolitik see a chance to exploit the situation: Stumm von Bordwehr wishes to get the Austrian army income raised and Arnheim plans to buy oil fields in an eastern province of Austria.

Elsa (Berta) von Czuber, whom Musil met while he studied in Brno between 1889 and 1901, inspired him with the image of Ulrich's sister Agathe.

Donath and Alice Charlemont, Musil's friends, were models of Walter and Clarisse and Viennese socialite Eugenie Schwarzwald gave birth to the character of Diotima.

Also, 'kakos' is a Greek term for bad borrowed by a number of words in German and English, and Musil uses the expression to symbolise the lack of political, administrative and sentimental coherence in Austria-Hungary.

The story contains approximately twenty characters of bizarre Viennese life, from the beau monde to the demi-monde, including an aristocrat, an army officer, a banker, three bourgeois wives, an intriguing chambermaid, a black pageboy, and last but not least a man who murders a prostitute.

[6] According to Italian writer Alberto Arbasino, Federico Fellini's film 8½ (1963) used similar artistic procedures and had parallels with Musil's novel.

[7] Musil's aim (and that of his main character, Ulrich) was to arrive at a synthesis between strict scientific fact and the mystical, which he refers to as "the hovering life".

[citation needed] In 1996 Knopf published a new English translation of Man Without Qualities by Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike.

[8] Writing about the Wilkins-Pike translation in The New York Times, Michael Hofmann wrote "Of all the great European novelists of the first third of the century – Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf – Robert Musil is far and away the least read; and yet he's as shapely as Gibbon, as mordant as Voltaire, as witty as Oscar Wilde and as indecent as Arthur Schnitzler.

"[9] Writing about Musil in The New Criterion, Roger Kimball wrote, "Whatever else one can say about it, The Man Without Qualities stands as one of the great modern works of satire.

"[10] In his best-selling The Long Firm (1999), Jake Arnott references the book through the musings of one of his characters, an academic working with prisoners.

[11] Robert McCrum ranked it one of the top 10 books of the 20th century: "This is a meditation on the plight of the little man lost in a great machine.

In alcuni tuoi scritti degli anni Sessanta – penso soprattutto a Certi romanzi – la riflessione critica sulla questione del romanzo (che cosa è il romanzo, cosa l’antiromanzo, come si può e come si deve scrivere un’opera in prosa...) è sempre intrecciata, quando in modo più implicito, quando in modo più esplicito con la riflessione sul cinema.