Stefan Jonsson is Fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He is also a contributing editor of Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s major newspaper.

“An ambitious, authoritative new reading of The Man Without Qualities, which establishes forcefully the relevance of the fascination of the incomparable Austrian writer. A Robert Musil for the twenty-first century? Yes. And Jonsson’s book is as suggestive about the summative powers of Musil the novelist as about that still incompletely charted cultural labyrinth called ‘modernity’ in which we continue to wander.”-Susan Sontag

• Preface ixAbbreviations xvIntroduction 1Chapter 1. Topographies of Inwardness 21Chapter 2. The Architecture of Modern Identity 60Chapter 3. A Story with Many Ends 97Chapter 4. Subjectivity Degree Zero 133Chapter 5. Monsters in Love, Angels at War 175Chapter 6. The Most Progressive State 217Epilogue 263Notes 271Bibliography 337Index 365

Stefan Jonsson is Fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He is also a contributing editor of Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s major newspaper.

“An ambitious, authoritative new reading of The Man Without Qualities, which establishes forcefully the relevance of the fascination of the incomparable Austrian writer. A Robert Musil for the twenty-first century? Yes. And Jonsson’s book is as suggestive about the summative powers of Musil the novelist as about that still incompletely charted cultural labyrinth called ‘modernity’ in which we continue to wander.”-Susan Sontag

• Preface ixAbbreviations xvIntroduction 1Chapter 1. Topographies of Inwardness 21Chapter 2. The Architecture of Modern Identity 60Chapter 3. A Story with Many Ends 97Chapter 4. Subjectivity Degree Zero 133Chapter 5. Monsters in Love, Angels at War 175Chapter 6. The Most Progressive State 217Epilogue 263Notes 271Bibliography 337Index 365

Stefan Jonsson is Fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He is also a contributing editor of Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s major newspaper.

“An ambitious, authoritative new reading of The Man Without Qualities, which establishes forcefully the relevance of the fascination of the incomparable Austrian writer. A Robert Musil for the twenty-first century? Yes. And Jonsson’s book is as suggestive about the summative powers of Musil the novelist as about that still incompletely charted cultural labyrinth called ‘modernity’ in which we continue to wander.”-Susan Sontag

• Preface ixAbbreviations xvIntroduction 1Chapter 1. Topographies of Inwardness 21Chapter 2. The Architecture of Modern Identity 60Chapter 3. A Story with Many Ends 97Chapter 4. Subjectivity Degree Zero 133Chapter 5. Monsters in Love, Angels at War 175Chapter 6. The Most Progressive State 217Epilogue 263Notes 271Bibliography 337Index 365