Current Reading

The Man Without Qualities: Volume 1): Robert Musil

"In the realm of the aesthetic . . . even imperfection and lack of completion have their value."
—Robert Musil, “Address at the Memorial Service for Rilke in Berlin” (1927)

Prepping for a burst of travel which means digging into a good book. The reason why Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" feels like perfect reading right now is because this Austrian novelist proves it's possible to craft prose that is very erudite and very funny at the same time. The wry way it looks at the declining aristrocratic culture of Vienna in 1913 has brought many a comparison to Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu". The contemporary application of this masterpiece is in the wise things Musil has to say about living in a society on a moral, cultural and political precipice. From one fin de siecle era to another, this book has an eerie sense of prescience. Known to be a literary perfectionist, due to his obsessive rewriting, Musil never really finished the two volumes that make up "The Man Without Qualities" but the fact that the work still proved to be so potent is what is very inspiring to me right now.

Nancy Cunard:Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist: Lois Gordon: Columbia Press

Yes I confess, TI is a bit of a Nancy Cunard cultist. As much as she would probably have hated the idea, Madame Cunard keeps bobbing up as a reference point in the fashion trade . As recently as two years ago, Ralph Lauren of all people used her as a touchstone in his FW 05 campaign and both Vogue Italia and L'Uomo Vogue have been known to invoke her as an icon. I love her literary biography "These Were The Hours" about her years as a publisher and today I'm locked in the house with Lois Gordon's masterful new biography on NC. Fluid, detailed and a little worshipful (even I have to admit Nancy's poetry was NOT the kismet), Gordon's overview of Cunard's life is a must buy nonetheless. It is chockfull of brilliant tid bits, like King George changing the family name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to "Windsor" during the anti-Hun frenzy of WW1, as well as great stories of Nancy's laison with the original Imagist, Ezra Pound. And that's just for starters, Cunard tallied with modernist literary icons like T.S Eliot and Wyndham Lewis. The summary at the American Library Review says it all "Scandalous, gifted, and, in her own tormented way, heroic, Cunard blazed brightly at the epicenter of a brutal yet creative epoch." I love this woman. If she had had a great-grandaughter I'd have hunted her down with a marriage proposal. It would have kept the family tradition going, no?