Robert Musil: "Attempts to Find Another Human Being": The Great Cathedral of Cologne, Moby Dick, and Montrous Novels

Friday, August 10, 2012

The Great Cathedral of Cologne, Moby Dick, and Montrous Novels

I just read in Moby Dick this sentiment, kindred to Musil's own infinite mood:

"I now leave my cetological system standing unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught--nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!"

1 comment:

Rebecca MackAugust 12, 2012 at 7:07 AM
Here's to the first and subsequent architects!
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Attempts to Find Another Human Being

Around 1923 Musil planned to publish a collection of his essays under the title, "Versuche einen anderen Menschen zu finden" (Attempts to Find Another Human Being). In his notebooks he wrote:

"In fact, this could be the title for everything that I have ever written. I can think of no other excuse for spending one's whole life at a writing desk to become a beggar. [...] I can only imagine another duty with great difficulty. I have always been a writer, always pursued writing.
It has come to pass in my life that people have scolded me for it and have called me a sick human being, an intellectual, an unmoral human being, a scientist, in short, everything that I am not, and only with resistance, under the pressure of a few, people have become accustomed to thinking of me as what I believe myself to be, and want to be: a writer."