the man without qualities, vol. 1: a sort of introduction- the like of it now happens (i)  along the sun-spattered boulevards of vienna in the year 1913, in its gayest cafés and greyest prisons, in its most brilliant salons and dingiest kitchens, the great austrian writer, robert musil, brings the reader of the man without qualities face to face with life itself. this magnificent novel justly has been compared with the best of modern masterpieces. one must turn to writers of the genius of joyce and proust, stendhal and dostoyevsky, to find a talent of equal brilliance.